A PROPHET AT HOME by Douglas Reed published: 1941 - this PDF prepared by www.douglasreed.co.uk CONTENTS * AUTHOR’S NOTE * CURTAIN RAISER * WINDOW OVER LONDON * PART ONE THE PIPING TIMES 01 HOMECOMING 07 MRS. SUNSHINE 02 OU L’ON S’ENNUIE 08 NIGHT ERRANT 03 LONGITUDE AND PLATITUDE 09 OPEN ROAD 04 FREE PRESS 10 AND BETTY MARTIN 05 AND THERE THE JEWS! 11 WHITE HOUSE 06 AND HAVING WRIT PART TWO NEW WARS FOR OLD 01 DEAR FRIENDS, ONCE MORE 05 IMAGINARY LINE 02 SYMPATHY FOR THE NOBLE 06 RESIGNATION AT MARBLE ARCH VISCOUNT 07 GIANT DESPAIR 03 GREAT BORE WAR 08 CLARION CALL 04 DULLMOUTH 09 SPOKEN IN JEST PART THREE THE DEFENCE OF DULLMPUTH 01 DELIVERANCE 05 THE REFUGEES 02 WORTH A MASS 06 SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN 03 OPEN BEACHES 07 HOME GUARD 04 DE PIRE À PIRE PART FOUR DECLINE TO FALL 01 LORELEI 05 COVENTRATION! 02 CAVERN IN THE TOWN 06 PORTRAIT OF A LADY 03 SPIRIT WORLD 07 LONDON’S BURNING! 04 BOMBS AND CAVIAR 08 WINDOW OVER LONDON POSTSCRIPT AFTER US? AUTHOR'S NOTE When I had written two-thirds of this book I decided to call it 'The Decline To Fall of the British Empire', as I felt by that time able, with grateful glee, to bury the foreboding which led me to say, in its predecessor, Disgrace Abounding, that, by all the portents of that disastrous time, the title of the third book would have to be 'The Decline And Fall Of the British Empire'. My publisher, however, tells me that the title, 'Decline To Fall', would certainly be misunderstood and would lead to confusion, and as I always bow to his excellent judgment in such things the cover and the title-page of the book bear the title, A Prophet At Home. For me, nevertheless, the book remains 'The Decline To Fall', as I feel that this best expresses my mind, and the reader will find several passages which allude to this title. I owe him this explanation. *** CURTAIN RAISER October 1939 This book is the third - and the last, as I vow with as much sincerity as any man making his good resolutions on New Year's Eve - to grow out of an idea which was to have been contained in one, Insanity Fair. The trilogy, the triptych, the three-master and the three-decker have all passed out of fashion; here, belatedly, is a three-volume-book sprung from a single seed, a fleur-de-lis that grew its second and third petals as an afterthought. When the first and second books were published, events promptly supplied enthralling sequels to them, so that the perspiring writer was left muttering, like Oscar Wilde, 'I wish I had said that', while his second self, who knows him very well, answered, like Whistler, 'You will, Reed, you will'. The saddest of all things of tongue or pen are those you might have said, the retort you might have made if the waiter had not spilt the soup down your neck just as it sprang to your lips, and these last words of mine, famous or infamous, always seethe in me and make me feel like a champagne bottle bursting to expel its cork, or a retired actress pining for her last farewell appearance, which, like to-morrow, never comes. The story of these three books is, to me, very interesting, like many other things about me. They belong to the more notable of the minor literary failures of our time. The first, Insanity Fair, was conceived in 1935, written in 1936 and 1937 and published in 1938. It was the product of an irresistible impulse to warn the British public that it was about to be struck down by the thing which somebody at some time has probably called the juggernaut of war. About 5000 other writers and politicians at that time were writing and saying the same thing; 5000 more were writing and saying precisely the opposite. I felt that, amid this tumult of voices crying their wares, I would need to wrap mine in some new kind of tinfoil if I were to catch the British eye; indeed, at that time literary critics, in some exasperation, were tending to begin their reviews of any book on this boring subject with the words 'Yet another of these books about Europe', as who should say, 'Tragic is the state of literature when men write only of such things as life and death, of liberty and hope, of freemen and bondmen, of war and peace, of poverty and moneybags, when they could write about sweeties and cuties and debutantes and debentures and cricket and croquet and cocktails and cockshies and the clubs and the pubs and who-did-the-murder and all the other fascinating things that make life worth writing about'. So I had to strike a note that might catch the British ear amid the din, and sought to do this by setting my warning against a background of personal adventure, by weaving into the story a great deal about that absorbing subject, the study of myself. The method succeeded, in one way. The book did attract the attention I wanted. But the effect was different from that which I meant to achieve. The British public, in large numbers, read the book, decided that it was 'readable', cast a sidelong and suspicious but curious glance at its author, and imperturbably, continued on its way, caring no more then than before for the juggernaut bearing down on it from behind. The book, as something to read, had succeeded; the warning it contained might as well not have been uttered, and was by many thought to be the expression of an exaggerated pessimism that spoiled an otherwise 'readable' piece of writing, a bad patch in a good story. The juggernaut was by now very near and I decided to yell 'Look out!' even louder than before. Or rather, I did not decide this, but just followed my inner instinct, and yelled. Time still remained, I felt, for that incorrigible jay-walker to jump out of the way, if only he would. I was no selfless altruist; he had in his pocket my own life, my career, my earnings, my hopes, my future, my children's future, and my ideals. So I wrote another book, Disgrace Abounding, and the jay-walker had hardly had time to turn the last page and declare that it, too, was 'readable', but its author an intolerably gloomy fellow, when the juggernaut hit him in the back. So these two books failed. But then the strange thing happened. The jay-walker, mangled but still breathing, looked up with reluctant respect and said, 'Sir, you are a successful man. You said this thing would run me down and by Buddha it has. Your books are most readable'. To which I answered, 'Sir, the thing I regret is that all this has hurt me more than it has hurt you'. But as I contemplated them, the jay-walker and the juggernaut, a project was born in me - to write another book. My typewriter looked at me reproachfully, but I ignored its glance and forced a sheet of paper into its reluctant maw. I had written two books about the juggernaut; now I would write one about the jay-walker, another cautionary tale about his horrid lot, his hopes of recovery, and his chances, if ever he stood on his feet again, of heading straight for the next precipice and casting himself over it, as by all past experience he was bound to do. I did not want him to do that, but if he did, and if by any chance a spark of life remained in him after that, I wanted him feebly to call to me, as he lay groaning 'twixt life and death, 'Sir, you continue to be successful. You told me I should hurt myself if I threw myself over this precipice and by Mahomet I have hurt myself. I regret that I had with me your last remaining cash, and that this has been lost in the fall, but your books, if I never breathe another word, are beyond dispute readable. You are indeed the model of a successful man'. Thus, out of a single book came forth twins, and out of those twins, triplets. 'Decline to Fall' is the brother of those others. It is still the product of that flaming, overpowering feeling, born in Berlin and Vienna about the time of Hitler's coming, that there is something rotten in the state of England, which had the strength and power to prevent this, if such plagues of war and death, famine and destruction, can be twice let loose on Europe during the first half of the twentieth century. Other motives have since then come to join that one. For one thing, people in many countries like to read these books, and write to ask me to continue writing them. For another thing, I like to write them. Before I begin to tell the tale of a homeless patriot, I owe a bow and a special word, first, to Scottish, and second to English readers. Being of a mild and placatory disposition I never, well hardly ever, offer affront without cause, and I do not like to think that Scottish readers may, in this book as in the others, be pained by finding references to 'the English Channel' or suchlike. To some extent I share their feeling, that this is an archaic form, like Ye Olde this-and-that, which has no claim to survival, and when I hear politicians to-day foretelling that our salvation after this war can only come through the union of 'English-speaking peoples', I wonder where they, who like myself are probably students of our stage, press, radio and literature, propose to find these English-speaking peoples.