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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Crown of Wild Olive</p> +<p> also Munera Pulveris; Pre-Raphaelitism; Aratra Pentelici; The Ethics of the Dust; Fiction, Fair and Foul; The Elements of Drawing</p> +<p>Author: John Ruskin</p> +<p>Release Date: September 28, 2008 [eBook #26716]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by<br /> + Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Josephine Paolucci,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/front.jpg" width="600" height="718" alt="Portrait of Carlyle" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Portrait of Carlyle<br /><br /> + +Etched by E. A. Fowle—From Painting by Samuel Lawrence</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>Illustrated Library Edition</h3> + + +<h1>THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE</h1> + + +<h4>ALSO</h4> + +<h3>MUNERA PULVERIS</h3> + +<h3>PRE-RAPHAELITISM—ARATRA PENTELICI</h3> + +<h3>THE ETHICS OF THE DUST</h3> + +<h3>FICTION, FAIR AND FOUL</h3> + +<h3>THE ELEMENTS OF DRAWING</h3> + + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JOHN RUSKIN, M.A.</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 125px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="125" height="126" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>BOSTON AND NEW YORK</h4> + +<h3>COLONIAL PRESS COMPANY</h3> + +<h4>PUBLISHERS</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<p> +THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.<br /><br /> +<span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +LECTURE I.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Work</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_17'>17</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +LECTURE II.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Traffic</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +LECTURE III.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">War</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_66'>66</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<br /> +MUNERA PULVERIS.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Preface</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +CHAP.<br /> +<br /> +I. <span class="smcap">Definitions</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +II. <span class="smcap">Store-Keeping</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +III. <span class="smcap">Coin-Keeping</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_151'>151</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +IV. <span class="smcap">Commerce</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +V. <span class="smcap">Government</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_181'>181</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +VI. <span class="smcap">Mastership</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Appendices</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<br /> +PRE-RAPHAELITISM.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Preface</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Pre-Raphaelitism</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_237'>237</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<br /> +ARATRA PENTELICI.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Preface</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_283'>283</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +LECTURE<br /> +<br /> +I. <span class="smcap">Of the Division of Arts</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +II. <span class="smcap">Idolatry</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_304'>304</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +III. <span class="smcap">Imagination</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_322'>322</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +IV. <span class="smcap">Likeness</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_350'>350</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +V. <span class="smcap">Structure</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_372'>372</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +VI. <span class="smcap">The School of Athens</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_395'>395</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Future of England</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_415'>415</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Notes on Political Economy of Prussia</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_435'>435</a></span> <br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + +<h3>ARATRA PENTELICI.</h3> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">PLATES</span> <span class="tocnum">FACING PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +I. <span class="smcap">Porch of San Zenone. Verona</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_300'>300</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +II. <span class="smcap">The Arethusa of Syracuse</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_302'>302</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +III. <span class="smcap">The Warning to the Kings</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_302'>302</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +IV. <span class="smcap">The Nativity of Athena</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_308'>308</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +V. <span class="smcap">Tomb of the Doges Jacopo and Lorenzo Tiepolo</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_333'>333</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +VI. <span class="smcap">Archaic Athena of Athens and Corinth</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_334'>334</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +VII. <span class="smcap">Archaic, Central and Declining Art of Greece</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_355'>355</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +VIII. <span class="smcap">The Apollo of Syracuse and the Self-made Man</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_366'>366</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +IX. <span class="smcap">Apollo Chrysocomes of Clazomenæ</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_368'>368</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +X. <span class="smcap">Marble Masonry in the Duomo of Verona</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_381'>381</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XI. <span class="smcap">The First Elements of Sculpture</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_382'>382</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XII. <span class="smcap">Branch of Phillyrea. Dark Purple</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_390'>390</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XIII. <span class="smcap">Greek Flat Relief and Sculpture by Edged +Incision</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_392'>392</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XIV. <span class="smcap">Apollo and the Python. Heracles and the Nemean Lion</span>, 400<br /> +<br /> +XV. <span class="smcap">Hera of Argos. Zeus of Syracuse</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_401'>401</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XVI. <span class="smcap">Demeter of Messene. Hera of Crossus</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_402'>402</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XVII. <span class="smcap">Athena of Thurium. Sereie Ligeia of Terina</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_402'>402</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XVIII. <span class="smcap">Artemis of Syracuse. Hera of Lacinian Cape</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_404'>404</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XIX. <span class="smcap">Zeus of Messene. Ajax of Opus</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_405'>405</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XX. <span class="smcap">Greek and Barbarian Sculpture</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_407'>407</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +XXI. <span class="smcap">The Beginnings of Chivalry</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_409'>409</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<br /> +FIGURE <span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +1. <span class="smcap">Specimen of Plate</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_293'>293</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +2. <span class="smcap">Woodcut</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_323'>323</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +3. <span class="smcap">Figure on Greek Type of Vases</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_326'>326</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +4. Early Drawing of the Myth, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_330'>330</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +5. <span class="smcap">Cut, "Give It To Me,"</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_332'>332</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +6. <span class="smcap">Engraving on Coin</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_335'>335</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +7. <span class="smcap">Drawing of Fish. By Turner</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_362'>362</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +8. <span class="smcap">Iron Bar</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_379'>379</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +9. <span class="smcap">Diagram of Leaf</span>, <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_391'>391</a></span> <br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE</h2> + +<h3>THREE LECTURES ON WORK, TRAFFIC AND WAR</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>Twenty years ago, there was no lovelier piece of lowland scenery in +South England, nor any more pathetic in the world, by its expression of +sweet human character and life, than that immediately bordering on the +sources of the Wandle, and including the lower moors of Addington, and +the villages of Beddington and Carshalton, with all their pools and +streams. No clearer or diviner waters ever sang with constant lips of +the hand which 'giveth rain from heaven;' no pastures ever lightened in +spring time with more passionate blossoming; no sweeter homes ever +hallowed the heart of the passer-by with their pride of peaceful +gladness—fain-hidden—yet full-confessed. The place remains, or, until +a few months ago, remained, nearly unchanged in its larger features; +but, with deliberate mind I say, that I have never seen anything so +ghastly in its inner tragic meaning,—not in Pisan Maremma—not by +Campagna tomb,—not by the sand-isles of the Torcellan shore,—as the +slow stealing of aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect, over the +delicate sweetness of that English scene: nor is any blasphemy or +impiety—any frantic saying or godless thought—more appalling to me, +using the best power of judgment I have to discern its sense and scope, +than the insolent defilings of those springs by the human herds that +drink of them. Just where the welling of stainless water, trembling and +pure, like a body of light, enters the pool of Carshalton, cutting +itself a radiant channel down to the gravel, through warp of feathery +weeds, all waving, which it traverses with its deep threads of +clearness, like the chalcedony in moss-agate, starred here and there +with white grenouillette; just in the very rush and murmur of the first +spreading currents, the human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> wretches of the place cast their street +and house foulness; heaps of dust and slime, and broken shreds of old +metal, and rags of putrid clothes; they having neither energy to cart it +away, nor decency enough to dig it into the ground, thus shed into the +stream, to diffuse what venom of it will float and melt, far away, in +all places where God meant those waters to bring joy and health. And, in +a little pool, behind some houses farther in the village, where another +spring rises, the shattered stones of the well, and of the little +fretted channel which was long ago built and traced for it by gentler +hands, lie scattered, each from each, under a ragged bank of mortar, and +scoria; and brick-layers' refuse, on one side, which the clean water +nevertheless chastises to purity; but it cannot conquer the dead earth +beyond; and there, circled and coiled under festering scum, the stagnant +edge of the pool effaces itself into a slope of black slime, the +accumulation of indolent years. Half-a-dozen men, with one day's work, +could cleanse those pools, and trim the flowers about their banks, and +make every breath of summer air above them rich with cool balm; and +every glittering wave medicinal, as if it ran, troubled of angels, from +the porch of Bethesda. But that day's work is never given, nor will be; +nor will any joy be possible to heart of man, for evermore, about those +wells of English waters.</p> + +<p>When I last left them, I walked up slowly through the back streets of +Croydon, from the old church to the hospital; and, just on the left, +before coming up to the crossing of the High Street, there was a new +public-house built. And the front of it was built in so wise manner, +that a recess of two feet was left below its front windows, between them +and the street-pavement—a recess too narrow for any possible use (for +even if it had been occupied by a seat, as in old time it might have +been, everybody walking along the street would have fallen over the legs +of the reposing wayfarers). But, by way of making this two feet depth of +freehold land more expressive of the dignity of an establishment for the +sale of spirituous liquors, it was fenced from the pavement by an +imposing iron railing, having four or five spearheads to the yard of it, +and six feet high; containing as much iron and iron-work, indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> as +could well be put into the space; and by this stately arrangement, the +little piece of dead ground within, between wall and street, became a +protective receptacle of refuse; cigar ends, and oyster shells, and the +like, such as an open-handed English street-populace habitually scatters +from its presence, and was thus left, unsweepable by any ordinary +methods. Now the iron bars which, uselessly (or in great degree worse +than uselessly), enclosed this bit of ground, and made it pestilent, +represented a quantity of work which would have cleansed the Carshalton +pools three times over;—of work, partly cramped and deadly, in the +mine; partly fierce<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and exhaustive, at the furnace; partly foolish +and sedentary, of ill-taught students making bad designs: work from the +beginning to the last fruits of it, and in all the branches of it, +venomous, deathful, and miserable. Now, how did it come to pass that +this work was done instead of the other; that the strength and life of +the English operative were spent in defiling ground, instead of +redeeming it; and in producing an entirely (in that place) valueless +piece of metal, which can neither be eaten nor breathed, instead of +medicinal fresh air, and pure water?</p> + +<p>There is but one reason for it, and at present a conclusive one,—that +the capitalist can charge per-centage on the work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> in the one case, and +cannot in the other. If, having certain funds for supporting labour at +my disposal, I pay men merely to keep my ground in order, my money is, +in that function, spent once for all; but if I pay them to dig iron out +of my ground, and work it, and sell it, I can charge rent for the +ground, and per-centage both on the manufacture and the sale, and make +my capital profitable in these three bye-ways. The greater part of the +profitable investment of capital, in the present day, is in operations +of this kind, in which the public is persuaded to buy something of no +use to it, on production, or sale, of which, the capitalist may charge +per-centage; the said public remaining all the while under the +persuasion that the per-centages thus obtained are real national gains, +whereas, they are merely filchings out of partially light pockets, to +swell heavy ones.</p> + +<p>Thus, the Croydon publican buys the iron railing, to make himself more +conspicuous to drunkards. The public-housekeeper on the other side of +the way presently buys another railing, to out-rail him with. Both are, +as to their <i>relative</i> attractiveness to customers of taste, just where +they were before; but they have lost the price of the railings; which +they must either themselves finally lose, or make their aforesaid +customers of taste pay, by raising the price of their beer, or +adulterating it. Either the publicans, or their customers, are thus +poorer by precisely what the capitalist has gained; and the value of the +work itself, meantime, has been lost to the nation; the iron bars in +that form and place being wholly useless. It is this mode of taxation of +the poor by the rich which is referred to in the text (page 31), in +comparing the modern acquisitive power of capital with that of the lance +and sword; the only difference being that the levy of black mail in old +times was by force, and is now by cozening. The old rider and reiver +frankly quartered himself on the publican for the night; the modern one +merely makes his lance into an iron spike, and persuades his host to buy +it. One comes as an open robber, the other as a cheating pedlar; but the +result, to the injured person's pocket, is absolutely the same. Of +course many useful industries mingle with, and disguise the useless +ones; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> in the habits of energy aroused by the struggle, there is a +certain direct good. It is far better to spend four thousand pounds in +making a good gun, and then to blow it to pieces, than to pass life in +idleness. Only do not let it be called 'political economy.' There is +also a confused notion in the minds of many persons, that the gathering +of the property of the poor into the hands of the rich does no ultimate +harm; since, in whosesoever hands it may be, it must be spent at last, +and thus, they think, return to the poor again. This fallacy has been +again and again exposed; but grant the plea true, and the same apology +may, of course, be made for black mail, or any other form of robbery. It +might be (though practically it never is) as advantageous for the nation +that the robber should have the spending of the money he extorts, as +that the person robbed should have spent it. But this is no excuse for +the theft. If I were to put a turnpike on the road where it passes my +own gate, and endeavour to exact a shilling from every passenger, the +public would soon do away with my gate, without listening to any plea on +my part that 'it was as advantageous to them, in the end, that I should +spend their shillings, as that they themselves should.' But if, instead +of out-facing them with a turnpike, I can only persuade them to come in +and buy stones, or old iron, or any other useless thing, out of my +ground, I may rob them to the same extent, and be, moreover, thanked as +a public benefactor, and promoter of commercial prosperity. And this +main question for the poor of England—for the poor of all countries—is +wholly omitted in every common treatise on the subject of wealth. Even +by the labourers themselves, the operation of capital is regarded only +in its effect on their immediate interests; never in the far more +terrific power of its appointment of the kind and the object of labour. +It matters little, ultimately, how much a labourer is paid for making +anything; but it matters fearfully what the thing is, which he is +compelled to make. If his labour is so ordered as to produce food, and +fresh air, and fresh water, no matter that his wages are low;—the food +and fresh air and water will be at last there; and he will at last get +them. But if he is paid to destroy food and fresh air or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> to produce +iron bars instead of them,—the food and air will finally <i>not</i> be +there, and he will <i>not</i> get them, to his great and final inconvenience. +So that, conclusively, in political as in household economy, the great +question is, not so much what money you have in your pocket, as what you +will buy with it, and do with it.</p> + +<p>I have been long accustomed, as all men engaged in work of investigation +must be, to hear my statements laughed at for years, before they are +examined or believed; and I am generally content to wait the public's +time. But it has not been without displeased surprise that I have found +myself totally unable, as yet, by any repetition, or illustration, to +force this plain thought into my readers' heads,—that the wealth of +nations, as of men, consists in substance, not in ciphers; and that the +real good of all work, and of all commerce, depends on the final worth +of the thing you make, or get by it. This is a practical enough +statement, one would think: but the English public has been so possessed +by its modern school of economists with the notion that Business is +always good, whether it be busy in mischief or in benefit; and that +buying and selling are always salutary, whatever the intrinsic worth of +what you buy or sell,—that it seems impossible to gain so much as a +patient hearing for any inquiry respecting the substantial result of our +eager modern labours. I have never felt more checked by the sense of +this impossibility than in arranging the heads of the following three +lectures, which, though delivered at considerable intervals of time, and +in different places, were not prepared without reference to each other. +Their connection would, however, have been made far more distinct, if I +had not been prevented, by what I feel to be another great difficulty in +addressing English audiences, from enforcing, with any decision, the +common, and to me the most important, part of their subjects. I chiefly +desired (as I have just said) to question my hearers—operatives, +merchants, and soldiers, as to the ultimate meaning of the <i>business</i> +they had in hand; and to know from them what they expected or intended +their manufacture to come to, their selling to come to, and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +killing to come to. That appeared the first point needing determination +before I could speak to them with any real utility or effect. 'You +craftsmen—salesmen—swordsmen,—do but tell me clearly what you want, +then, if I can say anything to help you, I will; and if not, I will +account to you as I best may for my inability.' But in order to put this +question into any terms, one had first of all to face the difficulty +just spoken of—to me for the present insuperable,—the difficulty of +knowing whether to address one's audience as believing, or not +believing, in any other world than this. For if you address any average +modern English company as believing in an Eternal life, and endeavour to +draw any conclusions, from this assumed belief, as to their present +business, they will forthwith tell you that what you say is very +beautiful, but it is not practical. If, on the contrary, you frankly +address them as unbelievers in Eternal life, and try to draw any +consequences from that unbelief,—they immediately hold you for an +accursed person, and shake off the dust from their feet at you. And the +more I thought over what I had got to say, the less I found I could say +it, without some reference to this intangible or intractable part of the +subject. It made all the difference, in asserting any principle of war, +whether one assumed that a discharge of artillery would merely knead +down a certain quantity of red clay into a level line, as in a brick +field; or whether, out of every separately Christian-named portion of +the ruinous heap, there went out, into the smoke and dead-fallen air of +battle, some astonished condition of soul, unwillingly released. It made +all the difference, in speaking of the possible range of commerce, +whether one assumed that all bargains related only to visible +property—or whether property, for the present invisible, but +nevertheless real, was elsewhere purchasable on other terms. It made all +the difference, in addressing a body of men subject to considerable +hardship, and having to find some way out of it—whether one could +confidentially say to them, 'My friends,—you have only to die, and all +will be right;' or whether one had any secret misgiving that such advice +was more blessed to him that gave, than to him that took it. And +therefore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> the deliberate reader will find, throughout these lectures, a +hesitation in driving points home, and a pausing short of conclusions +which he will feel I would fain have come to; hesitation which arises +wholly from this uncertainty of my hearers' temper. For I do not now +speak, nor have I ever spoken, since the time of my first forward youth, +in any proselyting temper, as desiring to persuade any one of what, in +such matters, I thought myself; but, whomsoever I venture to address, I +take for the time his creed as I find it; and endeavour to push it into +such vital fruit as it seems capable of. Thus, it is a creed with a +great part of the existing English people, that they are in possession +of a book which tells them, straight from the lips of God all they ought +to do, and need to know. I have read that book, with as much care as +most of them, for some forty years; and am thankful that, on those who +trust it, I can press its pleadings. My endeavour has been uniformly to +make them trust it more deeply than they do; trust it, not in their own +favourite verses only, but in the sum of all; trust it not as a fetish +or talisman, which they are to be saved by daily repetitions of; but as +a Captain's order, to be heard and obeyed at their peril. I was always +encouraged by supposing my hearers to hold such belief. To these, if to +any, I once had hope of addressing, with acceptance, words which +insisted on the guilt of pride, and the futility of avarice; from these, +if from any, I once expected ratification of a political economy, which +asserted that the life was more than the meat, and the body than +raiment; and these, it once seemed to me, I might ask without accusation +or fanaticism, not merely in doctrine of the lips, but in the bestowal +of their heart's treasure, to separate themselves from the crowd of whom +it is written, 'After all these things do the Gentiles seek.'</p> + +<p>It cannot, however, be assumed, with any semblance of reason, that a +general audience is now wholly, or even in majority, composed of these +religious persons. A large portion must always consist of men who admit +no such creed; or who, at least, are inaccessible to appeals founded on +it. And as, with the so-called Christian, I desired to plead for honest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +declaration and fulfilment of his belief in life,—with the so-called +Infidel, I desired to plead for an honest declaration and fulfilment of +his belief in death. The dilemma is inevitable. Men must either +hereafter live, or hereafter die; fate may be bravely met, and conduct +wisely ordered, on either expectation; but never in hesitation between +ungrasped hope, and unconfronted fear. We usually believe in +immortality, so far as to avoid preparation for death; and in mortality, +so far as to avoid preparation for anything after death. Whereas, a wise +man will at least hold himself prepared for one or other of two events, +of which one or other is inevitable; and will have all things in order, +for his sleep, or in readiness, for his awakening.</p> + +<p>Nor have we any right to call it an ignoble judgment, if he determine to +put them in order, as for sleep. A brave belief in life is indeed an +enviable state of mind, but, as far as I can discern, an unusual one. I +know few Christians so convinced of the splendour of the rooms in their +Father's house, as to be happier when their friends are called to those +mansions, than they would have been if the Queen had sent for them to +live at Court: nor has the Church's most ardent 'desire to depart, and +be with Christ,' ever cured it of the singular habit of putting on +mourning for every person summoned to such departure. On the contrary, a +brave belief in death has been assuredly held by many not ignoble +persons, and it is a sign of the last depravity in the Church itself, +when it assumes that such a belief is inconsistent with either purity of +character, or energy of hand. The shortness of life is not, to any +rational person, a conclusive reason for wasting the space of it which +may be granted him; nor does the anticipation of death to-morrow +suggest, to any one but a drunkard, the expediency of drunkenness +to-day. To teach that there is no device in the grave, may indeed make +the deviceless person more contented in his dulness; but it will make +the deviser only more earnest in devising, nor is human conduct likely, +in every case, to be purer under the conviction that all its evil may in +a moment be pardoned, and all its wrong-doing in a moment redeemed; and +that the sigh of repentance, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> purges the guilt of the past, will +waft the soul into a felicity which forgets its pain,—than it may be +under the sterner, and to many not unwise minds, more probable, +apprehension, that 'what a man soweth that shall he also reap'—or +others reap,—when he, the living seed of pestilence, walketh no more in +darkness, but lies down therein.</p> + +<p>But to men whose feebleness of sight, or bitterness of soul, or the +offence given by the conduct of those who claim higher hope, may have +rendered this painful creed the only possible one, there is an appeal to +be made, more secure in its ground than any which can be addressed to +happier persons. I would fain, if I might offencelessly, have spoken to +them as if none others heard; and have said thus: Hear me, you dying +men, who will soon be deaf for ever. For these others, at your right +hand and your left, who look forward to a state of infinite existence, +in which all their errors will be overruled, and all their faults +forgiven; for these, who, stained and blackened in the battle smoke of +mortality, have but to dip themselves for an instant in the font of +death, and to rise renewed of plumage, as a dove that is covered with +silver, and her feathers like gold; for these, indeed, it may be +permissible to waste their numbered moments, through faith in a future +of innumerable hours; to these, in their weakness, it may be conceded +that they should tamper with sin which can only bring forth fruit of +righteousness, and profit by the iniquity which, one day, will be +remembered no more. In them, it may be no sign of hardness of heart to +neglect the poor, over whom they know their Master is watching; and to +leave those to perish temporarily, who cannot perish eternally. But, for +you, there is no such hope, and therefore no such excuse. This fate, +which you ordain for the wretched, you believe to be all their +inheritance; you may crush them, before the moth, and they will never +rise to rebuke you;—their breath, which fails for lack of food, once +expiring, will never be recalled to whisper against you a word of +accusing;—they and you, as you think, shall lie down together in the +dust, and the worms cover you;—and for them there shall be no +consolation, and on you no vengeance,—only the question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> murmured above +your grave: 'Who shall repay him what he hath done?' Is it therefore +easier for you in your heart to inflict the sorrow for which there is no +remedy? Will you take, wantonly, this little all of his life from your +poor brother, and make his brief hours long to him with pain? Will you +be readier to the injustice which can never be redressed; and niggardly +of mercy which you <i>can</i> bestow but once, and which, refusing, you +refuse for ever? I think better of you, even of the most selfish, than +that you would do this, well understood. And for yourselves, it seems to +me, the question becomes not less grave, in these curt limits. If your +life were but a fever fit,—the madness of a night, whose follies were +all to be forgotten in the dawn, it might matter little how you fretted +away the sickly hours,—what toys you snatched at, or let fall,—what +visions you followed wistfully with the deceived eyes of sleepless +phrenzy. Is the earth only an hospital? Play, if you care to play, on +the floor of the hospital dens. Knit its straw into what crowns please +you; gather the dust of it for treasure, and die rich in that, clutching +at the black motes in the air with your dying hands;—and yet, it may be +well with you. But if this life be no dream, and the world no hospital; +if all the peace and power and joy you can ever win, must be won now; +and all fruit of victory gathered here, or never;—will you still, +throughout the puny totality of your life, weary yourselves in the fire +for vanity? If there is no rest which remaineth for you, is there none +you might presently take? was this grass of the earth made green for +your shroud only, not for your bed? and can you never lie down <i>upon</i> +it, but only <i>under</i> it? The heathen, to whose creed you have returned, +thought not so. They knew that life brought its contest, but they +expected from it also the crown of all contest: No proud one! no +jewelled circlet flaming through Heaven above the height of the +unmerited throne; only some few leaves of wild olive, cool to the tired +brow, through a few years of peace. It should have been of gold, they +thought; but Jupiter was poor; this was the best the god could give +them. Seeking a greater than this, they had known it a mockery. Not in +war, not in wealth, not in tyranny,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> was there any happiness to be found +for them—only in kindly peace, fruitful and free. The wreath was to be +of <i>wild</i> olive, mark you:—the tree that grows carelessly, tufting the +rocks with no vivid bloom, no verdure of branch; only with soft snow of +blossom, and scarcely fulfilled fruit, mixed with grey leaf and thornset +stem; no fastening of diadem for you but with such sharp embroidery! But +this, such as it is, you may win while yet you live; type of grey honour +and sweet rest.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Free-heartedness, and graciousness, and undisturbed +trust, and requited love, and the sight of the peace of others, and the +ministry to their pain;—these, and the blue sky above you, and the +sweet waters and flowers of the earth beneath; and mysteries and +presences, innumerable, of living things,—these may yet be here your +riches; untormenting and divine: serviceable for the life that now is +nor, it may be, without promise of that which is to come.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 'A fearful occurrence took place a few days since, near +Wolverhampton. Thomas Snape, aged nineteen, was on duty as the "keeper" +of a blast furnace at Deepfield, assisted by John Gardner, aged +eighteen, and Joseph Swift, aged thirty-seven. The furnace contained +four tons of molten iron, and an equal amount of cinders, and ought to +have been run out at 7.30 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> But Snape and his mates, engaged in +talking and drinking, neglected their duty, and in the meantime, the +iron rose in the furnace until it reached a pipe wherein water was +contained. Just as the men had stripped, and were proceeding to tap the +furnace, the water in the pipe, converted into steam, burst down its +front and let loose on them the molten metal, which instantaneously +consumed Gardner; Snape, terribly burnt, and mad with pain, leaped into +the canal and then ran home and fell dead on the threshold, Swift +survived to reach the hospital, where he died too. +</p><p> +In further illustration of this matter, I beg the reader to look at the +article on the 'Decay of the English Race,' in the '<i>Pall-Mall Gazette</i>' +of April 17, of this year; and at the articles on the 'Report of the +Thames Commission,' in any journals of the same date.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> μελιτεσσα, αεθλων γ' ενεκεν.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE I.</h2> + +<h3><i>WORK.</i></h3> + +<h4>(<i>Delivered before the Working Men's Institute, at Camberwell.</i>)</h4> + + +<p>My Friends,—I have not come among you to-night to endeavour to give you +an entertaining lecture; but to tell you a few plain facts, and ask you +some plain, but necessary questions. I have seen and known too much of +the struggle for life among our labouring population, to feel at ease, +even under any circumstances, in inviting them to dwell on the +trivialities of my own studies; but, much more, as I meet to-night, for +the first time, the members of a working Institute established in the +district in which I have passed the greater part of my life, I am +desirous that we should at once understand each other, on graver +matters. I would fain tell you, with what feelings, and with what hope, +I regard this Institution, as one of many such, now happily established +throughout England, as well as in other countries;—Institutions which +are preparing the way for a great change in all the circumstances of +industrial life; but of which the success must wholly depend upon our +clearly understanding the circumstances and necessary <i>limits</i> of this +change. No teacher can truly promote the cause of education, until he +knows the conditions of the life for which that education is to prepare +his pupil. And the fact that he is called upon to address you nominally, +as a 'Working Class,' must compel him, if he is in any wise earnest or +thoughtful, to inquire in the outset,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> on what you yourselves suppose +this class distinction has been founded in the past, and must be founded +in the future. The manner of the amusement, and the matter of the +teaching, which any of us can offer you, must depend wholly on our first +understanding from you, whether you think the distinction heretofore +drawn between working men and others, is truly or falsely founded. Do +you accept it as it stands? do you wish it to be modified? or do you +think the object of education is to efface it, and make us forget it for +ever?</p> + +<p>Let me make myself more distinctly understood. We call this—you and +I—a 'Working Men's' Institute, and our college in London, a 'Working +Men's' College. Now, how do you consider that these several institutes +differ, or ought to differ, from 'idle men's' institutes and 'idle +men's' colleges? Or by what other word than 'idle' shall I distinguish +those whom the happiest and wisest of working men do not object to call +the 'Upper Classes?' Are there really upper classes,—are there lower? +How much should they always be elevated, how much always depressed? And, +gentlemen and ladies—I pray those of you who are here to forgive me the +offence there may be in what I am going to say. It is not <i>I</i> who wish +to say it. Bitter voices say it; voices of battle and of famine through +all the world, which must be heard some day, whoever keeps silence. +Neither is it to <i>you</i> specially that I say it. I am sure that most now +present know their duties of kindness, and fulfil them, better perhaps +than I do mine. But I speak to you as representing your whole class, +which errs, I know, chiefly by thoughtlessness, but not therefore the +less terribly. Wilful error is limited by the will, but what limit is +there to that of which we are unconscious?</p> + +<p>Bear with me, therefore, while I turn to these workmen, and ask them, +also as representing a great multitude, what they think the 'upper +classes' are, and ought to be, in relation to them. Answer, you workmen +who are here, as you would among yourselves, frankly; and tell me how +you would have me call those classes. Am I to call them—would <i>you</i> +think me right in calling them—the idle classes? I think you would feel +somewhat uneasy, and as if I were not treating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> my subject honestly, or +speaking from my heart, if I went on under the supposition that all rich +people were idle. You would be both unjust and unwise if you allowed me +to say that;—not less unjust than the rich people who say that all the +poor are idle, and will never work if they can help it, or more than +they can help.</p> + +<p>For indeed the fact is, that there are idle poor and idle rich; and +there are busy poor and busy rich. Many a beggar is as lazy as if he had +ten thousand a year; and many a man of large fortune is busier than his +errand-boy, and never would think of stopping in the street to play +marbles. So that, in a large view, the distinction between workers and +idlers, as between knaves and honest men, runs through the very heart +and innermost economies of men of all ranks and in all positions. There +is a working class—strong and happy—among both rich and poor; there is +an idle class—weak, wicked, and miserable—among both rich and poor. +And the worst of the misunderstandings arising between the two orders +come of the unlucky fact that the wise of one class habitually +contemplate the foolish of the other. If the busy rich people watched +and rebuked the idle rich people, all would be right; and if the busy +poor people watched and rebuked the idle poor people, all would be +right. But each class has a tendency to look for the faults of the +other. A hard-working man of property is particularly offended by an +idle beggar; and an orderly, but poor, workman is naturally intolerant +of the licentious luxury of the rich. And what is severe judgment in the +minds of the just men of either class, becomes fierce enmity in the +unjust—but among the unjust <i>only</i>. None but the dissolute among the +poor look upon the rich as their natural enemies, or desire to pillage +their houses and divide their property. None but the dissolute among the +rich speak in opprobrious terms of the vices and follies of the poor.</p> + +<p>There is, then, no class distinction between idle and industrious +people; and I am going to-night to speak only of the industrious. The +idle people we will put out of our thoughts at once—they are mere +nuisances—what ought to be done with <i>them</i>, we'll talk of at another +time. But there are class distinctions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> among the industrious +themselves; tremendous distinctions, which rise and fall to every degree +in the infinite thermometer of human pain and of human +power—distinctions of high and low, of lost and won, to the whole reach +of man's soul and body.</p> + +<p>These separations we will study, and the laws of them, among energetic +men only, who, whether they work or whether they play, put their +strength into the work, and their strength into the game; being in the +full sense of the word 'industrious,' one way or another—with a +purpose, or without. And these distinctions are mainly four:</p> + +<p>I. Between those who work, and those who play.</p> + +<p>II. Between those who produce the means of life, and those who consume +them.</p> + +<p>III. Between those who work with the head, and those who work with the +hand.</p> + +<p>IV. Between those who work wisely, and who work foolishly.</p> + +<p>For easier memory, let us say we are going to oppose, in our +examination.—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I. Work to play;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">II. Production to consumption;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">III. Head to Hand; and,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">IV. Sense to nonsense.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I. First, then, of the distinction between the classes who work and the +classes who play. Of course we must agree upon a definition of these +terms,—work and play,—before going farther. Now, roughly, not with +vain subtlety of definition, but for plain use of the words, 'play' is +an exertion of body or mind, made to please ourselves, and with no +determined end; and work is a thing done because it ought to be done, +and with a determined end. You play, as you call it, at cricket, for +instance. That is as hard work as anything else; but it amuses you, and +it has no result but the amusement. If it were done as an ordered form +of exercise, for health's sake, it would become work directly. So, in +like manner, whatever we do to please ourselves, and only for the sake +of the pleasure, not for an ultimate object, is 'play,' the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> 'pleasing +thing,' not the useful thing. Play may be useful in a secondary sense +(nothing is indeed more useful or necessary); but the use of it depends +on its being spontaneous.</p> + +<p>Let us, then, enquire together what sort of games the playing class in +England spend their lives in playing at.</p> + +<p>The first of all English games is making money. That is an all-absorbing +game; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that than at +foot-ball, or any other roughest sport; and it is absolutely without +purpose; no one who engages heartily in that game ever knows why. Ask a +great money-maker what he wants to do with his money—he never knows. He +doesn't make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he <i>may</i> +get it. 'What will you make of what you have got?' you ask. 'Well, I'll +get more,' he says. Just as, at cricket, you get more runs. There's no +use in the runs, but to get more of them than other people is the game. +And there's no use in the money, but to have more of it than other +people is the game. So all that great foul city of London +there,—rattling, growling, smoking, stinking,—a ghastly heap of +fermenting brick-work, pouring out poison at every pore,—you fancy it +is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play; very +nasty play, and very hard play, but still play. It is only Lord's +cricket ground without the turf,—a huge billiard table without the +cloth, and with pockets as deep as the bottomless pit; but mainly a +billiard table, after all.</p> + +<p>Well, the first great English game is this playing at counters. It +differs from the rest in that it appears always to be producing money, +while every other game is expensive. But it does not always produce +money. There's a great difference between 'winning' money and 'making' +it; a great difference between getting it out of another man's pocket +into ours, or filling both. Collecting money is by no means the same +thing as making it; the tax-gatherer's house is not the Mint; and much +of the apparent gain (so called), in commerce, is only a form of +taxation on carriage or exchange.</p> + +<p>Our next great English game, however, hunting and shooting, is costly +altogether; and how much we are fined for it annually in land, horses, +gamekeepers, and game laws, and all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> else that accompanies that +beautiful and special English game, I will not endeavour to count now: +but note only that, except for exercise, this is not merely a useless +game, but a deadly one, to all connected with it. For through +horse-racing, you get every form of what the higher classes everywhere +call 'Play,' in distinction from all other plays; that is—gambling; by +no means a beneficial or recreative game: and, through game-preserving, +you get also some curious laying out of ground; that beautiful +arrangement of dwelling-house for man and beast, by which we have grouse +and black-cock—so many brace to the acre, and men and women—so many +brace to the garret. I often wonder what the angelic builders and +surveyors—the angelic builders who build the 'many mansions' up above +there; and the angelic surveyors, who measured that four-square city +with their measuring reeds—I wonder what they think, or are supposed to +think, of the laying out of ground by this nation, which has set itself, +as it seems, literally to accomplish, word for word, or rather fact for +word, in the persons of those poor whom its Master left to represent +him, what that Master said of himself—that foxes and birds had homes, +but He none.</p> + +<p>Then, next to the gentlemen's game of hunting, we must put the ladies' +game of dressing. It is not the cheapest of games. I saw a brooch at a +jeweller's in Bond Street a fortnight ago, not an inch wide, and without +any singular jewel in it, yet worth 3,000<i>l.</i> And I wish I could tell +you what this 'play' costs, altogether, in England, France, and Russia +annually. But it is a pretty game, and on certain terms, I like it; nay, +I don't see it played quite as much as I would fain have it. You ladies +like to lead the fashion:—by all means lead it—lead it thoroughly, +lead it far enough. Dress yourselves nicely, and dress everybody else +nicely. Lead the <i>fashions for the poor</i> first; make <i>them</i> look well, +and you yourselves will look, in ways of which you have now no +conception, all the better. The fashions you have set for some time +among your peasantry are not pretty ones; their doublets are too +irregularly slashed, and the wind blows too frankly through them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then there are other games, wild enough, as I could show you if I had +time.</p> + +<p>There's playing at literature, and playing at art—very different, both, +from working at literature, or working at art, but I've no time to speak +of these. I pass to the greatest of all—the play of plays, the great +gentlemen's game, which ladies like them best to play at,—the game of +War. It is entrancingly pleasant to the imagination; the facts of it, +not always so pleasant. We dress for it, however, more finely than for +any other sport; and go out to it, not merely in scarlet, as to hunt, +but in scarlet and gold, and all manner of fine colours: of course we +could fight better in grey, and without feathers; but all nations have +agreed that it is good to be well dressed at this play. Then the bats +and balls are very costly; our English and French bats, with the balls +and wickets, even those which we don't make any use of, costing, I +suppose, now about fifteen millions of money annually to each nation; +all of which, you know is paid for by hard labourer's work in the furrow +and furnace. A costly game!—not to speak of its consequences; I will +say at present nothing of these. The mere immediate cost of all these +plays is what I want you to consider; they all cost deadly work +somewhere, as many of us know too well. The jewel-cutter, whose sight +fails over the diamonds; the weaver, whose arm fails over the web; the +iron-forger, whose breath fails before the furnace—<i>they</i> know what +work is—they, who have all the work, and none of the play, except a +kind they have named for themselves down in the black north country, +where 'play' means being laid up by sickness. It is a pretty example for +philologists, of varying dialect, this change in the sense of the word +'play,' as used in the black country of Birmingham, and the red and +black country of Baden Baden. Yes, gentlemen, and gentlewomen, of +England, who think 'one moment unamused a misery, not made for feeble +man,' this is what you have brought the word 'play' to mean, in the +heart of merry England! You may have your fluting and piping; but there +are sad children sitting in the market-place, who indeed cannot say to +you, 'We have piped unto you, and ye<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> have not danced:' but eternally +shall say to you, 'We have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.'</p> + +<p>This, then, is the first distinction between the 'upper and lower' +classes. And this is one which is by no means necessary; which indeed +must, in process of good time, be by all honest men's consent abolished. +Men will be taught that an existence of play, sustained by the blood of +other creatures, is a good existence for gnats and sucking fish; but not +for men: that neither days, nor lives, can be made holy by doing nothing +in them: that the best prayer at the beginning of a day is that we may +not lose its moments; and the best grace before meat, the consciousness +that we have justly earned our dinner. And when we have this much of +plain Christianity preached to us again, and enough respect for what we +regard as inspiration, as not to think that 'Son, go work to-day in my +vineyard,' means 'Fool, go play to-day in my vineyard,' we shall all be +workers, in one way or another; and this much at least of the +distinction between 'upper' and 'lower' forgotten.</p> + +<p>II. I pass then to our second distinction; between the rich and poor, +between Dives and Lazarus,—distinction which exists more sternly, I +suppose, in this day, than ever in the world, Pagan or Christian, till +now. I will put it sharply before you, to begin with, merely by reading +two paragraphs which I cut from two papers that lay on my breakfast +table on the same morning, the 25th of November, 1864. The piece about +the rich Russian at Paris is commonplace enough, and stupid besides (for +fifteen francs,—12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>,—is nothing for a rich man to give for a +couple of peaches, out of season). Still, the two paragraphs printed on +the same day are worth putting side by side.</p> + +<p>'Such a man is now here. He is a Russian, and, with your permission, we +will call him Count Teufelskine. In dress he is sublime; art is +considered in that toilet, the harmony of colour respected, the <i>chiar' +oscuro</i> evident in well-selected contrast. In manners he is +dignified—nay, perhaps apathetic; nothing disturbs the placid serenity +of that calm exterior. One day our friend breakfasted <i>chez</i> Bignon. +When the bill came he read, "Two peaches, 15f." He paid.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> "Peaches +scarce, I presume?" was his sole remark. "No, sir," replied the waiter, +"but Teufelskines are."' <i>Telegraph</i>, November 25, 1864.</p> + +<p>'Yesterday morning, at eight o'clock, a woman, passing a dung heap in +the stone yard near the recently-erected alms-houses in Shadwell Gap, +High Street, Shadwell, called the attention of a Thames police-constable +to a man in a sitting position on the dung heap, and said she was afraid +he was dead. Her fears proved to be true. The wretched creature appeared +to have been dead several hours. He had perished of cold and wet, and +the rain had been beating down on him all night. The deceased was a +bone-picker. He was in the lowest stage of poverty, poorly clad, and +half-starved. The police had frequently driven him away from the stone +yard, between sunset and sunrise, and told him to go home. He selected a +most desolate spot for his wretched death. A penny and some bones were +found in his pockets. The deceased was between fifty and sixty years of +age. Inspector Roberts, of the K division, has given directions for +inquiries to be made at the lodging-houses respecting the deceased, to +ascertain his identity if possible.'—<i>Morning Post</i>, November 25, 1864.</p> + +<p>You have the separation thus in brief compass; and I want you to take +notice of the 'a penny and some bones were found in his pockets,' and to +compare it with this third statement, from the <i>Telegraph</i> of January +16th of this year:—</p> + +<p>'Again, the dietary scale for adult and juvenile paupers was drawn up by +the most conspicuous political economists in England. It is low in +quantity, but it is sufficient to support nature; yet within ten years +of the passing of the Poor Law Act, we heard of the paupers in the +Andover Union gnawing the scraps of putrid flesh and sucking the marrow +from the bones of horses which they were employed to crush.'</p> + +<p>You see my reason for thinking that our Lazarus of Christianity has some +advantage over the Jewish one. Jewish Lazarus expected, or at least +prayed, to be fed with crumbs from the rich man's table; but <i>our</i> +Lazarus is fed with crumbs from the dog's table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now this distinction between rich and poor rests on two bases. Within +its proper limits, on a basis which is lawful and everlastingly +necessary; beyond them, on a basis unlawful, and everlastingly +corrupting the framework of society. The lawful basis of wealth is, that +a man who works should be paid the fair value of his work; and that if +he does not choose to spend it to-day, he should have free leave to keep +it, and spend it to-morrow. Thus, an industrious man working daily, and +laying by daily, attains at last the possession of an accumulated sum of +wealth, to which he has absolute right. The idle person who will not +work, and the wasteful person who lays nothing by, at the end of the +same time will be doubly poor—poor in possession, and dissolute in +moral habit; and he will then naturally covet the money which the other +has saved. And if he is then allowed to attack the other, and rob him of +his well-earned wealth, there is no more any motive for saving, or any +reward for good conduct; and all society is thereupon dissolved, or +exists only in systems of rapine. Therefore the first necessity of +social life is the clearness of national conscience in enforcing the +law—that he should keep who has <span class="smcap">justly earned</span>.</p> + +<p>That law, I say, is the proper basis of distinction between rich and +poor. But there is also a false basis of distinction; namely, the power +held over those who earn wealth by those who levy or exact it. There +will be always a number of men who would fain set themselves to the +accumulation of wealth as the sole object of their lives. Necessarily, +that class of men is an uneducated class, inferior in intellect, and +more or less cowardly. It is physically impossible for a well-educated, +intellectual, or brave man to make money the chief object of his +thoughts; as physically impossible as it is for him to make his dinner +the principal object of them. All healthy people like their dinners, but +their dinner is not the main object of their lives. So all healthily +minded people like making money—ought to like it, and to enjoy the +sensation of winning it; but the main object of their life is not money; +it is something better than money. A good soldier, for instance, mainly +wishes to do his fighting well. He is glad of his pay—very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> properly +so, and justly grumbles when you keep him ten years without it—still, +his main notion of life is to win battles, not to be paid for winning +them. So of clergymen. They like pew-rents, and baptismal fees, of +course; but yet, if they are brave and well educated, the pew-rent is +not the sole object of their lives, and the baptismal fee is not the +sole purpose of the baptism; the clergyman's object is essentially to +baptize and preach, not to be paid for preaching. So of doctors. They +like fees no doubt,—ought to like them; yet if they are brave and well +educated, the entire object of their lives is not fees. They, on the +whole, desire to cure the sick; and,—if they are good doctors, and the +choice were fairly put to them,—would rather cure their patient, and +lose their fee, than kill him, and get it. And so with all other brave +and rightly trained men; their work is first, their fee second—very +important always, but still <i>second</i>. But in every nation, as I said, +there are a vast class who are ill-educated, cowardly, and more or less +stupid. And with these people, just as certainly the fee is first, and +the work second, as with brave people the work is first and the fee +second. And this is no small distinction. It is the whole distinction in +a man; distinction between life and death <i>in</i> him, between heaven and +hell <i>for</i> him. You cannot serve two masters;—you <i>must</i> serve one or +other. If your work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your +master, and the lord of work, who is God. But if your fee is first with +you, and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee, who +is the Devil; and not only the Devil, but the lowest of devils—the +'least erected fiend that fell.' So there you have it in brief terms; +Work first—you are God's servants; Fee first—you are the Fiend's. And +it makes a difference, now and ever, believe me, whether you serve Him +who has on His vesture and thigh written, 'King of Kings,' and whose +service is perfect freedom; or him on whose vesture and thigh the name +is written, 'Slave of Slaves,' and whose service is perfect slavery.</p> + +<p>However, in every nation there are, and must always be, a certain number +of these Fiend's servants, who have it principally for the object of +their lives to make money. They are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> always, as I said, more or less +stupid, and cannot conceive of anything else so nice as money. Stupidity +is always the basis of the Judas bargain. We do great injustice to +Iscariot, in thinking him wicked above all common wickedness. He was +only a common money-lover, and, like all money-lovers, didn't understand +Christ;—couldn't make out the worth of Him, or meaning of Him. He +didn't want Him to be killed. He was horror-struck when he found that +Christ would be killed; threw his money away instantly, and hanged +himself. How many of our present money-seekers, think you, would have +the grace to hang themselves, whoever was killed? But Judas was a +common, selfish, muddle-headed, pilfering fellow; his hand always in the +bag of the poor, not caring for them. He didn't understand Christ;—yet +believed in Him, much more than most of us do; had seen Him do miracles, +thought He was quite strong enough to shift for Himself, and he, Judas, +might as well make his own little bye-perquisites out of the affair. +Christ would come out of it well enough, and he have his thirty pieces. +Now, that is the money-seeker's idea, all over the world. He doesn't +hate Christ, but can't understand Him—doesn't care for him—sees no +good in that benevolent business; makes his own little job out of it at +all events, come what will. And thus, out of every mass of men, you have +a certain number of bag-men—your 'fee-first' men, whose main object is +to make money. And they do make it—make it in all sorts of unfair ways, +chiefly by the weight and force of money itself, or what is called the +power of capital; that is to say, the power which money, once obtained, +has over the labour of the poor, so that the capitalist can take all its +produce to himself, except the labourer's food. That is the modern +Judas's way of 'carrying the bag,' and 'bearing what is put therein.'</p> + +<p>Nay, but (it is asked) how is that an unfair advantage? Has not the man +who has worked for the money a right to use it as he best can? No; in +this respect, money is now exactly what mountain promontories over +public roads were in old times. The barons fought for them fairly:—the +strongest and cunningest got them; then fortified them, and made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +everyone who passed below pay toll. Well, capital now is exactly what +crags were then. Men fight fairly (we will, at least, grant so much, +though it is more than we ought) for their money; but, once having got +it, the fortified millionaire can make everybody who passes below pay +toll to his million, and build another tower of his money castle. And I +can tell you, the poor vagrants by the roadside suffer now quite as much +from the bag-baron, as ever they did from the crag-baron. Bags and crags +have just the same result on rags. I have not time, however, to-night to +show you in how many ways the power of capital is unjust; but this one +great principle I have to assert—you will find it quite indisputably +true—that whenever money is the principal object of life with either +man or nation, it is both got ill, and spent ill; and does harm both in +the getting and spending; but when it is not the principal object, it +and all other things will be well got, and well spent. And here is the +test, with every man, of whether money is the principal object with him, +or not. If in mid-life he could pause and say, "Now I have enough to +live upon, I'll live upon it; and having well earned it, I will also +well spend it, and go out of the world poor, as I came into it," then +money is not principal with him; but if, having enough to live upon in +the manner befitting his character and rank, he still wants to make +more, and to <i>die</i> rich, then money is the principal object with him, +and it becomes a curse to himself, and generally to those who spend it +after him. For you know it <i>must</i> be spent some day; the only question +is whether the man who makes it shall spend it, or some one else. And +generally it is better for the maker to spend it, for he will know best +its value and use. This is the true law of life. And if a man does not +choose thus to spend his money, he must either hoard it or lend it, and +the worst thing he can generally do is to lend it; for borrowers are +nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money that all evil is +mainly done, and all unjust war protracted.</p> + +<p>For observe what the real fact is, respecting loans to foreign military +governments, and how strange it is. If your little boy came to you to +ask for money to spend in squibs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> and crackers, you would think twice +before you gave it him; and you would have some idea that it was wasted, +when you saw it fly off in fireworks, even though he did no mischief +with it. But the Russian children, and Austrian children, come to you, +borrowing money, not to spend in innocent squibs, but in cartridges and +bayonets to attack you in India with, and to keep down all noble life in +Italy with, and to murder Polish women and children with; and <i>that</i> you +will give at once, because they pay you interest for it. Now, in order +to pay you that interest, they must tax every working peasant in their +dominions; and on that work you live. You therefore at once rob the +Austrian peasant, assassinate or banish the Polish peasant, and you live +on the produce of the theft, and the bribe for the assassination! That +is the broad fact—that is the practical meaning of your foreign loans, +and of most large interest of money; and then you quarrel with Bishop +Colenso, forsooth, as if <i>he</i> denied the Bible, and you believed it! +though, wretches as you are, every deliberate act of your lives is a new +defiance of its primary orders; and as if, for most of the rich men of +England at this moment, it were not indeed to be desired, as the best +thing at least for <i>them</i>, that the Bible should <i>not</i> be true, since +against them these words are written in it: 'The rust of your gold and +silver shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh, as it +were fire.'</p> + + +<p>III. I pass now to our third condition of separation, between the men +who work with the hand, and those who work with the head.</p> + +<p>And here we have at last an inevitable distinction. There <i>must</i> be work +done by the arms, or none of us could live. There <i>must</i> be work done by +the brains, or the life we get would not be worth having. And the same +men cannot do both. There is rough work to be done, and rough men must +do it; there is gentle work to be done, and gentlemen must do it; and it +is physically impossible that one class should do, or divide, the work +of the other. And it is of no use to try to conceal this sorrowful fact +by fine words, and to talk to the workman about the honourableness of +manual labour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> and the dignity of humanity. That is a grand old proverb +of Sancho Panza's, 'Fine words butter no parsnips;' and I can tell you +that, all over England just now, you workmen are buying a great deal too +much butter at that dairy. Rough work, honourable or not, takes the life +out of us; and the man who has been heaving clay out of a ditch all day, +or driving an express train against the north wind all night, or holding +a collier's helm in a gale on a lee-shore, or whirling white hot iron at +a furnace mouth, that man is not the same at the end of his day, or +night, as one who has been sitting in a quiet room, with everything +comfortable about him, reading books, or classing butterflies, or +painting pictures. If it is any comfort to you to be told that the rough +work is the more honourable of the two, I should be sorry to take that +much of consolation from you; and in some sense I need not. The rough +work is at all events real, honest, and, generally, though not always, +useful; while the fine work is, a great deal of it, foolish and false as +well as fine, and therefore dishonourable; but when both kinds are +equally well and worthily done, the head's is the noble work, and the +hand's the ignoble; and of all hand work whatsoever, necessary for the +maintenance of life, those old words, 'In the sweat of thy face thou +shalt eat bread,' indicate that the inherent nature of it is one of +calamity; and that the ground, cursed for our sake, casts also some +shadow of degradation into our contest with its thorn and its thistle; +so that all nations have held their days honourable, or 'holy,' and +constituted them 'holydays' or 'holidays,' by making them days of rest; +and the promise, which, among all our distant hopes, seems to cast the +chief brightness over death, is that blessing of the dead who die in the +Lord, that 'they rest from their labours, and their works do follow +them.'</p> + +<p>And thus the perpetual question and contest must arise, who is to do +this rough work? and how is the worker of it to be comforted, redeemed, +and rewarded? and what kind of play should he have, and what rest, in +this world, sometimes, as well as in the next? Well, my good working +friends, these questions will take a little time to answer yet. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +must be answered: all good men are occupied with them, and all honest +thinkers. There's grand head work doing about them; but much must be +discovered, and much attempted in vain, before anything decisive can be +told you. Only note these few particulars, which are already sure.</p> + +<p>As to the distribution of the hard work. None of us, or very few of us, +do either hard or soft work because we think we ought; but because we +have chanced to fall into the way of it, and cannot help ourselves. Now, +nobody does anything well that they cannot help doing: work is only done +well when it is done with a will; and no man has a thoroughly sound will +unless he knows he is doing what he should, and is in his place. And, +depend upon it, all work must be done at last, not in a disorderly, +scrambling, doggish way, but in an ordered, soldierly, human way—a +lawful way. Men are enlisted for the labour that kills—the labour of +war: they are counted, trained, fed, dressed, and praised for that. Let +them be enlisted also for the labour that feeds: let them be counted, +trained, fed, dressed, praised for that. Teach the plough exercise as +carefully as you do the sword exercise, and let the officers of troops +of life be held as much gentlemen as the officers of troops of death; +and all is done: but neither this, nor any other right thing, can be +accomplished—you can't even see your way to it—unless, first of all, +both servant and master are resolved that, come what will of it, they +will do each other justice. People are perpetually squabbling about what +will be best to do, or easiest to do, or adviseablest to do, or +profitablest to do; but they never, so far as I hear them talk, ever ask +what it is <i>just</i> to do. And it is the law of heaven that you shall not +be able to judge what is wise or easy, unless you are first resolved to +judge what is just, and to do it. That is the one thing constantly +reiterated by our Master—the order of all others that is given +oftenest—'Do justice and judgment.' That's your Bible order; that's the +'Service of God,' not praying nor psalm-singing. You are told, indeed, +to sing psalms when you are merry, and to pray when you need anything; +and, by the perversion of the Evil Spirit, we get to think that praying +and psalm-singing are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> 'service.' If a child finds itself in want of +anything, it runs in and asks its father for it—does it call that, +doing its father a service? If it begs for a toy or a piece of +cake—does it call that serving its father? That, with God, is prayer, +and He likes to hear it: He likes you to ask Him for cake when you want +it; but He doesn't call that 'serving Him.' Begging is not serving: God +likes mere beggars as little as you do—He likes honest servants, not +beggars. So when a child loves its father very much, and is very happy, +it may sing little songs about him; but it doesn't call that serving its +father; neither is singing songs about God, serving God. It is enjoying +ourselves, if it's anything; most probably it is nothing; but if it's +anything, it is serving ourselves, not God. And yet we are impudent +enough to call our beggings and chauntings 'Divine Service:' we say +'Divine service will be "performed"' (that's our word—the form of it +gone through) 'at eleven o'clock.' Alas!—unless we perform Divine +service in every willing act of our life, we never perform it at all. +The one Divine work—the one ordered sacrifice—is to do justice; and it +is the last we are ever inclined to do. Anything rather than that! As +much charity as you choose, but no justice. 'Nay,' you will say, +'charity is greater than justice.' Yes, it is greater; it is the summit +of justice—it is the temple of which justice is the foundation. But you +can't have the top without the bottom; you cannot build upon charity. +You must build upon justice, for this main reason, that you have not, at +first, charity to build with. It is the last reward of good work. Do +justice to your brother (you can do that, whether you love him or not), +and you will come to love him. But do injustice to him, because you +don't love him; and you will come to hate him. It is all very fine to +think you can build upon charity to begin with; but you will find all +you have got to begin with, begins at home, and is essentially love of +yourself. You well-to-do people, for instance, who are here to-night, +will go to 'Divine service' next Sunday, all nice and tidy, and your +little children will have their tight little Sunday boots on, and lovely +little Sunday feathers in their hats; and you'll think, complacently and +piously, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> lovely they look! So they do: and you love them heartily +and you like sticking feathers in their hats. That's all right: that +<i>is</i> charity; but it is charity beginning at home. Then you will come to +the poor little crossing-sweeper, got up also,—it, in its Sunday +dress,—the dirtiest rags it has,—that it may beg the better: we shall +give it a penny, and think how good we are. That's charity going abroad. +But what does Justice say, walking and watching near us? Christian +Justice has been strangely mute, and seemingly blind; and, if not blind, +decrepit, this many a day: she keeps her accounts still, however—quite +steadily—doing them at nights, carefully, with her bandage off, and +through acutest spectacles (the only modern scientific invention she +cares about). You must put your ear down ever so close to her lips to +hear her speak; and then you will start at what she first whispers, for +it will certainly be, 'Why shouldn't that little crossing-sweeper have a +feather on its head, as well as your own child?' Then you may ask +Justice, in an amazed manner, 'How she can possibly be so foolish as to +think children could sweep crossings with feathers on their heads?' Then +you stoop again, and Justice says—still in her dull, stupid way—'Then, +why don't you, every other Sunday, leave your child to sweep the +crossing, and take the little sweeper to church in a hat and feather?' +Mercy on us (you think), what will she say next? And you answer, of +course, that 'you don't, because every body ought to remain content in +the position in which Providence has placed them.' Ah, my friends, +that's the gist of the whole question. <i>Did</i> Providence put them in that +position, or did <i>you</i>? You knock a man into a ditch, and then you tell +him to remain content in the 'position in which Providence has placed +him.' That's modern Christianity. You say—'<i>We</i> did not knock him into +the ditch.' How do you know what you have done, or are doing? That's +just what we have all got to know, and what we shall never know, until +the question with us every morning, is, not how to do the gainful thing, +but how to do the just thing; nor until we are at least so far on the +way to being Christian, as to have understood that maxim of the poor +half-way Mahometan,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> 'One hour in the execution of justice is worth +seventy years of prayer.'</p> + +<p>Supposing, then, we have it determined with appropriate justice, <i>who</i> +is to do the hand work, the next questions must be how the hand-workers +are to be paid, and how they are to be refreshed, and what play they are +to have. Now, the possible quantity of play depends on the possible +quantity of pay; and the quantity of pay is not a matter for +consideration to hand-workers only, but to all workers. Generally, good, +useful work, whether of the hand or head, is either ill-paid, or not +paid at all. I don't say it should be so, but it always is so. People, +as a rule, only pay for being amused or being cheated, not for being +served. Five thousand a year to your talker, and a shilling a day to +your fighter, digger, and thinker, is the rule. None of the best head +work in art, literature, or science, is ever paid for. How much do you +think Homer got for his Iliad? or Dante for his Paradise? only bitter +bread and salt, and going up and down other people's stairs. In science, +the man who discovered the telescope, and first saw heaven, was paid +with a dungeon; the man who invented the microscope, and first saw +earth, died of starvation, driven from his home: it is indeed very clear +that God means all thoroughly good work and talk to be done for nothing. +Baruch, the scribe, did not get a penny a line for writing Jeremiah's +second roll for him, I fancy; and St. Stephen did not get bishop's pay +for that long sermon of his to the Pharisees; nothing but stones. For +indeed that is the world-father's proper payment. So surely as any of +the world's children work for the world's good, honestly, with head and +heart; and come to it, saying, 'Give us a little bread, just to keep the +life in us,' the world-father answers them, 'No, my children, not bread; +a stone, if you like, or as many as you need, to keep you quiet.' But +the hand-workers are not so ill off as all this comes to. The worst that +can happen to <i>you</i> is to break stones; not be broken by them. And for +you there will come a time for better payment; some day, assuredly, more +pence will be paid to Peter the Fisherman, and fewer to Peter the Pope; +we shall pay people not quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> so much for talking in Parliament and +doing nothing, as for holding their tongues out of it and doing +something; we shall pay our ploughman a little more and our lawyer a +little less, and so on: but, at least, we may even now take care that +whatever work is done shall be fully paid for; and the man who does it +paid for it, not somebody else; and that it shall be done in an orderly, +soldierly, well-guided, wholesome way, under good captains and +lieutenants of labour; and that it shall have its appointed times of +rest, and enough of them; and that in those times the play shall be +wholesome play, not in theatrical gardens, with tin flowers and gas +sunshine, and girls dancing because of their misery; but in true +gardens, with real flowers, and real sunshine, and children dancing +because of their gladness; so that truly the streets shall be full (the +'streets,' mind you, not the gutters) of children, playing in the midst +thereof. We may take care that working-men shall have at least as good +books to read as anybody else, when they've time to read them; and as +comfortable fire-sides to sit at as anybody else, when they've time to +sit at them. This, I think, can be managed for you, my working friends, +in the good time.</p> + +<p>IV. I must go on, however, to our last head, concerning ourselves all, +as workers. What is wise work, and what is foolish work? What the +difference between sense and nonsense, in daily occupation?</p> + +<p>Well, wise work is, briefly, work <i>with</i> God. Foolish work is work +<i>against</i> God. And work done with God, which He will help, may be +briefly described as 'Putting in Order'—that is, enforcing God's law of +order, spiritual and material, over men and things. The first thing you +have to do, essentially; the real 'good work' is, with respect to men, +to enforce justice, and with respect to things, to enforce tidiness, and +fruitfulness. And against these two great human deeds, justice and +order, there are perpetually two great demons contending,—the devil of +iniquity, or inequity, and the devil of disorder, or of death; for death +is only consummation of disorder. You have to fight these two fiends +daily. So far as you don't fight against the fiend of iniquity, you work +for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> him. You 'work iniquity,' and the judgment upon you, for all your +'Lord, Lord's,' will be 'Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' And so +far as you do not resist the fiend of disorder, you work disorder, and +you yourself do the work of Death, which is sin, and has for its wages, +Death himself.</p> + +<p>Observe then, all wise work is mainly threefold in character. It is +honest, useful, and cheerful.</p> + + +<p>I. It is <span class="smcap">honest</span>. I hardly know anything more strange than that you +recognise honesty in play, and you do not in work. In your lightest +games, you have always some one to see what you call 'fair-play.' In +boxing, you must hit fair; in racing, start fair. Your English watchword +is fair-play, your English hatred, foul-play. Did it ever strike you +that you wanted another watchword also, fair-work, and another hatred +also, foul-work? Your prize-fighter has some honour in him yet; and so +have the men in the ring round him: they will judge him to lose the +match, by foul hitting. But your prize-merchant gains his match by foul +selling, and no one cries out against that. You drive a gambler out of +the gambling-room who loads dice, but you leave a tradesman in +flourishing business, who loads scales! For observe, all dishonest +dealing <i>is</i> loading scales. What does it matter whether I get short +weight, adulterate substance, or dishonest fabric? The fault in the +fabric is incomparably the worst of the two. Give me short measure of +food, and I only lose by you; but give me adulterate food, and I die by +you. Here, then, is your chief duty, you workmen and tradesmen—to be +true to yourselves, and to us who would help you. We can do nothing for +you, nor you for yourselves, without honesty. Get that, you get all; +without that, your suffrages, your reforms, your free-trade measures, +your institutions of science, are all in vain. It is useless to put your +heads together, if you can't put your hearts together. Shoulder to +shoulder, right hand to right hand, among yourselves, and no wrong hand +to anybody else, and you'll win the world yet.</p> + + +<p>II. Then, secondly, wise work is <span class="smcap">useful</span>. No man minds, or ought to mind, +its being hard, if only it comes to something; but when it is hard, and +comes to nothing; when all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> our bees' business turns to spiders'; and +for honeycomb we have only resultant cobweb, blown away by the next +breeze—that is the cruel thing for the worker. Yet do we ever ask +ourselves, personally, or even nationally, whether our work is coming to +anything or not? We don't care to keep what has been nobly done; still +less do we care to do nobly what others would keep; and, least of all, +to make the work itself useful instead of deadly to the doer, so as to +use his life indeed, but not to waste it. Of all wastes, the greatest +waste that you can commit is the waste of labour. If you went down in +the morning into your dairy, and you found that your youngest child had +got down before you; and that he and the cat were at play together, and +that he had poured out all the cream on the floor for the cat to lap up, +you would scold the child, and be sorry the milk was wasted. But if, +instead of wooden bowls with milk in them, there are golden bowls with +human life in them, and instead of the cat to play with—the devil to +play with; and you yourself the player; and instead of leaving that +golden bowl to be broken by God at the fountain, you break it in the +dust yourself, and pour the human blood out on the ground for the fiend +to lick up—that is no waste! What! you perhaps think, 'to waste the +labour of men is not to kill them.' Is it not? I should like to know how +you could kill them more utterly—kill them with second deaths, seventh +deaths, hundredfold deaths? It is the slightest way of killing to stop a +man's breath. Nay, the hunger, and the cold, and the little whistling +bullets—our love-messengers between nation and nation—have brought +pleasant messages from us to many a man before now; orders of sweet +release, and leave at last to go where he will be most welcome and most +happy. At the worst you do but shorten his life, you do not corrupt his +life. But if you put him to base labour, if you bind his thoughts, if +you blind his eyes, if you blunt his hopes, if you steal his joys, if +you stunt his body, and blast his soul, and at last leave him not so +much as to reap the poor fruit of his degradation, but gather that for +yourself, and dismiss him to the grave, when you have done with him, +having, so far as in you lay, made the walls of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> grave everlasting +(though, indeed, I fancy the goodly bricks of some of our family vaults +will hold closer in the resurrection day than the sod over the +labourer's head), this you think is no waste, and no sin!</p> + + +<p>III. Then, lastly, wise work is <span class="smcap">cheerful</span>, as a child's work is. And now +I want you to take one thought home with you, and let it stay with you.</p> + +<p>Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily, 'Thy kingdom +come.' Now, if we hear a man swear in the streets, we think it very +wrong, and say he 'takes God's name in vain.' But there's a twenty times +worse way of taking His name in vain, than that. It is to <i>ask God for +what we don't want</i>. He doesn't like that sort of prayer. If you don't +want a thing, don't ask for it: such asking is the worst mockery of your +King you can mock Him with; the soldiers striking Him on the head with +the reed was nothing to that. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't +pray for it. But if you do, you must do more than pray for it; you must +work for it. And, to work for it, you must know what it is: we have all +prayed for it many a day without thinking. Observe, it is a kingdom that +is to come to us; we are not to go to it. Also, it is not to be a +kingdom of the dead, but of the living. Also, it is not to come all at +once, but quietly; nobody knows how. 'The kingdom of God cometh not with +observation.' Also, it is not to come outside of us, but in the hearts +of us: 'the kingdom of God is within you.' And, being within us, it is +not a thing to be seen, but to be felt; and though it brings all +substance of good with it, it does not consist in that: 'the kingdom of +God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy +Ghost:' joy, that is to say, in the holy, healthful, and helpful Spirit. +Now, if we want to work for this kingdom, and to bring it, and enter +into it, there's just one condition to be first accepted. You must enter +it as children, or not at all; 'Whosoever will not receive it as a +little child shall not enter therein.' And again, 'Suffer little +children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the +kingdom of heaven.'</p> + +<p><i>Of such</i>, observe. Not of children themselves, but of such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> as +children. I believe most mothers who read that text think that all +heaven is to be full of babies. But that's not so. There will be +children there, but the hoary head is the crown. 'Length of days, and +long life and peace,' that is the blessing, not to die in babyhood. +Children die but for their parents sins; God means them to live, but He +can't let them always; then they have their earlier place in heaven: and +the little child of David, vainly prayed for;—the little child of +Jeroboam, killed by its mother's step on its own threshold,—they will +be there. But weary old David, and weary old Barzillai, having learned +children's lessons at last, will be there too: and the one question for +us all, young or old, is, have we learned our child's lesson? it is the +<i>character</i> of children we want, and must gain at our peril; let us see, +briefly, in what it consists.</p> + +<p>The first character of right childhood is that it is Modest. A well-bred +child does not think it can teach its parents, or that it knows +everything. It may think its father and mother know everything,—perhaps +that all grown-up people know everything; very certainly it is sure that +<i>it</i> does not. And it is always asking questions, and wanting to know +more. Well, that is the first character of a good and wise man at his +work. To know that he knows very little;—to perceive that there are +many above him wiser than he; and to be always asking questions, wanting +to learn, not to teach. No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or +governs well who wants to govern; it is an old saying (Plato's, but I +know not if his, first), and as wise as old.</p> + +<p>Then, the second character of right childhood is to be Faithful. +Perceiving that its father knows best what is good for it, and having +found always, when it has tried its own way against his, that he was +right and it was wrong, a noble child trusts him at last wholly, gives +him its hand, and will walk blindfold with him, if he bids it. And that +is the true character of all good men also, as obedient workers, or +soldiers under captains. They must trust their captains;—they are bound +for their lives to choose none but those whom they <i>can</i> trust. Then, +they are not always to be thinking that what seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> strange to them, or +wrong in what they are desired to do, <i>is</i> strange or wrong. They know +their captain: where he leads they must follow, what he bids, they must +do; and without this trust and faith, without this captainship and +soldiership, no great deed, no great salvation, is possible to man. +Among all the nations it is only when this faith is attained by them +that they become great: the Jew, the Greek, and the Mahometan, agree at +least in testifying to this. It was a deed of this absolute trust which +made Abraham the father of the faithful; it was the declaration of the +power of God as captain over all men, and the acceptance of a leader +appointed by Him as commander of the faithful, which laid the foundation +of whatever national power yet exists in the East; and the deed of the +Greeks, which has become the type of unselfish and noble soldiership to +all lands, and to all times, was commemorated, on the tomb of those who +gave their lives to do it, in the most pathetic, so far as I know, or +can feel, of all human utterances: 'Oh, stranger, go and tell our people +that we are lying here, having <i>obeyed</i> their words.'</p> + +<p>Then the third character of right childhood is to be Loving and +Generous. Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back. +It loves everything near it, when it is a right kind of child—would +hurt nothing, would give the best it has away, always, if you need +it—does not lay plans for getting everything in the house for itself, +and delights in helping people; you cannot please it so much as by +giving it a chance of being useful, in ever so little a way.</p> + +<p>And because of all these characters, lastly, it is Cheerful. Putting its +trust in its father, it is careful for nothing—being full of love to +every creature, it is happy always, whether in its play or in its duty. +Well, that's the great worker's character also. Taking no thought for +the morrow; taking thought only for the duty of the day; trusting +somebody else to take care of to-morrow; knowing indeed what labour is, +but not what sorrow is; and always ready for play—beautiful play,—for +lovely human play is like the play of the Sun. There's a worker for you. +He, steady to his time, is set as a strong man to run his course, but +also, he <i>rejoiceth</i> as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> strong man to run his course. See how he +plays in the morning, with the mists below, and the clouds above, with a +ray here and a flash there, and a shower of jewels everywhere; that's +the Sun's play; and great human play is like his—all various—all full +of light and life, and tender, as the dew of the morning.</p> + +<p>So then, you have the child's character in these four things—Humility, +Faith, Charity, and Cheerfulness. That's what you have got to be +converted to. 'Except ye be converted and become as little +children'—You hear much of conversion now-a-days; but people always +seem to think they have got to be made wretched by conversion,—to be +converted to long faces. No, friends, you have got to be converted to +short ones; you have to repent into childhood, to repent into delight, +and delightsomeness. You can't go into a conventicle but you'll hear +plenty of talk of backsliding. Backsliding, indeed! I can tell you, on +the ways most of us go, the faster we slide back the better. Slide back +into the cradle, if going on is into the grave—back, I tell you; +back—out of your long faces, and into your long clothes. It is among +children only, and as children only, that you will find medicine for +your healing and true wisdom for your teaching. There is poison in the +counsels of the <i>men</i> of this world; the words they speak are all +bitterness, 'the poison of asps is under their lips,' but, 'the sucking +child shall play by the hole of the asp.' There is death in the looks of +men. 'Their eyes are privily set against the poor;' they are as the +uncharmable serpent, the cockatrice, which slew by seeing. But 'the +weaned child shall lay his hand on the cockatrice den.' There is death +in the steps of men: 'their feet are swift to shed blood; they have +compassed us in our steps like the lion that is greedy of his prey, and +the young lion lurking in secret places,' but, in that kingdom, the wolf +shall lie down with the lamb, and the fatling with the lion, and 'a +little child shall lead them.' There is death in the thoughts of men: +the world is one wide riddle to them, darker and darker as it draws to a +close; but the secret of it is known to the child, and the Lord of +heaven and earth is most to be thanked in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> that 'He has hidden these +things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.' +Yes, and there is death—infinitude of death in the principalities and +powers of men. As far as the east is from the west, so far our sins +are—<i>not</i> set from us, but multiplied around us: the Sun himself, think +you he <i>now</i> 'rejoices' to run his course, when he plunges westward to +the horizon, so widely red, not with clouds, but blood? And it will be +red more widely yet. Whatever drought of the early and latter rain may +be, there will be none of that red rain. You fortify yourselves, you arm +yourselves against it in vain; the enemy and avenger will be upon you +also, unless you learn that it is not out of the mouths of the knitted +gun, or the smoothed rifle, but 'out of the mouths of babes and +sucklings' that the strength is ordained which shall 'still the enemy +and avenger.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE II.</h2> + +<h3><i>TRAFFIC.</i></h3> + +<h4>(<i>Delivered in the Town Hall, Bradford.</i>)</h4> + + +<p>My good Yorkshire friends, you asked me down here among your hills that +I might talk to you about this Exchange you are going to build: but +earnestly and seriously asking you to pardon me, I am going to do +nothing of the kind. I cannot talk, or at least can say very little, +about this same Exchange. I must talk of quite other things, though not +willingly;—I could not deserve your pardon, if when you invited me to +speak on one subject, I wilfully spoke on another. But I cannot speak, +to purpose, of anything about which I do not care; and most simply and +sorrowfully I have to tell you, in the outset, that I do <i>not</i> care +about this Exchange of yours.</p> + +<p>If, however, when you sent me your invitation, I had answered, 'I won't +come, I don't care about the Exchange of Bradford,' you would have been +justly offended with me, not knowing the reasons of so blunt a +carelessness. So I have come down, hoping that you will patiently let me +tell you why, on this, and many other such occasions, I now remain +silent, when formerly I should have caught at the opportunity of +speaking to a gracious audience.</p> + +<p>In a word, then, I do not care about this Exchange,—because <i>you</i> +don't; and because you know perfectly well I cannot make you. Look at +the essential circumstances of the case, which you, as business men, +know perfectly well, though perhaps you think I forget them. You are +going to spend 30,000<i>l.</i>, which to you, collectively, is nothing; the +buying a new coat is, as to the cost of it, a much more important matter +of consideration to me than building a new Exchange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> is to you. But you +think you may as well have the right thing for your money. You know +there are a great many odd styles of architecture about; you don't want +to do anything ridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as a +respectable architectural man-milliner: and you send for me, that I may +tell you the leading fashion; and what is, in our shops, for the moment, +the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles.</p> + +<p>Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good +architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good +architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is +produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty. +And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word +'taste;' for no statement of mine has been more earnestly or oftener +controverted than that good taste is essentially a moral quality. 'No,' +say many of my antagonists, 'taste is one thing, morality is another. +Tell us what is pretty; we shall be glad to know that; but preach no +sermons to us.'</p> + +<p>Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Taste +is not only a part and an index of morality—it is the <span class="smcap">only</span> morality. +The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature +is, 'What do you like?' Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what +you are. Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you +meet, what their 'taste' is, and if they answer candidly, you know them, +body and soul. 'You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what +do <i>you</i> like?' 'A pipe and a quartern of gin.' I know you. 'You, good +woman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?' 'A swept +hearth and a clean tea-table, and my husband opposite me, and a baby at +my breast.' Good, I know you also. 'You, little girl with the golden +hair and the soft eyes, what do you like?' 'My canary, and a run among +the wood hyacinths.' 'You, little boy with the dirty hands and the low +forehead, what do you like?' 'A shy at the sparrows, and a game at +pitch-farthing.' Good; we know them all now. What more need we ask?</p> + +<p>'Nay,' perhaps you answer: 'we need rather to ask what these people and +children do, than what they like. If they <i>do</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> right, it is no matter +that they like what is wrong; and if they <i>do</i> wrong, it is no matter +that they like what is right. Doing is the great thing; and it does not +matter that the man likes drinking, so that he does not drink; nor that +the little girl likes to be kind to her canary, if she will not learn +her lessons; nor that the little boy likes throwing stones at the +sparrows, if he goes to the Sunday school.' Indeed, for a short time, +and in a provisional sense, this is true. For if, resolutely, people do +what is right, in time they come to like doing it. But they only are in +a right moral state when they <i>have</i> come to like doing it; and as long +as they don't like it, they are still in a vicious state. The man is not +in health of body who is always thirsting for the bottle in the +cupboard, though he bravely bears his thirst; but the man who heartily +enjoys water in the morning and wine in the evening, each in its proper +quantity and time. And the entire object of true education is to make +people not merely <i>do</i> the right things, but <i>enjoy</i> the right +things—not merely industrious, but to love industry—not merely +learned, but to love knowledge—not merely pure, but to love purity—not +merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.</p> + +<p>But you may answer or think, 'Is the liking for outside ornaments,—for +pictures, or statues, or furniture, or architecture,—a moral quality?' +Yes, most surely, if a rightly set liking. Taste for <i>any</i> pictures or +statues is not a moral quality, but taste for good ones is. Only here +again we have to define the word 'good.' I don't mean by 'good,' +clever—or learned—or difficult in the doing. Take a picture by +Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice: it is an entirely clever +picture; so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to +it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an +expression of delight in the prolonged contemplation of a vile thing, +and delight in that is an 'unmannered,' or 'immoral' quality. It is 'bad +taste' in the profoundest sense—it is the taste of the devils. On the +other hand, a picture of Titian's, or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin, +or a Turner landscape, expresses delight in the perpetual contemplation +of a good and perfect thing. That is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> an entirely moral quality—it is +the taste of the angels. And all delight in art, and all love of it, +resolve themselves into simple love of that which deserves love. That +deserving is the quality which we call 'loveliness'—(we ought to have +an opposite word, hateliness, to be said of the things which deserve to +be hated); and it is not an indifferent nor optional thing whether we +love this or that; but it is just the vital function of all our being. +What we <i>like</i> determines what we <i>are</i>, and is the sign of what we are; +and to teach taste is inevitably to form character. As I was thinking +over this, in walking up Fleet Street the other day, my eye caught the +title of a book standing open in a bookseller's window. It was—'On the +necessity of the diffusion of taste among all classes.' 'Ah,' I thought +to myself, 'my classifying friend, when you have diffused your taste, +where will your classes be? The man who likes what you like, belongs to +the same class with you, I think. Inevitably so. You may put him to +other work if you choose; but, by the condition you have brought him +into, he will dislike the other work as much as you would yourself. You +get hold of a scavenger, or a costermonger, who enjoyed the Newgate +Calendar for literature, and "Pop goes the Weasel" for music. You think +you can make him like Dante and Beethoven? I wish you joy of your +lessons; but if you do, you have made a gentleman of him:—he won't like +to go back to his costermongering.'</p> + +<p>And so completely and unexceptionally is this so, that, if I had time +to-night, I could show you that a nation cannot be affected by any vice, +or weakness, without expressing it, legibly, and for ever, either in bad +art, or by want of art; and that there is no national virtue, small or +great, which is not manifestly expressed in all the art which +circumstances enable the people possessing that virtue to produce. Take, +for instance, your great English virtue of enduring and patient courage. +You have at present in England only one art of any consequence—that is, +iron-working. You know thoroughly well how to cast and hammer iron. Now, +do you think in those masses of lava which you build volcanic cones to +melt, and which you forge at the mouths of the Infernos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> you have +created; do you think, on those iron plates, your courage and endurance +are not written for ever—not merely with an iron pen, but on iron +parchment? And take also your great English vice—European vice—vice of +all the world—vice of all other worlds that roll or shine in heaven, +bearing with them yet the atmosphere of hell—the vice of jealousy, +which brings competition into your commerce, treachery into your +councils, and dishonour into your wars—that vice which has rendered for +you, and for your next neighbouring nation, the daily occupations of +existence no longer possible, but with the mail upon your breasts and +the sword loose in its sheath; so that, at last, you have realised for +all the multitudes of the two great peoples who lead the so-called +civilisation of the earth,—you have realised for them all, I say, in +person and in policy, what was once true only of the rough Border riders +of your Cheviot hills—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">'They carved at the meal<br /></span> +<span class="i15">With gloves of steel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd;—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>do you think that this national shame and dastardliness of heart are not +written as legibly on every rivet of your iron armour as the strength of +the right hands that forged it? Friends, I know not whether this thing +be the more ludicrous or the more melancholy. It is quite unspeakably +both. Suppose, instead of being now sent for by you, I had been sent for +by some private gentleman, living in a suburban house, with his garden +separated only by a fruit-wall from his next door neighbour's; and he +had called me to consult with him on the furnishing of his drawing room. +I begin looking about me, and find the walls rather bare; I think such +and such a paper might be desirable—perhaps a little fresco here and +there on the ceiling—a damask curtain or so at the windows. 'Ah,' says +my employer, 'damask curtains, indeed! That's all very fine, but you +know I can't afford that kind of thing just now!' 'Yet the world credits +you with a splendid income!' 'Ah, yes,' says my friend, 'but do you +know, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> present, I am obliged to spend it nearly all in steel-traps?' +'Steel-traps! for whom?' 'Why, for that fellow on the other side the +wall, you know: we're very good friends, capital friends; but we are +obliged to keep our traps set on both sides of the wall; we could not +possibly keep on friendly terms without them, and our spring guns. The +worst of it is, we are both clever fellows enough; and there's never a +day passes that we don't find out a new trap, or a new gun-barrel, or +something; we spend about fifteen millions a year each in our traps, +take it all together; and I don't see how we're to do with less.' A +highly comic state of life for two private gentlemen! but for two +nations, it seems to me, not wholly comic? Bedlam would be comic, +perhaps, if there were only one madman in it; and your Christmas +pantomime is comic, when there is only one clown in it; but when the +whole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own heart's +blood instead of vermilion, it is something else than comic, I think.</p> + +<p>Mind, I know a great deal of this is play, and willingly allow for that. +You don't know what to do with yourselves for a sensation: fox-hunting +and cricketing will not carry you through the whole of this unendurably +long mortal life: you liked pop-guns when you were schoolboys, and +rifles and Armstrongs are only the same things better made: but then the +worst of it is, that what was play to you when boys, was not play to the +sparrows; and what is play to you now, is not play to the small birds of +State neither; and for the black eagles, you are somewhat shy of taking +shots at them, if I mistake not.</p> + +<p>I must get back to the matter in hand, however. Believe me, without +farther instance, I could show you, in all time, that every nation's +vice, or virtue, was written in its art: the soldiership of early +Greece; the sensuality of late Italy; the visionary religion of Tuscany; +the splendid human energy and beauty of Venice. I have no time to do +this to-night (I have done it elsewhere before now); but I proceed to +apply the principle to ourselves in a more searching manner.</p> + +<p>I notice that among all the new buildings that cover your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> once wild +hills, churches and schools are mixed in due, that is to say, in large +proportion, with your mills and mansions and I notice also that the +churches and schools are almost always Gothic, and the mansions and +mills are never Gothic. Will you allow me to ask precisely the meaning +of this? For, remember, it is peculiarly a modern phenomenon. When +Gothic was invented, houses were Gothic as well as churches; and when +the Italian style superseded the Gothic, churches were Italian as well +as houses. If there is a Gothic spire to the cathedral of Antwerp, there +is a Gothic belfry to the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels; if Inigo Jones +builds an Italian Whitehall, Sir Christopher Wren builds an Italian St. +Paul's. But now you live under one school of architecture, and worship +under another. What do you mean by doing this? Am I to understand that +you are thinking of changing your architecture back to Gothic; and that +you treat your churches experimentally, because it does not matter what +mistakes you make in a church? Or am I to understand that you consider +Gothic a pre-eminently sacred and beautiful mode of building, which you +think, like the fine frankincense, should be mixed for the tabernacle +only, and reserved for your religious services? For if this be the +feeling, though it may seem at first as if it were graceful and +reverent, you will find that, at the root of the matter, it signifies +neither more nor less than that you have separated your religion from +your life.</p> + +<p>For consider what a wide significance this fact has; and remember that +it is not you only, but all the people of England, who are behaving thus +just now.</p> + +<p>You have all got into the habit of calling the church 'the house of +God.' I have seen, over the doors of many churches, the legend actually +carved, '<i>This</i> is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.' +Now, note where that legend comes from, and of what place it was first +spoken. A boy leaves his father's house to go on a long journey on foot, +to visit his uncle; he has to cross a wild hill-desert; just as if one +of your own boys had to cross the wolds of Westmoreland, to visit an +uncle at Carlisle. The second or third day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> your boy finds himself +somewhere between Hawes and Brough, in the midst of the moors, at +sunset. It is stony ground, and boggy; he cannot go one foot farther +that night. Down he lies, to sleep, on Wharnside, where best he may, +gathering a few of the stones together to put under his head;—so wild +the place is, he cannot get anything but stones. And there, lying under +the broad night, he has a dream; and he sees a ladder set up on the +earth, and the top of it reaches to heaven, and the angels of God are +ascending and descending upon it. And when he wakes out of his sleep, he +says, 'How dreadful is this place; surely, this is none other than the +house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.' This <span class="smcap">place</span>, observe; not +this church; not this city; not this stone, even, which he puts up for a +memorial—the piece of flint on which his head has lain. But this +<i>place</i>; this windy slope of Wharnside; this moorland hollow, +torrent-bitten, snow-blighted; this <i>any</i> place where God lets down the +ladder. And how are you to know where that will be? or how are you to +determine where it may be, but by being ready for it always? Do you know +where the lightning is to fall next? You <i>do</i> know that, partly; you can +guide the lightning; but you cannot guide the going forth of the Spirit, +which is that lightning when it shines from the east to the west.</p> + +<p>But the perpetual and insolent warping of that strong verse to serve a +merely ecclesiastical purpose, is only one of the thousand instances in +which we sink back into gross Judaism. We call our churches 'temples.' +Now, you know, or ought to know, they are <i>not</i> temples. They have never +had, never can have, anything whatever to do with temples. They are +'synagogues'—'gathering places'—where you gather yourselves together +as an assembly; and by not calling them so, you again miss the force of +another mighty text—'Thou, when thou prayest, shalt not be as the +hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the <i>churches</i>' [we +should translate it], 'that they may be seen of men. But thou, when thou +prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray +to thy Father,'—which is, not in chancel nor in aisle, but 'in +secret.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, you feel, as I say this to you—I know you feel—as if I were +trying to take away the honour of your churches. Not so; I am trying to +prove to you the honour of your houses and your hills; I am trying to +show you—not that the Church is not sacred—but that the whole Earth +is. I would have you feel, what careless, what constant, what infectious +sin there is in all modes of thought, whereby, in calling your churches +only 'holy,' you call your hearths and homes profane; and have separated +yourselves from the heathen by casting all your household gods to the +ground, instead of recognising, in the place of their many and feeble +Lares, the presence of your One and Mighty Lord and Lar.</p> + + +<p>'But what has all this to do with our Exchange?' you ask me, +impatiently. My dear friends, it has just everything to do with it; on +these inner and great questions depend all the outer and little ones; +and if you have asked me down here to speak to you, because you had +before been interested in anything I have written, you must know that +all I have yet said about architecture was to show this. The book I +called 'The Seven Lamps' was to show that certain right states of temper +and moral feeling were the magic powers by which all good architecture, +without exception, had been produced. 'The Stones of Venice,' had, from +beginning to end, no other aim than to show that the Gothic architecture +of Venice had arisen out of, and indicated in all its features, a state +of pure national faith, and of domestic virtue; and that its Renaissance +architecture had arisen out of, and in all its features indicated, a +state of concealed national infidelity, and of domestic corruption. And +now, you ask me what style is best to build in; and how can I answer, +knowing the meaning of the two styles, but by another question—do you +mean to build as Christians or as Infidels? And still more—do you mean +to build as honest Christians or as honest Infidels? as thoroughly and +confessedly either one or the other? You don't like to be asked such +rude questions. I cannot help it; they are of much more importance than +this Exchange business; and if they can be at once answered, the +Exchange business settles itself in a moment. But, before I press them +farther,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> I must ask leave to explain one point clearly. In all my past +work, my endeavour has been to show that good architecture is +essentially religious—the production of a faithful and virtuous, not of +an infidel and corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I have +had also to show that good architecture is not <i>ecclesiastical</i>. People +are so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clergy, not +their own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on +'religion,' they think it must also have depended on the priesthood; and +I have had to take what place was to be occupied between these two +errors, and fight both, often with seeming contradiction. Good +architecture is the work of good and believing men; therefore, you say, +at least some people say, 'Good architecture must essentially have been +the work of the clergy, not of the laity.' No—a thousand times no; good +architecture has always been the work of the commonalty, <i>not</i> of the +clergy. What, you say, those glorious cathedrals—the pride of +Europe—did their builders not form Gothic architecture? No; they +corrupted Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the baron's castle, +and the burgher's street. It was formed by the thoughts, and hands, and +powers of free citizens and soldier kings. By the monk it was used as an +instrument for the aid of his superstition; when that superstition +became a beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed +and pined in the cloister, and vainly raged and perished in the +crusade—through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the Gothic +rose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most foolish +dreams; and, in those dreams, was lost.</p> + +<p>I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunderstanding me when I +come to the gist of what I want to say to-night—when I repeat, that +every great national architecture has been the result and exponent of a +great national religion. You can't have bits of it here, bits there—you +must have it everywhere, or nowhere. It is not the monopoly of a +clerical company—it is not the exponent of a theological dogma—it is +not the hieroglyphic writing of an initiated priesthood; it is the manly +language of a people inspired by resolute and common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> purpose, and +rendering resolute and common fidelity to the legible laws of an +undoubted God.</p> + +<p>Now, there have as yet been three distinct schools of European +architecture. I say, European, because Asiatic and African architectures +belong so entirely to other races and climates, that there is no +question of them here; only, in passing, I will simply assure you that +whatever is good or great in Egypt, and Syria, and India, is just good +or great for the same reasons as the buildings on our side of the +Bosphorus. We Europeans, then, have had three great religions: the +Greek, which was the worship of the God of Wisdom and Power; the +Mediæval, which was the Worship of the God of Judgment and Consolation; +the Renaissance, which was the worship of the God of Pride and Beauty; +these three we have had—they are past,—and now, at last, we English +have got a fourth religion, and a God of our own, about which I want to +ask you. But I must explain these three old ones first.</p> + +<p>I repeat, first, the Greeks essentially worshipped the God of Wisdom; so +that whatever contended against their religion,—to the Jews a stumbling +block,—was, to the Greeks—<i>Foolishness</i>.</p> + +<p>The first Greek idea of Deity was that expressed in the word, of which +we keep the remnant in our words '<i>Di</i>-urnal' and '<i>Di</i>-vine'—the god +of <i>Day</i>, Jupiter the revealer. Athena is his daughter, but especially +daughter of the Intellect, springing armed from the head. We are only +with the help of recent investigation beginning to penetrate the depth +of meaning couched under the Athenaic symbols: but I may note rapidly, +that her ægis, the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often, +in the best statues, is represented as folding up her left hand for +better guard, and the Gorgon on her shield, are both representative +mainly of the chilling horror and sadness (turning men to stone, as it +were,) of the outmost and superficial spheres of knowledge—that +knowledge which separates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, the +heart of the full-grown man from the heart of the child. For out of +imperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> danger, and disdain; but +from perfect knowledge, given by the full-revealed Athena, strength and +peace, in sign of which she is crowned with the olive spray, and bears +the resistless spear.</p> + +<p>This, then, was the Greek conception of purest Deity, and every habit of +life, and every form of his art developed themselves from the seeking +this bright, serene, resistless wisdom; and setting himself, as a man, +to do things evermore rightly and strongly;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> not with any ardent +affection or ultimate hope; but with a resolute and continent energy of +will, as knowing that for failure there was no consolation, and for sin +there was no remission. And the Greek architecture rose unerring, +bright, clearly defined, and self-contained.</p> + +<p>Next followed in Europe the great Christian faith, which was essentially +the religion of Comfort. Its great doctrine is the remission of sins; +for which cause it happens, too often, in certain phases of +Christianity, that sin and sickness themselves are partly glorified, as +if, the more you had to be healed of, the more divine was the healing. +The practical result of this doctrine, in art, is a continual +contemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of +purification from them; thus we have an architecture conceived in a +mingled sentiment of melancholy and aspiration, partly severe, partly +luxuriant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs, and every +one of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are strong or +weak ourselves. It is, of all architecture, the basest, when base people +build it—of all, the noblest, when built by the noble.</p> + +<p>And now note that both these religions—Greek and Mediæval—perished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> by +falsehood in their own main purpose. The Greek religion of Wisdom +perished in a false philosophy—'Oppositions of science, falsely so +called.' The Mediæval religion of Consolation perished in false comfort; +in remission of sins given lyingly. It was the selling of absolution +that ended the Mediæval faith; and I can tell you more, it is the +selling of absolution which, to the end of time, will mark false +Christianity. Pure Christianity gives her remission of sins only by +<i>ending</i> them; but false Christianity gets her remission of sins by +<i>compounding for</i> them. And there are many ways of compounding for them. +We English have beautiful little quiet ways of buying absolution, +whether in low Church or high, far more cunning than any of Tetzel's +trading.</p> + +<p>Then, thirdly, there followed the religion of Pleasure, in which all +Europe gave itself to luxury, ending in death. First, <i>bals masqués</i> in +every saloon, and then guillotines in every square. And all these three +worships issue in vast temple building. Your Greek worshipped Wisdom, +and built you the Parthenon—the Virgin's temple. The Mediæval +worshipped Consolation, and built you Virgin temples also—but to our +Lady of Salvation. Then the Revivalist worshipped beauty, of a sort, and +built you Versailles, and the Vatican. Now, lastly, will you tell me +what <i>we</i> worship, and what <i>we</i> build?</p> + +<p>You know we are speaking always of the real, active, continual, national +worship; that by which men act while they live; not that which they talk +of when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which we +pay tithes of property, and sevenths of time; but we have also a +practical and earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of our +property and six-sevenths of our time. And we dispute a great deal about +the nominal religion; but we are all unanimous about this practical one, +of which I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be best +generally described as the 'Goddess of Getting-on,' or 'Britannia of the +Market.' The Athenians had an 'Athena Agoraia,' or Minerva of the +Market: but she was a subordinate type of their goddess,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> while our +Britannia Agoraia is the principal type of ours. And all your great +architectural works, are, of course, built to her. It is long since you +built a great cathedral; and how you would laugh at me, if I proposed +building a cathedral on the top of one of these hills of yours, taking +it for an Acropolis! But your railroad mounds, prolonged masses of +Acropolis; your railroad stations, vaster than the Parthenon, and +innumerable; your chimneys, how much more mighty and costly than +cathedral spires! your harbour-piers; your warehouses; your +exchanges!—all these are built to your great Goddess of 'Getting-on;' +and she has formed, and will continue to form, your architecture, as +long as you worship her; and it is quite vain to ask me to tell you how +to build to <i>her</i>; you know far better than I.</p> + +<p>There might indeed, on some theories, be a conceivably good architecture +for Exchanges—that is to say if there were any heroism in the fact or +deed of exchange, which might be typically carved on the outside of your +building. For, you know, all beautiful architecture must be adorned with +sculpture or painting; and for sculpture or painting, you must have a +subject. And hitherto it has been a received opinion among the nations +of the world that the only right subjects for either, were <i>heroisms</i> of +some sort. Even on his pots and his flagons, the Greek put a Hercules +slaying lions, or an Apollo slaying serpents, or Bacchus slaying +melancholy giants, and earth-born despondencies. On his temples, the +Greek put contests of great warriors in founding states, or of gods with +evil spirits. On his houses and temples alike, the Christian put +carvings of angels conquering devils; or of hero-martyrs exchanging this +world for another; subject inappropriate, I think, to our manner of +exchange here. And the Master of Christians not only left his followers +without any orders as to the sculpture of affairs of exchange on the +outside of buildings, but gave some strong evidence of his dislike of +affairs of exchange within them. And yet there might surely be a heroism +in such affairs; and all commerce become a kind of selling of doves, not +impious. The wonder has always been great to me, that heroism has never +been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> supposed to be in anywise consistent with the practice of +supplying people with food, or clothes; but rather with that of +quartering oneself upon them for food, and stripping them of their +clothes. Spoiling of armour is an heroic deed in all ages; but the +selling of clothes, old, or new, has never taken any colour of +magnanimity. Yet one does not see why feeding the hungry and clothing +the naked should ever become base businesses, even when engaged in on a +large scale. If one could contrive to attach the notion of conquest to +them anyhow? so that, supposing there were anywhere an obstinate race, +who refused to be comforted, one might take some pride in giving them +compulsory comfort; and as it were, 'occupying a country' with one's +gifts, instead of one's armies? If one could only consider it as much a +victory to get a barren field sown, as to get an eared field stripped; +and contend who should build villages, instead of who should 'carry' +them. Are not all forms of heroism, conceivable in doing these +serviceable deeds? You doubt who is strongest? It might be ascertained +by push of spade, as well as push of sword. Who is wisest? There are +witty things to be thought of in planning other business than campaigns. +Who is bravest? There are always the elements to fight with, stronger +than men; and nearly as merciless. The only absolutely and +unapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be—that he +is paid little for it—and regularly: while you traffickers, and +exchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevolent business, like +to be paid much for it—and by chance. I never can make out how it is +that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a +pedlar-errant always does;—that people are willing to take hard knocks +for nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap;—that they are ready to go +on fervent crusades to recover the tomb of a buried God, never on any +travels to fulfil the orders of a living God;—that they will go +anywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be well bribed to +practise it, and are perfectly ready to give the Gospel gratis, but +never the loaves and fishes. If you chose to take the matter up on any +such soldierly principle, to do your commerce, and your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> feeding of +nations, for fixed salaries; and to be as particular about giving people +the best food, and the best cloth, as soldiers are about giving them the +best gunpowder, I could carve something for you on your exchange worth +looking at. But I can only at present suggest decorating its frieze with +pendant purses; and making its pillars broad at the base for the +sticking of bills. And in the innermost chambers of it there might be a +statue of Britannia of the Market, who may have, perhaps advisably, a +partridge for her crest, typical at once of her courage in fighting for +noble ideas; and of her interest in game; and round its neck the +inscription in golden letters, 'Perdix fovit quæ non peperit.'<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Then, +for her spear, she might have a weaver's beam; and on her shield, +instead of her Cross, the Milanese boar, semi-fleeced, with the town of +Gennesaret proper, in the field and the legend 'In the best market,' and +her corslet, of leather, folded over her heart in the shape of a purse, +with thirty slits in it for a piece of money to go in at, on each day of +the month. And I doubt not but that people would come to see your +exchange, and its goddess, with applause.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, I want to point out to you certain strange characters in +this goddess of yours. She differs from the great Greek and Mediæval +deities essentially in two things—first, as to the continuance of her +presumed power; secondly, as to the extent of it.</p> + +<p>1st, as to the Continuance.</p> + +<p>The Greek Goddess of Wisdom gave continual increase of wisdom, as the +Christian Spirit of Comfort (or Comforter) continual increase of +comfort. There was no question, with these, of any limit or cessation of +function. But with your Agora Goddess, that is just the most important +question. Getting on—but where to? Gathering together—but how much? Do +you mean to gather always—never to spend? If so, I wish you joy of your +goddess, for I am just as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> off as you, without the trouble of +worshipping her at all. But if you do not spend, somebody else +will—somebody else must. And it is because of this (among many other +such errors) that I have fearlessly declared your so-called science of +Political Economy to be no science; because, namely, it has omitted the +study of exactly the most important branch of the business—the study of +<i>spending</i>. For spend you must, and as much as you make, ultimately. You +gather corn:—will you bury England under a heap of grain; or will you, +when you have gathered, finally eat? You gather gold:—will you make +your house-roofs of it, or pave your streets with it? That is still one +way of spending it. But if you keep it, that you may get more, I'll give +you more; I'll give you all the gold you want—all you can imagine—if +you can tell me what you'll do with it. You shall have thousands of gold +pieces;—thousands of thousands—millions—mountains, of gold: where +will you keep them? Will you put an Olympus of silver upon a golden +Pelion—make Ossa like a wart? Do you think the rain and dew would then +come down to you, in the streams from such mountains, more blessedly +than they will down the mountains which God has made for you, of moss +and whinstone? But it is not gold that you want to gather! What is it? +greenbacks? No; not those neither. What is it then—is it ciphers after +a capital I? Cannot you practise writing ciphers, and write as many as +you want? Write ciphers for an hour every morning, in a big book, and +say every evening, I am worth all those noughts more than I was +yesterday. Won't that do? Well, what in the name of Plutus is it you +want? Not gold, not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I? You will +have to answer, after all, 'No; we want, somehow or other, money's +<i>worth</i>.' Well, what is that? Let your Goddess of Getting-on discover +it, and let her learn to stay therein.</p> + + +<p>II. But there is yet another question to be asked respecting this +Goddess of Getting-on. The first was of the continuance of her power; +the second is of its extent.</p> + +<p>Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world's Pallas, and +all the world's Madonna. They could teach all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> men, and they could +comfort all men. But, look strictly into the nature of the power of your +Goddess of Getting-on; and you will find she is the Goddess—not of +everybody's getting on—but only of somebody's getting on. This is a +vital, or rather deathful, distinction. Examine it in your own ideal of +the state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and maintain. +I asked you what it was, when I was last here;<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>—you have never told +me. Now, shall I try to tell you?</p> + +<p>Your ideal of human life then is, I think, that it should be passed in a +pleasant undulating world, with iron and coal everywhere underneath it. +On each pleasant bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion, with +two wings; and stables, and coach-houses; a moderately sized park; a +large garden and hot houses; and pleasant carriage drives through the +shrubberies. In this mansion are to live the favoured votaries of the +Goddess; the English gentleman, with his gracious wife, and his +beautiful family; always able to have the boudoir and the jewels for the +wife, and the beautiful ball dresses for the daughters, and hunters for +the sons, and a shooting in the Highlands for himself. At the bottom of +the bank, is to be the mill; not less than a quarter of a mile long, +with a steam engine at each end, and two in the middle, and a chimney +three hundred feet high. In this mill are to be in constant employment +from eight hundred to a thousand workers, who never drink, never strike, +always go to church on Sunday, and always express themselves in +respectful language.</p> + +<p>Is not that, broadly, and in the main features, the kind of thing you +propose to yourselves? It is very pretty indeed seen from above; not at +all so pretty, seen from below. For, observe, while to one family this +deity is indeed the Goddess of Getting on, to a thousand families she is +the Goddess of <i>not</i> Getting on. 'Nay,' you say, 'they have all their +chance.' Yes, so has every one in a lottery, but there must always be +the same number of blanks. 'Ah! but in a lottery it is not skill and +intelligence which take the lead, but blind chance.' What then! do you +think the old practice, that 'they should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> take who have the power, and +they should keep who can,' is less iniquitous, when the power has become +power of brains instead of fist? and that, though we may not take +advantage of a child's or a woman's weakness, we may of a man's +foolishness? 'Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must be +at the top, some one at the bottom.' Granted, my friends. Work must +always be, and captains of work must always be; and if you in the least +remember the tone of any of my writings, you must know that they are +thought unfit for this age, because they are always insisting on need of +government, and speaking with scorn of liberty. But I beg you to observe +that there is a wide difference between being captains or governors of +work, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you are +general of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, it +wins (if it fight for treasure or land); neither, because you are king +of a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation's +work. Real kings, on the contrary, are known invariably by their doing +quite the reverse of this,—by their taking the least possible quantity +of the nation's work for themselves. There is no test of real kinghood +so infallible as that. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely, +unostentatiously? probably he <i>is</i> a King. Does he cover his body with +jewels, and his table with delicates? in all probability he is <i>not</i> a +King. It is possible he may be, as Solomon was; but that is when the +nation shares his splendour with him. Solomon made gold, not only to be +in his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones. But even +so, for the most part, these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, and only +the true kinghoods live, which are of royal labourers governing loyal +labourers; who, both leading rough lives, establish the true dynasties. +Conclusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, it +does not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth of +that nation; neither, because you are king of a small part of the +nation, and lord over the means of its maintenance—over field, or mill, +or mine, are you to take all the produce of that piece of the foundation +of national existence for yourself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>You will tell me I need not preach against these things, for I cannot +mend them. No, good friends, I cannot; but you can, and you will; or +something else can and will. Do you think these phenomena are to stay +always in their present power or aspect? All history shows, on the +contrary, that to be the exact thing they never can do. Change <i>must</i> +come; but it is ours to determine whether change of growth, or change of +death. Shall the Parthenon be in ruins on its rock, and Bolton priory in +its meadow, but these mills of yours be the consummation of the +buildings of the earth, and their wheels be as the wheels of eternity? +Think you that 'men may come, and men may go,' but—mills—go on +forever? Not so; out of these, better or worse shall come; and it is for +you to choose which.</p> + +<p>I know that none of this wrong is done with deliberate purpose. I know, +on the contrary, that you wish your workmen well; that you do much for +them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to it +safely. I know that many of you have done, and are every day doing, +whatever you feel to be in your power; and that even all this wrong and +misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving +to do his best, without noticing that this best is essentially and +centrally the best for himself, not for others. And all this has come of +the spreading of that thrice accursed, thrice impious doctrine of the +modern economist, that 'To do the best for yourself, is finally to do +the best for others.' Friends, our great Master said not so; and most +absolutely we shall find this world is not made so. Indeed, to do the +best for others, is finally to do the best for ourselves; but it will +not do to have our eyes fixed on that issue. The Pagans had got beyond +that. Hear what a Pagan says of this matter; hear what were, perhaps, +the last written words of Plato,—if not the last actually written (for +this we cannot know), yet assuredly in fact and power his parting +words—in which, endeavouring to give full crowning and harmonious close +to all his thoughts, and to speak the sum of them by the imagined +sentence of the Great Spirit, his strength and his heart fail him, and +the words cease, broken off for ever. It is the close<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> of the dialogue +called 'Critias,' in which he describes, partly from real tradition, +partly in ideal dream, the early state of Athens; and the genesis, and +order, and religion, of the fabled isle of Atlantis; in which genesis he +conceives the same first perfection and final degeneracy of man, which +in our own Scriptural tradition is expressed by saying that the Sons of +God intermarried with the daughters of men, for he supposes the earliest +race to have been indeed the children of God; and to have corrupted +themselves, until 'their spot was not the spot of his children.' And +this, he says, was the end; that indeed 'through many generations, so +long as the God's nature in them yet was full, they were submissive to +the sacred laws, and carried themselves lovingly to all that had kindred +with them in divineness; for their uttermost spirit was faithful and +true, and in every wise great; so that, in all meekness of wisdom, they +dealt with each other, and took all the chances of life; and despising +all things except virtue, they cared little what happened day by day, +and <i>bore lightly the burden</i> of gold and of possessions; for they saw +that, if only their common love and virtue increased, all these things +would be increased together with them; but to set their esteem and +ardent pursuit upon material possession would be to lose that first, and +their virtue and affection together with it. And by such reasoning, and +what of the divine nature remained in them, they gained all this +greatness of which we have already told, but when the God's part of them +faded and became extinct, being mixed again and again, and effaced by +the prevalent mortality; and the human nature at last exceeded, they +then became unable to endure the courses of fortune; and fell into +shapelessness of life, and baseness in the sight of him who could see, +having lost everything that was fairest of their honour; while to the +blind hearts which could not discern the true life, tending to +happiness, it seemed that they were then chiefly noble and happy, being +filled with all iniquity of inordinate possession and power. Whereupon, +the God of God's, whose Kinghood is in laws, beholding a once just +nation thus cast into misery, and desiring to lay such punishment upon +them as might make them repent into restraining, gathered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> together all +the gods into his dwelling-place, which from heaven's centre overlooks +whatever has part in creation; and having assembled them, he said'——</p> + +<p>The rest is silence. So ended are the last words of the chief wisdom of +the heathen, spoken of this idol of riches; this idol of yours; this +golden image high by measureless cubits, set up where your green fields +of England are furnace-burnt into the likeness of the plain of Dura: +this idol, forbidden to us, first of all idols, by our own Master and +faith; forbidden to us also by every human lip that has ever, in any age +or people, been accounted of as able to speak according to the purposes +of God. Continue to make that forbidden deity your principal one, and +soon no more art, no more science, no more pleasure will be possible. +Catastrophe will come; or worse than catastrophe, slow mouldering and +withering into Hades. But if you can fix some conception of a true human +state of life to be striven for—life for all men as for yourselves—if +you can determine some honest and simple order of existence; following +those trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking her +quiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace;—then, and so sanctifying +wealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your daily +labours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join and +increase into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build, +well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better; +temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind of +marble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It is an error to suppose that the Greek worship, or +seeking, was chiefly of Beauty. It was essentially of Rightness and +Strength, founded on Forethought: the principal character of Greek art +is not Beauty, but Design: and the Dorian Apollo-worship and Athenian +Virgin-worship are both expressions of adoration of divine Wisdom and +Purity. Next to these great deities rank, in power over the national +mind, Dionysus and Ceres, the givers of human strength and life: then, +for heroic example, Hercules. There is no Venus-worship among the Greek +in the great times: and the Muses are essentially teachers of Truth, and +of its harmonies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Jerem. xvii. 11 (best in Septuagint and Vulgate). 'As the +partridge, fostering what she brought not forth, so he that getteth +riches, not by right shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at +his end shall be a fool.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Two Paths, p. 98.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> +<h2>>LECTURE III.</h2> + +<h3><i>WAR.</i></h3> + +<h4>(<i>Delivered at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.</i>)</h4> + + +<p>Young soldiers, I do not doubt but that many of you came unwillingly +to-night, and many in merely contemptuous curiosity, to hear what a +writer on painting could possibly say, or would venture to say, +respecting your great art of war. You may well think within yourselves, +that a painter might, perhaps without immodesty, lecture younger +painters upon painting, but not young lawyers upon law, nor young +physicians upon medicine—least of all, it may seem to you, young +warriors upon war. And, indeed, when I was asked to address you, I +declined at first, and declined long; for I felt that you would not be +interested in my special business, and would certainly think there was +small need for me to come to teach you yours. Nay, I knew that there +ought to be <i>no</i> such need, for the great veteran soldiers of England +are now men every way so thoughtful, so noble, and so good, that no +other teaching than their knightly example, and their few words of grave +and tried counsel should be either necessary for you, or even, without +assurance of due modesty in the offerer, endured by you.</p> + +<p>But being asked, not once nor twice, I have not ventured persistently to +refuse; and I will try, in very few words, to lay before you some reason +why you should accept my excuse, and hear me patiently. You may imagine +that your work is wholly foreign to, and separate from mine. So far from +that, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no great +art ever yet rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers. There is no +art among a shepherd people, if it remains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> at peace. There is no art +among an agricultural people, if it remains at peace. Commerce is barely +consistent with fine art; but cannot produce it. Manufacture not only is +unable to produce it, but invariably destroys whatever seeds of it +exist. There is no great art possible to a nation but that which is +based on battle.</p> + +<p>Now, though I hope you love fighting for its own sake, you must, I +imagine, be surprised at my assertion that there is any such good fruit +of fighting. You supposed, probably, that your office was to defend the +works of peace, but certainly not to found them: nay, the common course +of war, you may have thought, was only to destroy them. And truly, I who +tell you this of the use of war, should have been the last of men to +tell you so, had I trusted my own experience only. Hear why: I have +given a considerable part of my life to the investigation of Venetian +painting and the result of that enquiry was my fixing upon one man as +the greatest of all Venetians, and therefore, as I believed, of all +painters whatsoever. I formed this faith, (whether right or wrong +matters at present nothing,) in the supremacy of the painter Tintoret, +under a roof covered with his pictures; and of those pictures, three of +the noblest were then in the form of shreds of ragged canvas, mixed up +with the laths of the roof, rent through by three Austrian shells. Now +it is not every lecturer who <i>could</i> tell you that he had seen three of +his favourite pictures torn to rags by bombshells. And after such a +sight, it is not every lecturer who <i>would</i> tell you that, nevertheless, +war was the foundation of all great art.</p> + +<p>Yet the conclusion is inevitable, from any careful comparison of the +states of great historic races at different periods. Merely to show you +what I mean, I will sketch for you, very briefly, the broad steps of the +advance of the best art of the world. The first dawn of it is in Egypt; +and the power of it is founded on the perpetual contemplation of death, +and of future judgment, by the mind of a nation of which the ruling +caste were priests, and the second, soldiers. The greatest works +produced by them are sculptures of their kings going out to battle, or +receiving the homage of conquered armies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> And you must remember also, +as one of the great keys to the splendour of the Egyptian nation, that +the priests were not occupied in theology only. Their theology was the +basis of practical government and law, so that they were not so much +priests as religious judges, the office of Samuel, among the Jews, being +as nearly as possible correspondent to theirs.</p> + +<p>All the rudiments of art then, and much more than the rudiments of all +science, are laid first by this great warrior-nation, which held in +contempt all mechanical trades, and in absolute hatred the peaceful life +of shepherds. From Egypt art passes directly into Greece, where all +poetry, and all painting, are nothing else than the description, praise, +or dramatic representation of war, or of the exercises which prepare for +it, in their connection with offices of religion. All Greek institutions +had first respect to war; and their conception of it, as one necessary +office of all human and divine life, is expressed simply by the images +of their guiding gods. Apollo is the god of all wisdom of the intellect; +he bears the arrow and the bow, before he bears the lyre. Again, Athena +is the goddess of all wisdom in conduct. It is by the helmet and the +shield, oftener than by the shuttle, that she is distinguished from +other deities.</p> + +<p>There were, however, two great differences in principle between the +Greek and the Egyptian theories of policy. In Greece there was no +soldier caste; every citizen was necessarily a soldier. And, again, +while the Greeks rightly despised mechanical arts as much as the +Egyptians, they did not make the fatal mistake of despising agricultural +and pastoral life; but perfectly honoured both. These two conditions of +truer thought raise them quite into the highest rank of wise manhood +that has yet been reached; for all our great arts, and nearly all our +great thoughts, have been borrowed or derived from them. Take away from +us what they have given; and I hardly can imagine how low the modern +European would stand.</p> + +<p>Now, you are to remember, in passing to the next phase of history, that +though you <i>must</i> have war to produce art—you must also have much more +than war; namely, an art-instinct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> or genius in the people; and that, +though all the talent for painting in the world won't make painters of +you, unless you have a gift for fighting as well, you may have the gift +for fighting, and none for painting. Now, in the next great dynasty of +soldiers, the art-instinct is wholly wanting. I have not yet +investigated the Roman character enough to tell you the causes of this; +but I believe, paradoxical as it may seem to you, that, however truly +the Roman might say of himself that he was born of Mars, and suckled by +the wolf, he was nevertheless, at heart, more of a farmer than a +soldier. The exercises of war were with him practical, not poetical; his +poetry was in domestic life only, and the object of battle, 'pacis +imponere morem.' And the arts are extinguished in his hands, and do not +rise again, until, with Gothic chivalry, there comes back into the mind +of Europe a passionate delight in war itself, for the sake of war. And +then, with the romantic knighthood which can imagine no other noble +employment,—under the fighting kings of France, England, and Spain; and +under the fighting dukeships and citizenships of Italy, art is born +again, and rises to her height in the great valleys of Lombardy and +Tuscany, through which there flows not a single stream, from all their +Alps or Apennines, that did not once run dark red from battle: and it +reaches its culminating glory in the city which gave to history the most +intense type of soldiership yet seen among men;—the city whose armies +were led in their assault by their king, led through it to victory by +their king, and so led, though that king of theirs was blind, and in the +extremity of his age.</p> + +<p>And from this time forward, as peace is established or extended in +Europe, the arts decline. They reach an unparalleled pitch of +costliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves at last on the side +of luxury and various corruption, and, among wholly tranquil nations, +wither utterly away; remaining only in partial practice among races who, +like the French and us, have still the minds, though we cannot all live +the lives, of soldiers.</p> + +<p>'It may be so,' I can suppose that a philanthropist might exclaim. +'Perish then the arts, if they can flourish only at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> such a cost. What +worth is there in toys of canvas and stone if compared to the joy and +peace of artless domestic life?' And the answer is—truly, in +themselves, none. But as expressions of the highest state of the human +spirit, their worth is infinite. As results they may be worthless, but, +as signs, they are above price. For it is an assured truth that, +whenever the faculties of men are at their fulness, they <i>must</i> express +themselves by art; and to say that a state is without such expression, +is to say that it is sunk from its proper level of manly nature. So +that, when I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean +also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of +men.</p> + +<p>It was very strange to me to discover this; and very dreadful—but I saw +it to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that peace and the +virtues of civil life flourished together, I found, to be wholly +untenable. Peace and the <i>vices</i> of civil life only flourish together. +We talk of peace and learning, and of peace and plenty, and of peace and +civilisation; but I found that those were not the words which the Muse +of History coupled together: that on her lips, the words were—peace and +sensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption, peace and +death. I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of +word, and strength of thought, in war; that they were nourished in war, +and wasted by peace; taught by war, and deceived by peace; trained by +war, and betrayed by peace;—in a word, that they were born in war, and +expired in peace.</p> + +<p>Yet now note carefully, in the second place, it is not <i>all</i> war of +which this can be said—nor all dragon's teeth, which, sown, will start +up into men. It is not the ravage of a barbarian wolf-flock, as under +Genseric or Suwarrow; nor the habitual restlessness and rapine of +mountaineers, as on the old borders of Scotland; nor the occasional +struggle of a strong peaceful nation for its life, as in the wars of the +Swiss with Austria; nor the contest of merely ambitious nations for +extent of power, as in the wars of France under Napoleon, or the just +terminated war in America. None of these forms of war build anything but +tombs. But the creative or foundational<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> war is that in which the +natural restlessness and love of contest among men are disciplined, by +consent, into modes of beautiful—though it may be fatal—play: in which +the natural ambition and love of power of men are disciplined into the +aggressive conquest of surrounding evil: and in which the natural +instincts of self-defence are sanctified by the nobleness of the +institutions, and purity of the households, which they are appointed to +defend. To such war as this all men are born; in such war as this any +man may happily die; and forth from such war as this have arisen +throughout the extent of past ages, all the highest sanctities and +virtues of humanity.</p> + +<p>I shall therefore divide the war of which I would speak to you into +three heads. War for exercise or play; war for dominion; and, war for +defence.</p> + + +<p>I. And first, of war for exercise or play. I speak of it primarily in +this light, because, through all past history, manly war has been more +an exercise than anything else, among the classes who cause, and +proclaim it. It is not a game to the conscript, or the pressed sailor; +but neither of these are the causers of it. To the governor who +determines that war shall be, and to the youths who voluntarily adopt it +as their profession, it has always been a grand pastime; and chiefly +pursued because they had nothing else to do. And this is true without +any exception. No king whose mind was fully occupied with the +development of the inner resources of his kingdom, or with any other +sufficing subject of thought, ever entered into war but on compulsion. +No youth who was earnestly busy with any peaceful subject of study, or +set on any serviceable course of action, ever voluntarily became a +soldier. Occupy him early, and wisely, in agriculture or business, in +science or in literature, and he will never think of war otherwise than +as a calamity. But leave him idle; and, the more brave and active and +capable he is by nature, the more he will thirst for some appointed +field for action; and find, in the passion and peril of battle, the only +satisfying fulfilment of his unoccupied being. And from the earliest +incipient civilisation until now, the population of the earth divides +itself, when you look at it widely, into two races; one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> of workers, and +the other of players—one tilling the ground, manufacturing, building, +and otherwise providing for the necessities of life;—the other part +proudly idle, and continually therefore needing recreation, in which +they use the productive and laborious orders partly as their cattle, and +partly as their puppets or pieces in the game of death.</p> + +<p>Now, remember, whatever virtue or goodliness there may be in this game +of war, rightly played, there is none when you thus play it with a +multitude of small human pawns.</p> + +<p>If you, the gentlemen of this or any other kingdom, choose to make your +pastime of contest, do so, and welcome; but set not up these unhappy +peasant-pieces upon the green fielded board. If the wager is to be of +death, lay it on your own heads, not theirs. A goodly struggle in the +Olympic dust, though it be the dust of the grave, the gods will look +upon, and be with you in; but they will not be with you, if you sit on +the sides of the amphitheatre, whose steps are the mountains of earth, +whose arena its valleys, to urge your peasant millions into gladiatorial +war. You also, you tender and delicate women, for whom, and by whose +command, all true battle has been, and must ever be; you would perhaps +shrink now, though you need not, from the thought of sitting as queens +above set lists where the jousting game might be mortal. How much more, +then, ought you to shrink from the thought of sitting above a theatre +pit in which even a few condemned slaves were slaying each other only +for your delight! And do you <i>not</i> shrink from the <i>fact</i> of sitting +above a theatre pit, where,—not condemned slaves,—but the best and +bravest of the poor sons of your people, slay each other,—not man to +man,—as the coupled gladiators; but race to race, in duel of +generations? You would tell me, perhaps, that you do not sit to see +this; and it is indeed true, that the women of Europe—those who have no +heart-interests of their own at peril in the contest—draw the curtains +of their boxes, and muffle the openings; so that from the pit of the +circus of slaughter there may reach them only at intervals a half-heard +cry and a murmur as of the wind's sighing, when myriads of souls expire. +They shut out the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> death-cries; and are happy, and talk wittily among +themselves. That is the utter literal fact of what our ladies do in +their pleasant lives.</p> + +<p>Nay, you might answer, speaking for them—'We do not let these wars come +to pass for our play, nor by our carelessness; we cannot help them. How +can any final quarrel of nations be settled otherwise than by war?' I +cannot now delay, to tell you how political quarrels might be otherwise +settled. But grant that they cannot. Grant that no law of reason can be +understood by nations; no law of justice submitted to by them: and that, +while questions of a few acres, and of petty cash, can be determined by +truth and equity, the questions which are to issue in the perishing or +saving of kingdoms can be determined only by the truth of the sword, and +the equity of the rifle. Grant this, and even then, judge if it will +always be necessary for you to put your quarrel into the hearts of your +poor, and sign your treaties with peasants' blood. You would be ashamed +to do this in your own private position and power. Why should you not be +ashamed also to do it in public place and power? If you quarrel with +your neighbour, and the quarrel be indeterminable by law, and mortal, +you and he do not send your footmen to Battersea fields to fight it out; +nor do you set fire to his tenants' cottages, nor spoil their goods. You +fight out your quarrel yourselves, and at your own danger, if at all. +And you do not think it materially affects the arbitrement that one of +you has a larger household than the other; so that, if the servants or +tenants were brought into the field with their masters, the issue of the +contest could not be doubtful? You either refuse the private duel, or +you practise it under laws of honour, not of physical force; that so it +may be, in a manner, justly concluded. Now the just or unjust conclusion +of the private feud is of little moment, while the just or unjust +conclusion of the public feud is of eternal moment: and yet, in this +public quarrel, you take your servants' sons from their arms to fight +for it, and your servants' food from their lips to support it; and the +black seals on the parchment of your treaties of peace are the deserted +hearth and the fruitless field.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> There is a ghastly ludicrousness in +this, as there is mostly in these wide and universal crimes. Hear the +statement of the very fact of it in the most literal words of the +greatest of our English thinkers:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the +net-purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for +example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of +Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by +certain "natural enemies" of the French, there are +successively selected, during the French war, say thirty +able-bodied men. Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled +and nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, +fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so +that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the +weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. +Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are +selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the +public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the +south of Spain; and fed there till wanted.</p> + +<p>'And now to that same spot in the south of Spain are thirty +similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like +manner wending; till at length, after infinite effort, the +two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty +stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand.</p> + +<p>'Straightway the word "Fire!" is given, and they blow the +souls out of one another, and in place of sixty brisk useful +craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcases, which it must +bury, and anon shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? +Busy as the devil is, not the smallest! They lived far +enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a +universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some +mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their +governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one +another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads +shoot.' (Sartor Resartus.)</p></div> + +<p>Positively, then, gentlemen, the game of battle must not, and shall not, +ultimately be played this way. But should it be played any way? Should +it, if not by your servants, be practised by yourselves? I think, yes. +Both history and human instinct seem alike to say, yes. All healthy men +like fighting, and like the sense of danger; all brave women like to +hear of their fighting, and of their facing danger. This is a fixed +instinct in the fine race of them; and I cannot help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> fancying that fair +fight is the best play for them, and that a tournament was a better game +than a steeple-chase. The time may perhaps come in France as well as +here, for universal hurdle-races and cricketing: but I do not think +universal 'crickets' will bring out the best qualities of the nobles of +either country. I use, in such question, the test which I have adopted, +of the connection of war with other arts; and I reflect how, as a +sculptor, I should feel, if I were asked to design a monument for a dead +knight, in Westminster abbey, with a carving of a bat at one end, and a +ball at the other. It may be the remains in me only of savage Gothic +prejudice; but I had rather carve it with a shield at one end, and a +sword at the other. And this, observe, with no reference whatever to any +story of duty done, or cause defended. Assume the knight merely to have +ridden out occasionally to fight his neighbour for exercise; assume him +even a soldier of fortune, and to have gained his bread, and filled his +purse, at the sword's point. Still, I feel as if it were, somehow, +grander and worthier in him to have made his bread by sword play than +any other play; had rather he had made it by thrusting than by +batting;—much more, than by betting. Much rather that he should ride +war horses, than back race horses; and—I say it sternly and +deliberately—much rather would I have him slay his neighbour, than +cheat him.</p> + +<p>But remember, so far as this may be true, the game of war is only that +in which the <i>full personal power of the human creature</i> is brought out +in management of its weapons. And this for three reasons:—</p> + +<p>First, the great justification of this game is that it truly, when well +played, determines <i>who is the best man</i>;—who is the highest bred, the +most self-denying, the most fearless, the coolest of nerve, the swiftest +of eye and hand. You cannot test these qualities wholly, unless there is +a clear possibility of the struggle's ending in death. It is only in the +fronting of that condition that the full trial of the man, soul and +body, comes out. You may go to your game of wickets, or of hurdles, or +of cards, and any knavery that is in you may stay unchallenged all the +while. But if the play may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> ended at any moment by a lance-thrust, a +man will probably make up his accounts a little before he enters it. +Whatever is rotten and evil in him will weaken his hand more in holding +a sword hilt, than in balancing a billiard cue; and on the whole, the +habit of living lightly hearted, in daily presence of death, always has +had, and must have, a tendency both to the making and testing of honest +men. But for the final testing, observe, you must make the issue of +battle strictly dependent on fineness of frame, and firmness of hand. +You must not make it the question, which of the combatants has the +longest gun, or which has got behind the biggest tree, or which has the +wind in his face, or which has gunpowder made by the best chemist, or +iron smelted with the best coal, or the angriest mob at his back. Decide +your battle, whether of nations, or individuals, on <i>those</i> terms;—and +you have only multiplied confusion, and added slaughter to iniquity. But +decide your battle by pure trial which has the strongest arm, and +steadiest heart,—and you have gone far to decide a great many matters +besides, and to decide them rightly.</p> + +<p>And the other reasons for this mode of decision of cause, are the +diminution both of the material destructiveness, or cost, and of the +physical distress of war. For you must not think that in speaking to you +in this (as you may imagine), fantastic praise of battle, I have +overlooked the conditions weighing against me. I pray all of you, who +have not read, to read with the most earnest attention, Mr. Helps's two +essays on War and Government, in the first volume of the last series of +'Friends in Council.' Everything that can be urged against war is there +simply, exhaustively, and most graphically stated. And all, there urged, +is true. But the two great counts of evil alleged against war by that +most thoughtful writer, hold only against modern war. If you have to +take away masses of men from all industrial employment,—to feed them by +the labour of others,—to move them and provide them with destructive +machines, varied daily in national rivalship of inventive cost; if you +have to ravage the country which you attack,—to destroy for a score of +future years, its roads, its woods, its cities, and its harbours;—and +if, finally, having brought masses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> of men, counted by hundreds of +thousands, face to face, you tear those masses to pieces with jagged +shot, and leave the fragments of living creatures countlessly beyond all +help of surgery, to starve and parch, through days of torture, down into +clots of clay—what book of accounts shall record the cost of your +work;—What book of judgment sentence the guilt of it?</p> + +<p>That, I say, is <i>modern</i> war,—scientific war,—chemical and mechanic +war, worse even than the savage's poisoned arrow. And yet you will tell +me, perhaps, that any other war than this is impossible now. It may be +so; the progress of science cannot, perhaps, be otherwise registered +than by new facilities of destruction; and the brotherly love of our +enlarging Christianity be only proved by multiplication of murder. Yet +hear, for a moment, what war was, in Pagan and ignorant days;—what war +might yet be, if we could extinguish our science in darkness, and join +the heathen's practice to the Christian's theory. I read you this from a +book which probably most of you know well, and all ought to +know—Muller's 'Dorians;'—but I have put the points I wish you to +remember in closer connection than in his text.</p> + +<p>'The chief characteristic of the warriors of Sparta was great composure +and subdued strength; the violence λυσσα of Aristodemus and +Isadas being considered as deserving rather of blame than praise; and +these qualities in general distinguished the Greeks from the northern +Barbarians, whose boldness always consisted in noise and tumult. For the +same reason the Spartans <i>sacrificed to the Muses</i> before an action; +these goddesses being expected to produce regularity and order in +battle; as they <i>sacrificed on the same occasion in Crete to the god of +love</i>, as the confirmer of mutual esteem and shame. Every man put on a +crown, when the band of flute-players gave the signal for attack; all +the shields of the line glittered with their high polish, and mingled +their splendour with the dark red of the purple mantles, which were +meant both to adorn the combatant, and to conceal the blood of the +wounded; to fall well and decorously being an incentive the more to the +most heroic valour. The conduct of the Spartans in battle denotes a high +and noble disposition, which rejected all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> extremes of brutal rage. +The pursuit of the enemy ceased when the victory was completed; and +after the signal for retreat had been given, all hostilities ceased. The +spoiling of arms, at least during the battle, was also interdicted; and +the consecration of the spoils of slain enemies to the gods, as, in +general, all rejoicings for victory, were considered as ill-omened.</p> + +<p>Such was the war of the greatest soldiers who prayed to heathen gods. +What Christian war is, preached by Christian ministers, let any one tell +you, who saw the sacred crowning, and heard the sacred flute-playing, +and was inspired and sanctified by the divinely-measured and musical +language, of any North American regiment preparing for its charge. And +what is the relative cost of life in pagan and Christian wars, let this +one fact tell you:—the Spartans won the decisive battle of Corinth with +the loss of eight men; the victors at indecisive Gettysburg confess to +the loss of 30,000.</p> + + +<p>II. I pass now to our second order of war, the commonest among men, that +undertaken in desire of dominion. And let me ask you to think for a few +moments what the real meaning of this desire of dominion is—first in +the minds of kings—then in that of nations.</p> + +<p>Now, mind you this first,—that I speak either about kings, or masses of +men, with a fixed conviction that human nature is a noble and beautiful +thing; not a foul nor a base thing. All the sin of men I esteem as their +disease, not their nature; as a folly which may be prevented, not a +necessity which must be accepted. And my wonder, even when things are at +their worst, is always at the height which this human nature can attain. +Thinking it high, I find it always a higher thing than I thought it; +while those who think it low, find it, and will find it, always lower +than they thought it: the fact being, that it is infinite, and capable +of infinite height and infinite fall; but the nature of it—and here is +the faith which I would have you hold with me—the <i>nature</i> of it is in +the nobleness, not in the catastrophe.</p> + +<p>Take the faith in its utmost terms. When the captain of the 'London' +shook hands with his mate, saying 'God speed you! I will go down with my +passengers,' <i>that</i> I believe to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> 'human nature.' He does not do it +from any religious motive—from any hope of reward, or any fear of +punishment; he does it because he is a man. But when a mother, living +among the fair fields of merry England, gives her two-year-old child to +be suffocated under a mattress in her inner room, while the said mother +waits and talks outside; <i>that</i> I believe to be <i>not</i> human nature. You +have the two extremes there, shortly. And you, men, and mothers, who are +here face to face with me to-night, I call upon you to say which of +these is human, and which inhuman—which 'natural' and which +'unnatural?' Choose your creed at once, I beseech you:—choose it with +unshaken choice—choose it forever. Will you take, for foundation of act +and hope, the faith that this man was such as God made him, or that this +woman was such as God made her? Which of them has failed from their +nature—from their present, possible, actual nature;—not their nature +of long ago, but their nature of now? Which has betrayed it—falsified +it? Did the guardian who died in his trust, die inhumanly, and as a +fool; and did the murderess of her child fulfil the law of her being? +Choose, I say; infinitude of choices hang upon this. You have had false +prophets among you—for centuries you have had them—solemnly warned +against them though you were; false prophets, who have told you that all +men are nothing but fiends or wolves, half beast, half devil. Believe +that and indeed you may sink to that. But refuse that, and have faith +that God 'made you upright,' though <i>you</i> have sought out many +inventions; so, you will strive daily to become more what your Maker +meant and means you to be, and daily gives you also the power to be—and +you will cling more and more to the nobleness and virtue that is in you, +saying, 'My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go.'</p> + +<p>I have put this to you as a choice, as if you might hold either of these +creeds you liked best. But there is in reality no choice for you; the +facts being quite easily ascertainable. You have no business to <i>think</i> +about this matter, or to choose in it. The broad fact is, that a human +creature of the highest race, and most perfect as a human thing, is +invariably both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> kind and true; and that as you lower the race, you get +cruelty and falseness, as you get deformity: and this so steadily and +assuredly, that the two great words which, in their first use, meant +only perfection of race, have come, by consequence of the invariable +connection of virtue with the fine human nature, both to signify +benevolence of disposition. The word generous, and the word gentle, +both, in their origin, meant only 'of pure race,' but because charity +and tenderness are inseparable from this purity of blood, the words +which once stood only for pride, now stand as synonyms for virtue.</p> + +<p>Now, this being the true power of our inherent humanity, and seeing that +all the aim of education should be to develop this;—and seeing also +what magnificent self sacrifice the higher classes of men are capable +of, for any cause that they understand or feel,—it is wholly +inconceivable to me how well-educated princes, who ought to be of all +gentlemen the gentlest, and of all nobles the most generous, and whose +title of royalty means only their function of doing every man +'<i>right</i>'—how these, I say, throughout history, should so rarely +pronounce themselves on the side of the poor and of justice, but +continually maintain themselves and their own interests by oppression of +the poor, and by wresting of justice; and how this should be accepted as +so natural, that the word loyalty, which means faithfulness to law, is +used as if it were only the duty of a people to be loyal to their king, +and not the duty of a king to be infinitely more loyal to his people. +How comes it to pass that a captain will die with his passengers, and +lean over the gunwale to give the parting boat its course; but that a +king will not usually die with, much less <i>for</i>, his passengers,—thinks +it rather incumbent on his passengers, in any number, to die for <i>him</i>? +Think, I beseech you, of the wonder of this. The sea captain, not +captain by divine right, but only by company's appointment;—not a man +of royal descent, but only a plebeian who can steer;—not with the eyes +of the world upon him, but with feeble chance, depending on one poor +boat, of his name being ever heard above the wash of the fatal +waves;—not with the cause of a nation resting on his act, but helpless +to save so much as a child from among the lost crowd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> with whom he +resolves to be lost,—yet goes down quietly to his grave, rather than +break his faith to these few emigrants. But your captain by divine +right,—your captain with the hues of a hundred shields of kings upon +his breast,—your captain whose every deed, brave or base, will be +illuminated or branded for ever before unescapable eyes of men,—your +captain whose every thought and act are beneficent, or fatal, from +sunrising to setting, blessing as the sunshine, or shadowing as the +night,—this captain, as you find him in history, for the most part +thinks only how he may tax his passengers, and sit at most ease in his +state cabin!</p> + +<p>For observe, if there had been indeed in the hearts of the rulers of +great multitudes of men any such conception of work for the good of +those under their command, as there is in the good and thoughtful +masters of any small company of men, not only wars for the sake of mere +increase of power could never take place, but our idea of power itself +would be entirely altered. Do you suppose that to think and act even for +a million of men, to hear their complaints, watch their weaknesses, +restrain their vices, make laws for them, lead them, day by day, to +purer life, is not enough for one man's work? If any of us were absolute +lord only of a district of a hundred miles square, and were resolved on +doing our utmost for it; making it feed as large a number of people as +possible; making every clod productive, and every rock defensive, and +every human being happy; should we not have enough on our hands think +you? But if the ruler has any other aim than this; if, careless of the +result of his interference, he desire only the authority to interfere; +and, regardless of what is ill-done or well-done, cares only that it +shall be done at his bidding,—if he would rather do two hundred miles' +space of mischief, than one hundred miles' space of good, of course he +will try to add to his territory; and to add inimitably. But does he add +to his power? Do you call it power in a child, if he is allowed to play +with the wheels and bands of some vast engine, pleased with their murmur +and whirl, till his unwise touch, wandering where it ought not, scatters +beam and wheel into ruin? Yet what machine is so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> vast, so incognisable, +as the working of the mind of a nation what child's touch so wanton, as +the word of a selfish king? And yet, how long have we allowed the +historian to speak of the extent of the calamity a man causes, as a just +ground for his pride; and to extol him as the greatest prince, who is +only the centre of the widest error. Follow out this thought by +yourselves; and you will find that all power, properly so called, is +wise and benevolent. There may be capacity in a drifting fire-ship to +destroy a fleet; there may be venom enough in a dead body to infect a +nation:—but which of you, the most ambitious, would desire a drifting +kinghood, robed in consuming fire, or a poison-dipped sceptre whose +touch was mortal? There is no true potency, remember, but that of help; +nor true ambition, but ambition to save.</p> + +<p>And then, observe farther, this true power, the power of saving, depends +neither on multitude of men, nor on extent of territory. We are +continually assuming that nations become strong according to their +numbers. They indeed become so, if those numbers can be made of one +mind; but how are you sure you can stay them in one mind, and keep them +from having north and south minds? Grant them unanimous, how know you +they will be unanimous in right? If they are unanimous in wrong, the +more they are, essentially the weaker they are. Or, suppose that they +can neither be of one mind, nor of two minds, but can only be of <i>no</i> +mind? Suppose they are a more helpless mob; tottering into precipitant +catastrophe, like a waggon load of stones when the wheel comes off. +Dangerous enough for their neighbours, certainly, but not 'powerful.'</p> + +<p>Neither does strength depend on extent of territory, any more than upon +number of population. Take up your maps when you go home this +evening,—put the cluster of British Isles beside the mass of South +America; and then consider whether any race of men need care how much +ground they stand upon. The strength is in the men, and in their unity +and virtue, not in their standing room: a little group of wise hearts is +better than a wilderness full of fools; and only that nation gains true +territory, which gains itself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now for the brief practical outcome of all this. Remember, no +government is ultimately strong, but in proportion to its kindness and +justice; and that a nation does not strengthen, by merely multiplying +and diffusing itself. We have not strengthened as yet, by multiplying +into America. Nay, even when it has not to encounter the separating +conditions of emigration, a nation need not boast itself of multiplying +on its own ground, if it multiplies only as flies or locusts do, with +the god of flies for its god. It multiplies its strength only by +increasing as one great family, in perfect fellowship and brotherhood. +And lastly, it does not strengthen itself by seizing dominion over races +whom it cannot benefit. Austria is not strengthened, but weakened, by +her grasp of Lombardy; and whatever apparent increase of majesty and of +wealth may have accrued to us from the possession of India, whether +these prove to us ultimately power or weakness, depends wholly on the +degree in which our influence on the native race shall be benevolent and +exalting. But, as it is at their own peril that any race extends their +dominion in mere desire of power, so it is at their own still greater +peril, that they refuse to undertake aggressive war, according to their +force, whenever they are assured that their authority would be helpful +and protective. Nor need you listen to any sophistical objection of the +impossibility of knowing when a people's help is needed, or when not. +Make your national conscience clean, and your national eyes will soon be +clear. No man who is truly ready to take part in a noble quarrel will +ever stand long in doubt by whom, or in what cause, his aid is needed. I +hold it my duty to make no political statement of any special bearing in +this presence; but I tell you broadly and boldly, that, within these +last ten years, we English have, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs: +we have fought where we should not have fought, for gain; and we have +been passive where we should not have been passive, for fear. I tell you +that the principle of non-intervention, as now preached among us, is as +selfish and cruel as the worst frenzy of conquest, and differs from it +only by being not only malignant, but dastardly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>I know, however, that my opinions on this subject differ too widely from +those ordinarily held, to be any farther intruded upon you; and +therefore I pass lastly to examine the conditions of the third kind of +noble war;—war waged simply for defence of the country in which we were +born, and for the maintenance and execution of her laws, by whomsoever +threatened or defied. It is to this duty that I suppose most men +entering the army consider themselves in reality to be bound, and I want +you now to reflect what the laws of mere defence are; and what the +soldier's duty, as now understood, or supposed to be understood. You +have solemnly devoted yourselves to be English soldiers, for the +guardianship of England. I want you to feel what this vow of yours +indeed means, or is gradually coming to mean. You take it upon you, +first, while you are sentimental schoolboys; you go into your military +convent, or barracks, just as a girl goes into her convent while she is +a sentimental schoolgirl; neither of you then know what you are about, +though both the good soldiers and good nuns make the best of it +afterwards. You don't understand perhaps why I call you 'sentimental' +schoolboys, when you go into the army? Because, on the whole, it is love +of adventure, of excitement, of fine dress and of the pride of fame, all +which are sentimental motives, which chiefly make a boy like going into +the Guards better than into a counting-house. You fancy, perhaps, that +there is a severe sense of duty mixed with these peacocky motives? And +in the best of you, there is; but do not think that it is principal. If +you cared to do your duty to your country in a prosaic and unsentimental +way, depend upon it, there is now truer duty to be done in raising +harvests than in burning them; more in building houses, than in shelling +them—more in winning money by your own work, wherewith to help men, +than in taxing other people's work, for money wherewith to slay men; +more duty finally, in honest and unselfish living than in honest and +unselfish dying, though that seems to your boys' eyes the bravest. So +far then, as for your own honour, and the honour of your families, you +choose brave death in a red coat before brave life in a black one, you +are sentimental; and now see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> what this passionate vow of yours comes +to. For a little while you ride, and you hunt tigers or savages, you +shoot, and are shot; you are happy, and proud, always, and honoured and +wept if you die; and you are satisfied with your life, and with the end +of it; believing, on the whole, that good rather than harm of it comes +to others, and much pleasure to you. But as the sense of duty enters +into your forming minds, the vow takes another aspect. You find that you +have put yourselves into the hand of your country as a weapon. You have +vowed to strike, when she bids you, and to stay scabbarded when she bids +you; all that you need answer for is, that you fail not in her grasp. +And there is goodness in this, and greatness, if you can trust the hand +and heart of the Britomart who has braced you to her side, and are +assured that when she leaves you sheathed in darkness, there is no need +for your flash to the sun. But remember, good and noble as this state +may be, it is a state of slavery. There are different kinds of slaves +and different masters. Some slaves are scourged to their work by whips, +others are scourged to it by restlessness or ambition. It does not +matter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you have +cut thongs for it out of your own souls: the fact, so far, of slavery, +is in being driven to your work without thought, at another's bidding. +Again, some slaves are bought with money, and others with praise. It +matters not what the purchase-money is. The distinguishing sign of +slavery is to have a price, and be bought for it. Again, it matters not +what kind of work you are set on; some slaves are set to forced +diggings, others to forced marches; some dig furrows, others +field-works, and others graves. Some press the juice of reeds, and some +the juice of vines, and some the blood of men. The fact of the captivity +is the same whatever work we are set upon, though the fruits of the toil +may be different. But, remember, in thus vowing ourselves to be the +slaves of any master, it ought to be some subject of forethought with +us, what work he is likely to put us upon. You may think that the whole +duty of a soldier is to be passive, that it is the country you have left +behind who is to command, and you have only to obey. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> are you sure +that you have left <i>all</i> your country behind, or that the part of it you +have so left is indeed the best part of it? Suppose—and, remember, it +is quite conceivable—that you yourselves are indeed the best part of +England; that you who have become the slaves, ought to have been the +masters; and that those who are the masters, ought to have been the +slaves! If it is a noble and whole-hearted England, whose bidding you +are bound to do, it is well; but if you are yourselves the best of her +heart, and the England you have left be but a half-hearted England, how +say you of your obedience? You were too proud to become shopkeepers: are +you satisfied then to become the servants of shopkeepers? You were too +proud to become merchants or farmers yourselves: will you have merchants +or farmers then for your field marshals? You had no gifts of special +grace for Exeter Hall: will you have some gifted person thereat for your +commander-in-chief, to judge of your work, and reward it? You imagine +yourselves to be the army of England: how if you should find yourselves, +at last, only the police of her manufacturing towns, and the beadles of +her little Bethels?</p> + +<p>It is not so yet, nor will be so, I trust, for ever; but what I want you +to see, and to be assured of, is, that the ideal of soldiership is not +mere passive obedience and bravery; that, so far from this, no country +is in a healthy state which has separated, even in a small degree, her +civil from her military power. All states of the world, however great, +fall at once when they use mercenary armies; and although it is a less +instant form of error (because involving no national taint of +cowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal—it is the error +especially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all the +calamitous consequences—to take away the best blood and strength of the +nation, all the soul-substance of it that is brave, and careless of +reward, and scornful of pain, and faithful in trust; and to cast that +into steel, and make a mere sword of it; taking away its voice and will; +but to keep the worst part of the nation—whatever is cowardly, +avaricious, sensual, and faithless—and to give to this the voice, to +this the authority, to this the chief privilege, where there is least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +capacity, of thought. The fulfilment of your vow for the defence of +England will by no means consist in carrying out such a system. You are +not true soldiers, if you only mean to stand at a shop door, to protect +shop-boys who are cheating inside. A soldier's vow to his country is +that he will die for the guardianship of her domestic virtue, of her +righteous laws, and of her anyway challenged or endangered honour. A +state without virtue, without laws, and without honour, he is bound +<i>not</i> to defend; nay, bound to redress by his own right hand that which +he sees to be base in her. So sternly is this the law of Nature and +life, that a nation once utterly corrupt can only be redeemed by a +military despotism—never by talking, nor by its free effort. And the +health of any state consists simply in this: that in it, those who are +wisest shall also be strongest; its rulers should be also its soldiers; +or, rather, by force of intellect more than of sword, its soldiers its +rulers. Whatever the hold which the aristocracy of England has on the +heart of England, in that they are still always in front of her battles, +this hold will not be enough, unless they are also in front of her +thoughts. And truly her thoughts need good captain's leading now, if +ever! Do you know what, by this beautiful division of labour (her brave +men fighting, and her cowards thinking), she has come at last to think? +Here is a bit of paper in my hand,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> a good one too, and an honest one; +quite representative of the best common public thought of England at +this moment; and it is holding forth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> in one of its leaders upon our +'social welfare,'—upon our 'vivid life'—upon the 'political supremacy +of Great Britain.' And what do you think all these are owing to? To what +our English sires have done for us, and taught us, age after age? No: +not to that. To our honesty of heart, or coolness of head, or steadiness +of will? No: not to these. To our thinkers, or our statesmen, or our +poets, or our captains, or our martyrs, or the patient labour of our +poor? No: not to these; or at least not to these in any chief measure. +Nay, says the journal, 'more than any agency, it is the cheapness and +abundance of our coal which have made us what we are.' If it be so, then +'ashes to ashes' be our epitaph! and the sooner the better. I tell you, +gentlemen of England, if ever you would have your country breathe the +pure breath of heaven again, and receive again a soul into her body, +instead of rotting into a carcase, blown up in the belly with carbonic +acid (and great <i>that</i> way), you must think, and feel, for your England, +as well as fight for her: you must teach her that all the true greatness +she ever had, or ever can have, she won while her fields were green and +her faces ruddy;—that greatness is still possible for Englishmen, even +though the ground be not hollow under their feet, nor the sky black over +their heads;—and that, when the day comes for their country to lay her +honours in the dust, her crest will not rise from it more loftily +because it is dust of coal. Gentlemen, I tell you, solemnly, that the +day is coming when the soldiers of England must be her tutors and the +captains of her army, captains also of her mind.</p> + +<p>And now, remember, you soldier youths, who are thus in all ways the hope +of your country; or must be, if she have any hope: remember that your +fitness for all future trust depends upon what you are now. No good +soldier in his old age was ever careless or indolent in his youth. Many +a giddy and thoughtless boy has become a good bishop, or a good lawyer, +or a good merchant; but no such an one ever became a good general. I +challenge you, in all history, to find a record of a good soldier who +was not grave and earnest in his youth. And, in general, I have no +patience with people who talk about 'the thoughtlessness of youth' +indulgently,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, and +the indulgence due to <i>that</i>. When a man has done his work, and nothing +can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, +and jest with his fate, if he will; but what excuse can you find for +wilfulness of thought, at the very time when every crisis of future +fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless! when all the +happiness of his home for ever depends on the chances, or the passions, +of an hour! A youth thoughtless! when the career of all his days depends +on the opportunity of a moment! A youth thoughtless! when his every act +is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a +fountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in <i>any</i> after years, rather +than now—though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be +nobly thoughtless,—his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to be +done there.</p> + +<p>Having, then, resolved that you will not waste recklessly, but earnestly +use, these early days of yours, remember that all the duties of her +children to England may be summed in two words—industry, and honour. I +say first, industry, for it is in this that soldier youth are especially +tempted to fail. Yet surely, there is no reason because your life may +possibly or probably be shorter than other men's, that you should +therefore waste more recklessly the portion of it that is granted you; +neither do the duties of your profession, which require you to keep your +bodies strong, in any wise involve the keeping of your minds weak. So +far from that, the experience, the hardship, and the activity of a +soldier's life render his powers of thought more accurate than those of +other men; and while, for others, all knowledge is often little more +than a means of amusement, there is no form of science which a soldier +may not at some time or other find bearing on business of life and +death. A young mathematician may be excused for langour in studying +curves to be described only with a pencil; but not in tracing those +which are to be described with a rocket. Your knowledge of a wholesome +herb may involve the feeding of an army; and acquaintance with an +obscure point of geography, the success of a campaign.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Never waste an +instant's time, therefore; the sin of idleness is a thousandfold greater +in you than in other youths; for the fates of those who will one day be +under your command hang upon your knowledge; lost moments now will be +lost lives then, and every instant which you carelessly take for play, +you buy with blood. But there is one way of wasting time, of all the +vilest, because it wastes, not time only, but the interest and energy of +your minds. Of all the ungentlemanly habits into which you can fall, the +vilest is betting, or interesting yourselves in the issues of betting. +It unites nearly every condition of folly and vice; you concentrate your +interest upon a matter of chance, instead of upon a subject of true +knowledge; and you back opinions which you have no grounds for forming, +merely because they are your own. All the insolence of egotism is in +this; and so far as the love of excitement is complicated with the hope +of winning money, you turn yourselves into the basest sort of +tradesmen—those who live by speculation. Were there no other ground for +industry, this would be a sufficient one; that it protected you from the +temptation to so scandalous a vice. Work faithfully, and you will put +yourselves in possession of a glorious and enlarging happiness: not such +as can be won by the speed of a horse, or marred by the obliquity of a +ball.</p> + +<p>First, then, by industry you must fulfil your vow to your country; but +all industry and earnestness will be useless unless they are consecrated +by your resolution to be in all things men of honour; not honour in the +common sense only, but in the highest. Rest on the force of the two main +words in the great verse, <i>integer</i> vitæ, scelerisque <i>purus</i>. You have +vowed your life to England; give it her wholly—a bright, stainless, +perfect life—a knightly life. Because you have to fight with machines +instead of lances, there may be a necessity for more ghastly danger, but +there is none for less worthiness of character, than in olden time. You +may be true knights yet, though perhaps not <i>equites</i>; you may have to +call yourselves 'cannonry' instead of 'chivalry,' but that is no reason +why you should not call yourselves true men. So the first thing you have +to see to in becoming soldiers is that you make yourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> wholly true. +Courage is a mere matter of course among any ordinarily well-born +youths; but neither truth nor gentleness is matter of course. You must +bind them like shields about your necks; you must write them on the +tables of your hearts. Though it be not exacted of you, yet exact it of +yourselves, this vow of stainless truth. Your hearts are, if you leave +them unstirred, as tombs in which a god lies buried. Vow yourselves +crusaders to redeem that sacred sepulchre. And remember, before all +things—for no other memory will be so protective of you—that the +highest law of this knightly truth is that under which it is vowed to +women. Whomsoever else you deceive, whomsoever you injure, whomsoever +you leave unaided, you must not deceive, nor injure, nor leave unaided +according to your power, any woman of whatever rank. Believe me, every +virtue of the higher phases of manly character begins in this;—in truth +and modesty before the face of all maidens; in truth and pity, or truth +and reverence, to all womanhood.</p> + +<p>And now let me turn for a moment to you,—wives and maidens, who are the +souls of soldiers; to you,—mothers, who have devoted your children to +the great hierarchy of war. Let me ask you to consider what part you +have to take for the aid of those who love you; for if you fail in your +part they cannot fulfil theirs; such absolute helpmates you are that mo +man can stand without that help, nor labour in his own strength.</p> + +<p>I know your hearts, and that the truth of them never fails when an hour +of trial comes which you recognise for such. But you know not when the +hour of trial first finds you, nor when it verily finds you. You imagine +that you are only called upon to wait and to suffer; to surrender and to +mourn. You know that you must not weaken the hearts of your husbands and +lovers, even by the one fear of which those hearts are capable,—the +fear of parting from you, or of causing you grief. Through weary years +of separation, through fearful expectancies of unknown fate; through the +tenfold bitterness of the sorrow which might so easily have been joy, +and the tenfold yearning for glorious life struck down in its +prime—through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> all these agonies you fail not, and never will fail. But +your trial is not in these. To be heroic in danger is little;—you are +Englishwomen. To be heroic in change and sway of fortune is little;—for +do you not love? To be patient through the great chasm and pause of loss +is little;—for do you not still love in heaven? But to be heroic in +happiness; to bear yourselves gravely and righteously in the dazzling of +the sunshine of morning; not to forget the God in whom you trust, when +He gives you most; not to fail those who trust you, when they seem to +need you least; this is the difficult fortitude. It is not in the pining +of absence, not in the peril of battle, not in the wasting of sickness, +that your prayer should be most passionate, or your guardianship most +tender. Pray, mothers and maidens, for your young soldiers in the bloom +of their pride; pray for them, while the only dangers round them are in +their own wayward wills; watch you, and pray, when they have to face, +not death, but temptation. But it is this fortitude also for which there +is the crowning reward. Believe me, the whole course and character of +your lovers' lives is in your hands; what you would have them be, they +shall be, if you not only desire to have them so, but deserve to have +them so; for they are but mirrors in which you will see yourselves +imaged. If you are frivolous, they will be so also; if you have no +understanding of the scope of their duty, they also will forget it; they +will listen,—they <i>can</i> listen,—to no other interpretation of it than +that uttered from your lips. Bid them be brave;—they will be brave for +you; bid them be cowards; and how noble soever they be;—they will quail +for you. Bid them be wise, and they will be wise for you; mock at their +counsel, they will be fools for you: such and so absolute is your rule +over them. You fancy, perhaps, as you have been told so often, that a +wife's rule should only be over her husband's house, not over his mind. +Ah, no! the true rule is just the reverse of that; a true wife, in her +husband's house, is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen. +Whatever of the best he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever of +highest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him she +must purge into purity; all that is failing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> in him she must strengthen +into truth: from her, through all the world's clamour, he must win his +praise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace.</p> + +<p>And, now, but one word more. You may wonder, perhaps, that I have spoken +all this night in praise of war. Yet, truly, if it might be, I, for one, +would fain join in the cadence of hammer-strokes that should beat swords +into ploughshares: and that this cannot be, is not the fault of us men. +It is <i>your</i> fault. Wholly yours. Only by your command, or by your +permission, can any contest take place among us. And the real, final, +reason for all the poverty, misery, and rage of battle, throughout +Europe, is simply that you women, however good, however religious, +however self-sacrificing for those whom you love, are too selfish and +too thoughtless to take pains for any creature out of your own immediate +circles. You fancy that you are sorry for the pain of others. Now I just +tell you this, that if the usual course of war, instead of unroofing +peasants' houses, and ravaging peasants' fields, merely broke the china +upon your own drawing-room tables, no war in civilised countries would +last a week. I tell you more, that at whatever moment you chose to put a +period to war, you could do it with less trouble than you take any day +to go out to dinner. You know, or at least you might know if you would +think, that every battle you hear of has made many widows and orphans. +We have, none of us, heart enough truly to mourn with these. But at +least we might put on the outer symbols of mourning with them. Let but +every Christian lady who has conscience toward God, vow that she will +mourn, at least outwardly, for His killed creatures. Your praying is +useless, and your churchgoing mere mockery of God, if you have not plain +obedience in you enough for this. Let every lady in the upper classes of +civilised Europe simply vow that, while any cruel war proceeds, she will +wear <i>black</i>;—a mute's black,—with no jewel, no ornament, no excuse +for, or evasion into, prettiness.—I tell you again, no war would last a +week.</p> + +<p>And lastly. You women of England are all now shrieking with one +voice,—you and your clergymen together,—because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> you hear of your +Bibles being attacked. If you choose to obey your Bibles, you will never +care who attacks them. It is just because you never fulfil a single +downright precept of the Book, that you are so careful for its credit: +and just because you don't care to obey its whole words, that you are so +particular about the letters of them. The Bible tells you to dress +plainly,—and you are mad for finery; the Bible tells you to have pity +on the poor,—and you crush them under your carriage-wheels; the Bible +tells you to do judgment and justice,—and you do not know, nor care to +know, so much as what the Bible word 'justice means.' Do but learn so +much of God's truth as that comes to; know what He means when He tells +you to be just: and teach your sons, that their bravery is but a fool's +boast, and their deeds but a firebrand's tossing, unless they are indeed +Just men, and Perfect in the Fear of God;—and you will soon have no +more war, unless it be indeed such as is willed by Him, of whom, though +Prince of Peace, it is also written, 'In Righteousness He doth judge, +and make war.'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> I do not care to refer to the journal quoted, because the +article was unworthy of its general tone, though in order to enable the +audience to verify the quoted sentence, I left the number containing it +on the table, when I delivered this lecture. But a saying of Baron +Liebig's, quoted at the head of a leader on the same subject in the +'Daily Telegraph' of January 11, 1866, summarily digests and presents +the maximum folly of modern thought in this respect. 'Civilization,' +says the Baron, 'is the economy of power, and English power is coal.' +Not altogether so, my chemical friend. Civilization is the making of +civil persons, which is a kind of distillation of which alembics are +incapable, and does not at all imply the turning of a small company of +gentlemen into a large company of ironmongers. And English power (what +little of it may be left), is by no means coal, but, indeed, of that +which, 'when the whole world turns to coal, then chiefly lives.'</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<h2>MUNERA PULVERIS</h2> + +<h3>SIX ESSAYS<br /> + +ON THE ELEMENTS OF<br /> + +POLITICAL ECONOMY</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>The following pages contain, I believe, the first accurate analysis of +the laws of Political Economy which has been published in England. Many +treatises, within their scope, correct, have appeared in contradiction +of the views popularly received; but no exhaustive examination of the +subject was possible to any person unacquainted with the value of the +products of the highest industries, commonly called the "Fine Arts;" and +no one acquainted with the nature of those industries has, so far as I +know, attempted, or even approached, the task.</p> + +<p>So that, to the date (1863) when these Essays were published, not only +the chief conditions of the production of wealth had remained unstated, +but the nature of wealth itself had never been defined. "Every one has a +notion, sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by +wealth," wrote Mr. Mill, in the outset of his treatise; and contentedly +proceeded, as if a chemist should proceed to investigate the laws of +chemistry without endeavouring to ascertain the nature of fire or water, +because every one had a notion of them, "sufficiently correct for common +purposes."</p> + +<p>But even that apparently indisputable statement was untrue. There is not +one person in ten thousand who has a notion sufficiently correct, even +for the commonest purposes, of "what is meant" by wealth; still less of +what wealth everlastingly <i>is</i>, whether we mean it or not; which it is +the business of every student of economy to ascertain. We, indeed, know +(either by experience or in imagination) what it is to be able to +provide ourselves with luxurious food, and handsome clothes; and if Mr. +Mill had thought that wealth consisted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> only in these, or in the means +of obtaining these, it would have been easy for him to have so defined +it with perfect scientific accuracy. But he knew better: he knew that +some kinds of wealth consisted in the possession, or power of obtaining, +other things than these; but, having, in the studies of his life, no +clue to the principles of essential value, he was compelled to take +public opinion as the ground of his science; and the public, of course, +willingly accepted the notion of a science founded on their opinions.</p> + +<p>I had, on the contrary, a singular advantage, not only in the greater +extent of the field of investigation opened to me by my daily pursuits, +but in the severity of some lessons I accidentally received in the +course of them.</p> + +<p>When, in the winter of 1851, I was collecting materials for my work on +Venetian architecture, three of the pictures of Tintoret on the roof of +the School of St. Roch were hanging down in ragged fragments, mixed with +lath and plaster, round the apertures made by the fall of three Austrian +heavy shot. The city of Venice was not, it appeared, rich enough to +repair the damage that winter; and buckets were set on the floor of the +upper room of the school to catch the rain, which not only fell directly +through the shot holes, but found its way, owing to the generally +pervious state of the roof, through many of the canvases of Tintoret's +in other parts of the ceiling.</p> + +<p>It was a lesson to me, as I have just said, no less direct than severe; +for I knew already at that time (though I have not ventured to assert, +until recently at Oxford,) that the pictures of Tintoret in Venice were +accurately the most precious articles of wealth in Europe, being the +best existing productions of human industry. Now at the time that three +of them were thus fluttering in moist rags from the roof they had +adorned, the shops of the Rue Rivoli at Paris were, in obedience to a +steadily-increasing public Demand, beginning to show a +steadily-increasing Supply of elaborately-finished and coloured +lithographs, representing the modern dances of delight, among which the +cancan has since taken a distinguished place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>The labour employed on the stone of one of these lithographs is very +much more than Tintoret was in the habit of giving to a picture of +average size. Considering labour as the origin of value, therefore, the +stone so highly wrought would be of greater value than the picture; and +since also it is capable of producing a large number of immediately +saleable or exchangeable impressions, for which the "demand" is +constant, the city of Paris naturally supposed itself, and on all +hitherto believed or stated principles of political economy, was, +infinitely richer in the possession of a large number of these +lithographic stones, (not to speak of countless oil pictures and marble +carvings of similar character), than Venice in the possession of those +rags of mildewed canvas, flaunting in the south wind and its salt rain. +And, accordingly, Paris provided (without thought of the expense) lofty +arcades of shops, and rich recesses of innumerable private apartments, +for the protection of these better treasures of hers from the weather.</p> + +<p>Yet, all the while, Paris was not the richer for these possessions. +Intrinsically, the delightful lithographs were not wealth, but polar +contraries of wealth. She was, by the exact quantity of labour she had +given to produce these, sunk below, instead of above, absolute Poverty. +They not only were false Riches—they were true <i>Debt</i>, which had to be +paid at last—and the present aspect of the Rue Rivoli shows in what +manner.</p> + +<p>And the faded stains of the Venetian ceiling, all the while, were +absolute and inestimable wealth. Useless to their possessors as +forgotten treasure in a buried city, they had in them, nevertheless, the +intrinsic and eternal nature of wealth; and Venice, still possessing the +ruins of them, was a rich city; only, the Venetians had <i>not</i> a notion +sufficiently correct even for the very common purpose of inducing them +to put slates on a roof, of what was "meant by wealth."</p> + +<p>The vulgar economist would reply that his science had nothing to do with +the qualities of pictures, but with their exchange-value only; and that +his business was, exclusively, to consider whether the remains of +Tintoret were worth as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> many ten-and-sixpences as the impressions which +might be taken from the lithographic stones.</p> + +<p>But he would not venture, without reserve, to make such an answer, if +the example be taken in horses, instead of pictures. The most dull +economist would perceive, and admit, that a gentleman who had a fine +stud of horses was absolutely richer than one who had only ill-bred and +broken-winded ones. He would instinctively feel, though his +pseudo-science had never taught him, that the price paid for the +animals, in either case, did not alter the fact of their worth: that the +good horse, though it might have been bought by chance for a few +guineas, was not therefore less valuable, nor the owner of the galled +jade any the richer, because he had given a hundred for it.</p> + +<p>So that the economist, in saying that his science takes no account of +the qualities of pictures, merely signifies that he cannot conceive of +any quality of essential badness or goodness existing in pictures; and +that he is incapable of investigating the laws of wealth in such +articles. Which is the fact. But, being incapable of defining intrinsic +value in pictures, it follows that he must be equally helpless to define +the nature of intrinsic value in painted glass, or in painted pottery, +or in patterned stuffs, or in any other national produce requiring true +human ingenuity. Nay, though capable of conceiving the idea of intrinsic +value with respect to beasts of burden, no economist has endeavoured to +state the general principles of National Economy, even with regard to +the horse or the ass. And, in fine, <i>the modern political economists +have been, without exception, incapable of apprehending the nature of +intrinsic value at all</i>.</p> + +<p>And the first specialty of the following treatise consists in its giving +at the outset, and maintaining as the foundation of all subsequent +reasoning, a definition of Intrinsic Value, and Intrinsic +Contrary-of-Value; the negative power having been left by former writers +entirely out of account, and the positive power left entirely undefined.</p> + +<p>But, secondly: the modern economist, ignoring intrinsic value, and +accepting the popular estimate of things as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> only ground of his +science, has imagined himself to have ascertained the constant laws +regulating the relation of this popular demand to its supply; or, at +least, to have proved that demand and supply were connected by heavenly +balance, over which human foresight had no power. I chanced, by singular +coincidence, lately to see this theory of the law of demand and supply +brought to as sharp practical issue in another great siege, as I had +seen the theories of intrinsic value brought, in the siege of Venice.</p> + +<p>I had the honour of being on the committee under the presidentship of +the Lord Mayor of London, for the victualling of Paris after her +surrender. It became, at one period of our sittings, a question of vital +importance at what moment the law of demand and supply would come into +operation, and what the operation of it would exactly be: the demand, on +this occasion, being very urgent indeed; that of several millions of +people within a few hours of utter starvation, for any kind of food +whatsoever. Nevertheless, it was admitted, in the course of debate, to +be probable that the divine principle of demand and supply might find +itself at the eleventh hour, and some minutes over, in want of carts and +horses; and we ventured so far to interfere with the divine principle as +to provide carts and horses, with haste which proved, happily, in time +for the need; but not a moment in advance of it. It was farther +recognized by the committee that the divine principle of demand and +supply would commence its operations by charging the poor of Paris +twelve-pence for a penny's worth of whatever they wanted; and would end +its operations by offering them twelve-pence worth for a penny, of +whatever they didn't want. Whereupon it was concluded by the committee +that the tiny knot, on this special occasion, was scarcely "<i>dignus +vindice</i>," by the divine principle of demand and supply: and that we +would venture, for once, in a profane manner, to provide for the poor of +Paris what they wanted, when they wanted it. Which, to the value of the +sums entrusted to us, it will be remembered we succeeded in doing.</p> + +<p>But the fact is that the so-called "law," which was felt to be false in +this case of extreme exigence, is alike false in cases<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> of less +exigence. It is false always, and everywhere. Nay to such an extent is +its existence imaginary, that the vulgar economists are not even agreed +in their account of it; for some of them mean by it, only that prices +are regulated by the relation between demand and supply, which is partly +true; and others mean that the relation itself is one with the process +of which it is unwise to interfere; a statement which is not only, as in +the above instance, untrue; but accurately the reverse of the truth: for +all wise economy, political or domestic, consists in the resolved +maintenance of a given relation between supply and demand, other than +the instinctive, or (directly) natural, one.</p> + +<p>Similarly, vulgar political economy asserts for a "law" that wages are +determined by competition.</p> + +<p>Now I pay my servants exactly what wages I think necessary to make them +comfortable. The sum is not determined at all by competition; but +sometimes by my notions of their comfort and deserving, and sometimes by +theirs. If I were to become penniless to-morrow, several of them would +certainly still serve me for nothing.</p> + +<p>In both the real and supposed cases the so-called "law" of vulgar +political economy is absolutely set at defiance. But I cannot set the +law of gravitation at defiance, nor determine that in my house I will +not allow ice to melt, when the temperature is above thirty-two degrees. +A true law outside of my house, will remain a true one inside of it. It +is not, therefore, a law of Nature that wages are determined by +competition. Still less is it a law of State, or we should not now be +disputing about it publicly, to the loss of many millions of pounds to +the country. The fact which vulgar economists have been weak enough to +imagine a law, is only that, for the last twenty years a number of very +senseless persons have attempted to determine wages in that manner; and +have, in a measure, succeeded in occasionally doing so.</p> + +<p>Both in definition of the elements of wealth, and in statement of the +laws which govern its distribution, modern political economy has been +thus absolutely incompetent, or absolutely false. And the following +treatise is not, as it has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> asserted with dull pertinacity, an +endeavour to put sentiment in the place of science; but it contains the +exposure of what insolently pretended to be a science; and the +definition, hitherto unassailed—and I do not fear to assert, +unassailable—of the material elements with which political economy has +to deal, and the moral principles in which it consists; being not itself +a science, but "a system of conduct founded on the sciences, and +impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture." Which is +only to say, that industry, frugality, and discretion, the three +foundations of economy, are moral qualities, and cannot be attained +without moral discipline: a flat truism, the reader may think, thus +stated, yet a truism which is denied both vociferously, and in all +endeavour, by the entire populace of Europe; who are at present hopeful +of obtaining wealth by tricks of trade, without industry; who, +possessing wealth, have lost in the use of it even the conception,—how +much more the habit?—of frugality; and who, in the choice of the +elements of wealth, cannot so much as lose—since they have never +hitherto at any time possessed,—the faculty of discretion.</p> + +<p>Now if the teachers of the pseudo-science of economy had ventured to +state distinctly even the poor conclusions they had reached on the +subjects respecting which it is most dangerous for a populace to be +indiscreet, they would have soon found, by the use made of them, which +were true, and which false.</p> + +<p>But on main and vital questions, no political economist has hitherto +ventured to state one guiding principle. I will instance three subjects +of universal importance. National Dress. National Rent. National Debt.</p> + +<p>Now if we are to look in any quarter for a systematic and exhaustive +statement of the principles of a given science, it must certainly be +from its Professor at Cambridge.</p> + +<p>Take the last edition of Professor Fawcett's <i>Manual of Political +Economy</i>, and forming, first clearly in your mind these three following +questions, see if you can find an answer to them.</p> + +<p>I. Does expenditure of capital on the production of luxurious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> dress and +furniture tend to make a nation rich or poor?</p> + +<p>II. Does the payment, by the nation, of a tax on its land, or on the +produce of it, to a certain number of private persons, to be expended by +them as they please, tend to make the nation rich or poor?</p> + +<p>III. Does the payment, by the nation, for an indefinite period, of +interest on money borrowed from private persons, tend to make the nation +rich or poor?</p> + +<p>These three questions are, all of them, perfectly simple, and primarily +vital. Determine these, and you have at once a basis for national +conduct in all important particulars. Leave them undetermined, and there +is no limit to the distress which may be brought upon the people by the +cunning of its knaves, and the folly of its multitudes.</p> + +<p>I will take the three in their order.</p> + + +<p>I. Dress. The general impression on the public mind at this day is, that +the luxury of the rich in dress and furniture is a benefit to the poor. +Probably not even the blindest of our political economists would venture +to assert this in so many words. But where do they assert the contrary? +During the entire period of the reign of the late Emperor it was assumed +in France, as the first principle of fiscal government, that a large +portion of the funds received as rent from the provincial labourer +should be expended in the manufacture of ladies' dresses in Paris. Where +is the political economist in France, or England, who ventured to assert +the conclusions of his science as adverse to this system? As early as +the year 1857 I had done my best to show the nature of the error, and to +give warning of its danger;<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> but not one of the men who had the +foolish ears of the people intent on their words, dared to follow me in +speaking what would have been an offence to the powers of trade; and the +powers of trade in Paris had their full way for fourteen years +more,—with this result, to-day,—as told us in precise and curt terms +by the Minister of Public Instruction,—<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We have replaced glory by gold, work by speculation, faith +and honour by scepticism. To absolve or glorify immorality; +to make much of loose women; to gratify our eyes with +luxury, our ears with the tales of orgies; to aid in the +manœuvres of public robbers, or to applaud them; to laugh +at morality, and only believe in success; to love nothing +but pleasure, adore nothing but force; to replace work with +a fecundity of fancies; to speak without thinking; to prefer +noise to glory; to erect sneering into a system, and lying +into an institution—is this the spectacle that we have +seen?—is this the society that we have been?"</p></div> + +<p>Of course, other causes, besides the desire of luxury in furniture and +dress, have been at work to produce such consequences; but the most +active cause of all has been the passion for these; passion unrebuked by +the clergy, and, for the most part, provoked by economists, as +advantageous to commerce; nor need we think that such results have been +arrived at in France only; we are ourselves following rapidly on the +same road. France, in her old wars with us, never was so fatally our +enemy as she has been in the fellowship of fashion, and the freedom of +trade: nor, to my mind, is any fact recorded of Assyrian or Roman luxury +more ominous, or ghastly, than one which came to my knowledge a few +weeks ago, in England; a respectable and well-to-do father and mother, +in a quiet north country town, being turned into the streets in their +old age, at the suit of their only daughter's milliner.</p> + + +<p>II. Rent. The following account of the real nature of rent is given, +quite accurately, by Professor Fawcett, at page 112 of the last edition +of his <i>Political Economy</i>:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Every country has probably been subjugated, and grants of +vanquished territory were the ordinary rewards which the +conquering chief bestowed upon his more distinguished +followers. Lands obtained by force had to be defended by +force; and before law had asserted her supremacy, and +property was made secure, no baron was able to retain his +possessions, unless those who lived on his estates were +prepared to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> defend them....<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> As property became secure, +and landlords felt that the power of the State would protect +them in all the rights of property, every vestige of these +feudal tenures was abolished, and the relation between +landlord and tenant has thus become purely commercial. A +landlord offers his land to any one who is willing to take +it; he is anxious to receive the highest rent he can obtain. +What are the principles which regulate the rent which may +thus be paid?"</p></div> + +<p>These principles the Professor goes on contentedly to investigate, never +appearing to contemplate for an instant the possibility of the first +principle in the whole business—the maintenance, by force, of the +possession of land obtained by force, being ever called in question by +any human mind. It is, nevertheless, the nearest task of our day to +discover how far original theft may be justly encountered by reactionary +theft, or whether reactionary theft be indeed theft at all; and farther, +what, excluding either original or corrective theft, are the just +conditions of the possession of land.</p> + + +<p>III. Debt. Long since, when, a mere boy, I used to sit silently +listening to the conversation of the London merchants who, all of them +good and sound men of business, were wont occasionally to meet round my +father's dining-table; nothing used to surprise me more than the +conviction openly expressed by some of the soundest and most cautious of +them, that "if there were no National debt they would not know what to +do with their money, or where to place it safely." At the 399th page of +his Manual, you will find Professor Fawcett giving exactly the same +statement.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"In our own country, this certainty against risk of loss is +provided by the public funds;"</p></div> + +<p>and again, as on the question of rent, the Professor proceeds, without +appearing for an instant to be troubled by any misgiving that there may +be an essential difference between the effects on national prosperity of +a Government paying interest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> on money which it spent in fire works +fifty years ago, and of a Government paying interest on money to be +employed to-day on productive labour.</p> + +<p>That difference, which the reader will find stated and examined at +length, in §§ 127-129 of this volume, it is the business of economists, +before approaching any other question relating to government, fully to +explain. And the paragraphs to which I refer, contain, I believe, the +only definite statement of it hitherto made.</p> + +<p>The practical result of the absence of any such statement is, that +capitalists, when they do not know what to do with their money, persuade +the peasants, in various countries, that the said peasants want guns to +shoot each other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out of the +manufacture of which the capitalists get a per-centage, and men of +science much amusement and credit. Then the peasants shoot a certain +number of each other, until they get tired; and burn each other's homes +down in various places. Then they put the guns back into towers, +arsenals, &c., in ornamental patterns; (and the victorious party put +also some ragged flags in churches). And then the capitalists tax both, +annually, ever afterwards, to pay interest on the loan of the guns and +gunpowder. And that is what capitalists call "knowing what to do with +their money;" and what commercial men in general call "practical" as +opposed to "sentimental" Political Economy.</p> + +<p>Eleven years ago, in the summer of 1860, perceiving then fully, (as +Carlyle had done long before), what distress was about to come on the +said populace of Europe through these errors of their teachers, I began +to do the best I might, to combat them, in the series of papers for the +<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, since published under the title of <i>Unto this +Last</i>. The editor of the Magazine was my friend, and ventured the +insertion of the three first essays; but the outcry against them became +then too strong for any editor to endure, and he wrote to me, with great +discomfort to himself, and many apologies to me, that the Magazine must +only admit one Economical Essay more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>I made, with his permission, the last one longer than the rest, and gave +it blunt conclusion as well as I could—and so the book now stands; but, +as I had taken not a little pains with the Essays, and knew that they +contained better work than most of my former writings, and more +important truths than all of them put together, this violent reprobation +of them by the <i>Cornhill</i> public set me still more gravely thinking; +and, after turning the matter hither and thither in my mind for two +years more, I resolved to make it the central work of my life to write +an exhaustive treatise on Political Economy. It would not have been +begun, at that time, however, had not the editor of <i>Fraser's Magazine</i> +written to me, saying that he believed there was something in my +theories, and would risk the admission of what I chose to write on this +dangerous subject; whereupon, cautiously, and at intervals, during the +winter of 1862-63, I sent him, and he ventured to print, the preface of +the intended work, divided into four chapters. Then, though the Editor +had not wholly lost courage, the Publisher indignantly interfered; and +the readers of <i>Fraser</i>, as those of the <i>Cornhill</i>, were protected, for +that time, from farther disturbance on my part. Subsequently, loss of +health, family distress, and various untoward chances, prevented my +proceeding with the body of the book;—seven years have passed +ineffectually; and I am now fain to reprint the Preface by itself, under +the title which I intended for the whole.</p> + +<p>Not discontentedly; being, at this time of life, resigned to the sense +of failure; and also, because the preface is complete in itself as a +body of definitions, which I now require for reference in the course of +my <i>Letters to Workmen</i>; by which also, in time, I trust less formally +to accomplish the chief purpose of <i>Munera Pulveris</i>, practically summed +in the two paragraphs 27 and 28: namely, to examine the moral results +and possible rectifications of the laws of distribution of wealth, which +have prevailed hitherto without debate among men. Laws which ordinary +economists assume to be inviolable, and which ordinary socialists +imagine to be on the eve of total abrogation. But they are both alike +deceived.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> The laws which at present regulate the possession of wealth +are unjust, because the motives which provoke to its attainment are +impure; but no socialism can effect their abrogation, unless it can +abrogate also covetousness and pride, which it is by no means yet in the +way of doing. Nor can the change be, in any case, to the extent that has +been imagined. Extremes of luxury may be forbidden, and agony of penury +relieved; but nature intends, and the utmost efforts of socialism will +not hinder the fulfilment of her intention, that a provident person +shall always be richer than a spendthrift; and an ingenious one more +comfortable than a fool. But, indeed, the adjustment of the possession +of the products of industry depends more on their nature than their +quantity, and on wise determination therefore of the aims of industry.</p> + +<p>A nation which desires true wealth, desires it moderately, and can +therefore distribute it with kindness, and possess it with pleasure; but +one which desires false wealth, desires it immoderately, and can neither +dispense it with justice, nor enjoy it in peace.</p> + +<p>Therefore, needing, constantly in my present work, to refer to the +definitions of true and false wealth given in the following Essays, I +republish them with careful revisal. They were written abroad; partly at +Milan, partly during a winter residence on the south-eastern slope of +the Mont Saléve, near Geneva; and sent to London in as legible MS. as I +could write; but I never revised the press sheets, and have been +obliged, accordingly, now to amend the text here and there, or correct +it in unimportant particulars. Wherever any modification has involved +change in the sense, it is enclosed in square brackets; and what few +explanatory comments I have felt it necessary to add, have been +indicated in the same manner. No explanatory comments, I regret to +perceive, will suffice to remedy the mischief of my affected +concentration of language, into the habit of which I fell by thinking +too long over particular passages, in many and many a solitary walk +towards the mountains of Bonneville or Annecy. But I never intended the +book for anything else than a dictionary of reference, and that for +earnest readers; who will, I have good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> hope, if they find what they +want in it, forgive the affectedly curt expressions.</p> + +<p>The Essays, as originally published, were, as I have just stated, four +in number. I have now, more conveniently, divided the whole into six +chapters; and (as I purpose throughout this edition of my works) +numbered the paragraphs.</p> + +<p>I inscribed the first volume of this series to the friend who aided me +in chief sorrow. Let me inscribe the second to the friend and guide who +has urged me to all chief labour, <span class="smcap">Thomas Carlyle</span>.</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p>I would that some better means were in my power of showing reverence to +the man who alone, of all our masters of literature, has written, +without thought of himself, what he knew it to be needful for the people +of his time to hear, if the will to hear were in them: whom, therefore, +as the time draws near when his task must be ended, Republican and +Free-thoughted England assaults with impatient reproach; and out of the +abyss of her cowardice in policy and dishonour in trade, sets the hacks +of her literature to speak evil, grateful to her ears, of the Solitary +Teacher who has asked her to be brave for the help of Man, and just, for +the love of God.</p> + + +<p class="right"><i>Denmark Hill,</i><br /> +<i>25th November, 1871.</i></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Political Economy of Art.</i> (Smith and Elder, 1857, pp. +65-76.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> See report of speech of M. Jules Simon, in <i>Pall Mall +Gazette</i> of October 27, 1871.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The omitted sentences merely amplify the statement; they in +no wise modify it.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> +<h2>MUNERA PULVERIS.</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Te maris et terræ numeroque carentis arenæ<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mensorem cohibent, Archyta,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pulveris exigui prope litus parva Matinum<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Munera."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>DEFINITIONS.</h3> + + +<p>1. As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits of a household, +Political economy regulates those of a society or State, with reference +to the means of its maintenance.</p> + +<p>Political economy is neither an art nor a science; but a system of +conduct and legislature, founded on the sciences, directing the arts, +and impossible, except under certain conditions of moral culture.</p> + +<p>2. The study which lately in England has been called Political Economy +is in reality nothing more than the investigation of some accidental +phenomena of modern commercial operations, nor has it been true in its +investigation even of these. It has no connection whatever with +political economy, as understood and treated of by the great thinkers of +past ages; and as long as its unscholarly and undefined statements are +allowed to pass under the same name, every word written on the subject +by those thinkers—and chiefly the words of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero and +Bacon—must be nearly useless to mankind. The reader must not, +therefore, be surprised at the care and insistance with which I have +retained the literal and earliest sense of all important terms used in +these papers;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> for a word is usually well made at the time it is first +wanted; its youngest meaning has in it the full strength of its youth: +subsequent senses are commonly warped or weakened; and as all careful +thinkers are sure to have used their words accurately, the first +condition, in order to be able to avail our selves of their sayings at +all, is firm definition of terms.</p> + +<p>3. By the "maintenance" of a State is to be understood the support of +its population in healthy and happy life; and the increase of their +numbers, so far as that increase is consistent with their happiness. It +is not the object of political economy to increase the numbers of a +nation at the cost of common health or comfort; nor to increase +indefinitely the comfort of individuals, by sacrifice of surrounding +lives, or possibilities of life.</p> + +<p>4. The assumption which lies at the root of nearly all erroneous +reasoning on political economy,—namely, that its object is to +accumulate money or exchangeable property,—may be shown in a few words +to be without foundation. For no economist would admit national economy +to be legitimate which proposed to itself only the building of a pyramid +of gold. He would declare the gold to be wasted, were it to remain in +the monumental form, and would say it ought to be employed. But to what +end? Either it must be used only to gain more gold, and build a larger +pyramid, or for some purpose other than the gaining of gold. And this +other purpose, however at first apprehended, will be found to resolve +itself finally into the service of man;—that is to say, the extension, +defence, or comfort of his life. The golden pyramid may perhaps be +providently built, perhaps improvidently; but the wisdom or folly of the +accumulation can only be determined by our having first clearly stated +the aim of all economy, namely, the extension of life.</p> + +<p>If the accumulation of money, or of exchangeable property, were a +certain means of extending existence, it would be useless, in discussing +economical questions, to fix our attention upon the more distant +object—life—instead of the immediate one—money. But it is not so. +Money may sometimes be accumulated at the cost of life, or by +limitations of it; that is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> to say, either by hastening the deaths of +men, or preventing their births. It is therefore necessary to keep +clearly in view the ultimate object of economy; and to determine the +expediency of minor operations with reference to that ulterior end.</p> + +<p>5. It has been just stated that the object of political economy is the +continuance not only of life, but of healthy and happy life. But all +true happiness is both a consequence and cause of life: it is a sign of +its vigor, and source of its continuance. All true suffering is in like +manner a consequence and cause of death. I shall therefore, in future, +use the word "Life" singly: but let it be understood to include in its +signification the happiness and power of the entire human nature, body +and soul.</p> + +<p>6. That human nature, as its Creator made it, and maintains it wherever +His laws are observed, is entirely harmonious. No physical error can be +more profound, no moral error more dangerous, than that involved in the +monkish doctrine of the opposition of body to soul. No soul can be +perfect in an imperfect body: no body perfect without perfect soul. +Every right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on +person and face; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of +distortion; and the various aspects of humanity might be read as plainly +as a printed history, were it not that the impressions are so complex +that it must always in some cases (and, in the present state of our +knowledge, in all cases) be impossible to decipher them completely. +Nevertheless, the face of a consistently just, and of a consistently +unjust person, may always be rightly distinguished at a glance; and if +the qualities are continued by descent through a generation or two, +there arises a complete distinction of race. Both moral and physical +qualities are communicated by descent, far more than they can be +developed by education; (though both may be destroyed by want of +education), and there is as yet no ascertained limit to the nobleness of +person and mind which the human creature may attain, by persevering +observance of the laws of God respecting its birth and training.</p> + +<p>7. We must therefore yet farther define the aim of political economy to +be "The multiplication of human life at the highest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> standard." It might +at first seem questionable whether we should endeavour to maintain a +small number of persons of the highest type of beauty and intelligence, +or a larger number of an inferior class. But I shall be able to show in +the sequel, that the way to maintain the largest number is first to aim +at the highest standard. Determine the noblest type of man, and aim +simply at maintaining the largest possible number of persons of that +class, and it will be found that the largest possible number of every +healthy subordinate class must necessarily be produced also.</p> + +<p>8. The perfect type of manhood, as just stated, involves the perfections +(whatever we may hereafter determine these to be) of his body, +affections, and intelligence. The material things, therefore, which it +is the object of political economy to produce and use, (or accumulate +for use,) are things which serve either to sustain and comfort the body, +or exercise rightly the affections and form the intelligence.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +Whatever truly serves either of these purposes is "useful" to man, +wholesome, healthful, helpful, or holy. By seeking such things, man +prolongs and increases his life upon the earth.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, whatever does not serve either of these +purposes,—much more whatever counteracts them,—is in like manner +useless to man, unwholesome, unhelpful, or unholy; and by seeking such +things man shortens and diminishes his life upon the earth.</p> + +<p>9. And neither with respect to things useful or useless can man's +estimate of them alter their nature. Certain substances being good for +his food, and others noxious to him, what he thinks or wishes respecting +them can neither change, nor prevent, their power. If he eats corn, he +will live; if nightshade, he will die. If he produce or make good and +beautiful things, they will <i>Re-Create</i> him; (note the solemnity and +weight of the word); if bad and ugly things, they will "corrupt" or +"break in pieces"—that is, in the exact degree of their power, Kill +him. For every hour of labour, however enthusiastic or well intended, +which he spends for that which is not bread, so much possibility of life +is lost to him. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> fancies, likings, beliefs, however brilliant, +eager, or obstinate, are of no avail if they are set on a false object. +Of all that he has laboured for, the eternal law of heaven and earth +measures out to him for reward, to the utmost atom, that part which he +ought to have laboured for, and withdraws from him (or enforces on him, +it may be) inexorably, that part which he ought not to have laboured for +until, on his summer threshing-floor, stands his heap of corn; little or +much, not according to his labour, but to his discretion. No "commercial +arrangements," no painting of surfaces, nor alloying of substances, will +avail him a pennyweight. Nature asks of him calmly and inevitably, What +have you found, or formed—the right thing or the wrong? By the right +thing you shall live; by the wrong you shall die.</p> + +<p>10. To thoughtless persons it seems otherwise. The world looks to them +as if they could cozen it out of some ways and means of life. But they +cannot cozen <span class="smcap">it</span>: they can only cozen their neighbours. The world is not +to be cheated of a grain; not so much as a breath of its air can be +drawn surreptitiously. For every piece of wise work done, so much life +is granted; for every piece of foolish work, nothing; for every piece of +wicked work, so much death is allotted. This is as sure as the courses +of day and night. But when the means of life are once produced, men, by +their various struggles and industries of accumulation or exchange, may +variously gather, waste, restrain, or distribute them; necessitating, in +proportion to the waste or restraint, accurately, so much more death. +The rate and range of additional death are measured by the rate and +range of waste; and are inevitable;—the only question (determined +mostly by fraud in peace, and force in war) is, Who is to die, and how?</p> + +<p>11. Such being the everlasting law of human existence, the essential +work of the political economist is to determine what are in reality +useful or life-giving things, and by what degrees and kinds of labour +they are attainable and distributable. This investigation divides itself +under three great heads;—the studies, namely, of the phenomena, first, +of <span class="smcap">Wealth</span>; secondly, of <span class="smcap">Money</span>; and thirdly, of <span class="smcap">Riches</span>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>These terms are often used as synonymous, but they signify entirely +different things. "Wealth" consists of things in themselves valuable; +"Money," of documentary claims to the possession of such things; and +"Riches" is a relative term, expressing the magnitude of the possessions +of one person or society as compared with those of other persons or +societies.</p> + +<p>The study of Wealth is a province of natural science:—it deals with the +essential properties of things.</p> + +<p>The study of Money is a province of commercial science:—it deals with +conditions of engagement and exchange.</p> + +<p>The study of Riches is a province of moral science:—it deals with the +due relations of men to each other in regard of material possessions; +and with the just laws of their association for purposes of labour.</p> + +<p>I shall in this first chapter shortly sketch out the range of subjects +which will come before us as we follow these three branches of inquiry.</p> + +<p>12. And first of <span class="smcap">Wealth</span>, which, it has been said, consists of things +essentially valuable. We now, therefore, need a definition of "value."</p> + +<p>"Value" signifies the strength, or "availing" of anything towards the +sustaining of life, and is always twofold; that is to say, primarily, +<span class="smcap">intrinsic</span>, and secondarily, <span class="smcap">effectual</span>.</p> + +<p>The reader must, by anticipation, be warned against confusing value with +cost, or with price. <i>Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, +the quantity of labour required to produce it; price, the quantity of +labour which its possessor will take in exchange for it.</i><a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Cost and +price are commercial conditions, to be studied under the head of money.</p> + +<p>13. Intrinsic value is the absolute power of anything to support life. A +sheaf of wheat of given quality and weight has in it a measurable power +of sustaining the substance of the body; a cubic foot of pure air, a +fixed power of sustaining its warmth; and a cluster of flowers of given +beauty a fixed power of enlivening or animating the senses and heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>It does not in the least affect the intrinsic value of the wheat, the +air, or the flowers, that men refuse or despise them. Used or not, their +own power is in them, and that particular power is in nothing else.</p> + +<p>14. But in order that this value of theirs may become effectual, a +certain state is necessary in the recipient of it. The digesting, +breathing, and perceiving functions must be perfect in the human +creature before the food, air, or flowers can become of their full value +to it. <i>The production of effectual value, therefore, always involves +two needs: first, the production of a thing essentially useful; then the +production of the capacity to use it.</i> Where the intrinsic value and +acceptant capacity come together there is Effectual value, or wealth; +where there is either no intrinsic value, or no acceptant capacity, +there is no effectual value; that is to say, no wealth. A horse is no +wealth to us if we cannot ride, nor a picture if we cannot see, <i>nor can +any noble thing be wealth, except to a noble person</i>. As the aptness of +the user increases, the effectual value of the thing used increases; and +in its entirety can co-exist only with perfect skill of use, and fitness +of nature.</p> + +<p>15. Valuable material things may be conveniently referred to five heads:</p> + +<p>(i.) Land, with its associated air, water, and organisms.</p> + +<p>(ii.) Houses, furniture, and instruments.</p> + +<p>(iii.) Stored or prepared food, medicine, and articles of bodily luxury, +including clothing.</p> + +<p>(iv.) Books.</p> + +<p>(v.) Works of art.</p> + +<p>The conditions of value in these things are briefly as follows:—</p> + +<p>16. (i.) Land. Its value is twofold; first, as producing food and +mechanical power; secondly, as an object of sight and thought, producing +intellectual power.</p> + +<p>Its value, as a means of producing food and mechanical power, varies +with its form (as mountain or plain), with its substance (in soil or +mineral contents), and with its climate. All these conditions of +intrinsic value must be known and complied with by the men who have to +deal with it, in order to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> give effectual value; but at any given time +and place, the intrinsic value is fixed: such and such a piece of land, +with its associated lakes and seas, rightly treated in surface and +substance, can produce precisely so much food and power, and no more.</p> + +<p>The second element of value in land being its beauty, united with such +conditions of space and form as are necessary for exercise, and for +fullness of animal life, land of the highest value in these respects +will be that lying in temperate climates, and boldly varied in form; +removed from unhealthy or dangerous influences (as of miasm or volcano); +and capable of sustaining a rich fauna and flora. Such land, carefully +tended by the hand of man, so far as to remove from it unsightlinesses +and evidences of decay, guarded from violence, and inhabited, under +man's affectionate protection, by every kind of living creature that can +occupy it in peace, is the most precious "property" that human beings +can possess.</p> + +<p>17. (ii.) Buildings, furniture, and instruments.</p> + +<p>The value of buildings consists, first, in permanent strength, with +convenience of form, of size, and of position; so as to render +employment peaceful, social intercourse easy, temperature and air +healthy. The advisable or possible magnitude of cities and mode of their +distribution in squares, streets, courts, &c.; the relative value of +sites of land, and the modes of structure which are healthiest and most +permanent, have to be studied under this head.</p> + +<p>The value of buildings consists secondly in historical association, and +architectural beauty, of which we have to examine the influence on +manners and life.</p> + +<p>The value of instruments consists, first, in their power of shortening +labour, or otherwise accomplishing what human strength unaided could +not. The kinds of work which are severally best accomplished by hand or +by machine;—the effect of machinery in gathering and multiplying +population, and its influence on the minds and bodies of such +population; together with the conceivable uses of machinery on a +colossal scale in accomplishing mighty and useful works, hitherto +unthought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> of, such as the deepening of large river channels;—changing +the surface of mountainous districts;—irrigating tracts of desert in +the torrid zone;—breaking up, and thus rendering capable of quicker +fusion, edges of ice in the northern and southern Arctic seas, &c., so +rendering parts of the earth habitable which hitherto have been +lifeless, are to be studied under this head.</p> + +<p>The value of instruments is, secondarily, in their aid to abstract +sciences. The degree in which the multiplication of such instruments +should be encouraged, so as to make them, if large, easy of access to +numbers (as costly telescopes), or so cheap as that they might, in a +serviceable form, become a common part of the furniture of households, +is to be considered under this head.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>18. (iii.) Food, medicine, and articles of luxury. Under this head we +shall have to examine the possible methods of obtaining pure food in +such security and equality of supply as to avoid both waste and famine: +then the economy of medicine and just range of sanitary law: finally the +economy of luxury, partly an æsthetic and partly an ethical question.</p> + +<p>19. (iv.) Books. The value of these consists,</p> + +<p>First, in their power of preserving and communicating the knowledge of +facts.</p> + +<p>Secondly, in their power of exciting vital or noble emotion and +intellectual action. They have also their corresponding negative powers +of disguising and effacing the memory of facts, and killing the noble +emotions, or exciting base ones. Under these two heads we have to +consider the economical and educational value, positive and negative, of +literature;—the means of producing and educating good authors, and the +means and advisability of rendering good books generally accessible, and +directing the reader's choice to them.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> +<p>20. (v.) Works of art. The value of these is of the same nature as that +of books; but the laws of their production and possible modes of +distribution are very different, and require separate examination.</p> + + +<p>21. II.—<span class="smcap">Money</span>. Under this head, we shall have to examine the laws of +currency and exchange; of which I will note here the first principles.</p> + + +<p>Money has been inaccurately spoken of as merely a means of exchange. But +it is far more than this. It is a documentary expression of legal claim. +It is not wealth, but a documentary claim to wealth, being the sign of +the relative quantities of it, or of the labour producing it, to which, +at a given time, persons, or societies, are entitled.</p> + +<p>If all the money in the world, notes and gold, were destroyed in an +instant, it would leave the world neither richer nor poorer than it was. +But it would leave the individual inhabitants of it in different +relations.</p> + +<p>Money is, therefore, correspondent in its nature to the title-deed of an +estate. Though the deed be burned, the estate still exists, but the +right to it has become disputable.</p> + +<p>22. The real worth of money remains unchanged, as long as the proportion +of the quantity of existing money to the quantity of existing wealth or +available labour remains unchanged.</p> + +<p>If the wealth increases, but not the money, the worth of the money +increases; if the money increases, but not the wealth, the worth of the +money diminishes.</p> + +<p>23. Money, therefore, cannot be arbitrarily multiplied, any more than +title-deeds can. So long as the existing wealth or available labour is +not fully represented by the currency, the currency may be increased +without diminution of the assigned worth of its pieces. But when the +existing wealth, or available labour is once fully represented, every +piece of money thrown into circulation diminishes the worth of every +other existing piece, in the proportion it bears to the number of them, +provided the new piece be received with equal credit;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> if not, the +depreciation of worth takes place, according to the degree of its +credit.</p> + +<p>24. When, however, new money, composed of some substance of supposed +intrinsic value (as of gold), is brought into the market, or when new +notes are issued which are supposed to be deserving of credit, the +desire to obtain the money will, under certain circumstances, stimulate +industry: an additional quantity of wealth is immediately produced, and +if this be in proportion to the new claims advanced, the value of the +existing currency is undepreciated. If the stimulus given be so great as +to produce more goods than are proportioned to the additional coinage, +the worth of the existing currency will be raised.</p> + +<p>Arbitrary control and issues of currency affect the production of +wealth, by acting on the hopes and fears of men, and are, under certain +circumstances, wise. But the issue of additional currency to meet the +exigencies of immediate expense, is merely one of the disguised forms of +borrowing or taxing. It is, however, in the present low state of +economical knowledge, often possible for governments to venture on an +issue of currency, when they could not venture on an additional loan or +tax, because the real operation of such issue is not understood by the +people, and the pressure of it is irregularly distributed, and with an +unperceived gradation.</p> + +<p>25. The use of substances of intrinsic value as the materials of a +currency, is a barbarism;—a remnant of the conditions of barter, which +alone render commerce possible among savage nations. It is, however, +still necessary, partly as a mechanical check on arbitrary issues; +partly as a means of exchanges with foreign nations. In proportion to +the extension of civilization, and increase of trustworthiness in +Governments, it will cease. So long as it exists, the phenomena of the +cost and price of the articles used for currency are mingled with those +proper to currency itself, in an almost inextricable manner: and the +market worth of bullion is affected by multitudinous accidental +circumstances, which have been traced, with more or less success, by +writers on commercial operations: but with these variations the true +political economist has no more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> to do than an engineer, fortifying a +harbour of refuge against Atlantic tide, has to concern himself with the +cries or quarrels of children who dig pools with their fingers for its +streams among the sand.</p> + +<p>26. III.—<span class="smcap">Riches</span>. According to the various industry, capacity, good +fortune, and desires of men, they obtain greater or smaller share of, +and claim upon, the wealth of the world.</p> + +<p>The inequalities between these shares, always in some degree just and +necessary, may be either restrained by law or circumstance within +certain limits; or may increase indefinitely.</p> + +<p>Where no moral or legal restraint is put upon the exercise of the will +and intellect of the stronger, shrewder, or more covetous men, these +differences become ultimately enormous. But as soon as they become so +distinct in their extremes as that, on one side, there shall be manifest +redundance of possession, and on the other manifest pressure of +need,—the terms "riches" and "poverty" are used to express the opposite +states; being contrary only as the terms "warmth" and "cold" are +contraries, of which neither implies an actual degree, but only a +relation to other degrees, of temperature.</p> + +<p>27. Respecting riches, the economist has to inquire, first, into the +advisable modes of their collection; secondly, into the advisable modes +of their administration.</p> + +<p>Respecting the collection of national riches, he has to inquire, first, +whether he is justified in calling the nation rich, if the quantity of +wealth it possesses relatively to the wealth of other nations, be large; +irrespectively of the manner of its distribution. Or does the mode of +distribution in any wise affect the nature of the riches? Thus, if the +king alone be rich—suppose Croesus or Mausolus—are the Lydians or +Carians therefore a rich nation? Or if a few slave-masters are rich, and +the nation is otherwise composed of slaves, is it to be called a rich +nation? For if not, and the ideas of a certain mode of distribution or +operation in the riches, and of a certain degree of freedom in the +people, enter into our idea of riches as attributed to a people, we +shall have to define the degree of fluency, or circulative character +which is essential to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> the nature of common wealth; and the degree of +independence of action required in its possessors. Questions which look +as if they would take time in answering.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>28. And farther. Since the inequality, which is the condition of riches, +may be established in two opposite modes—namely, by increase of +possession on the one side, and by decrease of it on the other—we have +to inquire, with respect to any given state of riches, precisely in what +manner the correlative poverty was produced: that is to say, whether by +being surpassed only, or being depressed also; and if by being +depressed, what are the advantages, or the contrary, conceivable in the +depression. For instance, it being one of the commonest advantages of +being rich to entertain a number of servants, we have to inquire, on the +one side, what economical process produced the riches of the master; and +on the other, what economical process produced the poverty of the +persons who serve him; and what advantages each, on his own side, +derives from the result.</p> + +<p>29. These being the main questions touching the collection of riches, +the next, or last, part of the inquiry is into their administration.</p> + +<p>Their possession involves three great economical powers which require +separate examination: namely, the powers of selection, direction, and +provision.</p> + +<p>The power of <span class="smcap">Selection</span> relates to things of which the supply is limited +(as the supply of best things is always). When it becomes matter of +question to whom such things are to belong, the richest person has +necessarily the first choice, unless some arbitrary mode of distribution +be otherwise determined upon. The business of the economist is to show +how this choice may be a wise one.</p> + +<p>The power of <span class="smcap">Direction</span> arises out of the necessary relation of rich men +to poor, which ultimately, in one way or another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> involves the +direction of, or authority over, the labour of the poor; and this nearly +as much over their mental as their bodily labour. The business of the +economist is to show how this direction may be a Just one.</p> + +<p>The power of <span class="smcap">Provision</span> is dependent upon the redundance of wealth, which +may of course by active persons be made available in preparation for +future work or future profit; in which function riches have generally +received the name of capital; that is to say, of head-, or +source-material. The business of the economist is to show how this +provision may be a Distant one.</p> + +<p>30. The examination of these three functions of riches will embrace +every final problem of political economy;—and, above, or before all, +this curious and vital problem,—whether, since the wholesome action of +riches in these three functions will depend (it appears), on the Wisdom, +Justice, and Farsightedness of the holders; and it is by no means to be +assumed that persons primarily rich, must therefore be just and +wise,—it may not be ultimately possible so, or somewhat so, to arrange +matters, as that persons primarily just and wise, should therefore be +rich?</p> + +<p>Such being the general plan of the inquiry before us, I shall not limit +myself to any consecutive following of it, having hardly any good hope +of being able to complete so laborious a work as it must prove to me; +but from time to time, as I have leisure, shall endeavour to carry +forward this part or that, as may be immediately possible; indicating +always with accuracy the place which the particular essay will or should +take in the completed system.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <i>See</i> Appendix I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Observe these definitions,—they are of much +importance,—and connect with them the sentences in italics on this and +the next page.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> [I cannot now recast these sentences, pedantic in their +generalization, and intended more for index than statement, but I must +guard the reader from thinking that I ever wish for cheapness by bad +quality. A poor boy need not always learn mathematics; but, if you set +him to do so, have the farther kindness to give him good compasses, not +cheap ones, whose points bend like lead.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> [I regret the ironical manner in which this passage, one +of great importance in the matter of it, was written. The gist of it is, +that the first of all inquiries respecting the wealth of any nation is +not, how much it has; but whether it is in a form that can be used, and +in the possession of persons who can use it.]</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>STORE-KEEPING.</h3> + + +<p>31. The first chapter having consisted of little more than definition of +terms, I purpose, in this, to expand and illustrate the given +definitions.</p> + +<p>The view which has here been taken of the nature of wealth, namely, that +it consists in an intrinsic value developed by a vital power, is +directly opposed to two nearly universal conceptions of wealth. In the +assertion that value is primarily intrinsic, it opposes the idea that +anything which is an object of desire to numbers, and is limited in +quantity, so as to have rated worth in exchange, may be called, or +virtually become, wealth. And in the assertion that value is, +secondarily, dependent upon power in the possessor, it opposes the idea +that the worth of things depends on the demand for them, instead of on +the use of them. Before going farther, we will make these two positions +clearer.</p> + +<p>32. I. First. All wealth is intrinsic, and is not constituted by the +judgment of men. This is easily seen in the case of things affecting the +body; we know, that no force of fantasy will make stones nourishing, or +poison innocent; but it is less apparent in things affecting the mind. +We are easily—perhaps willingly—misled by the appearance of beneficial +results obtained by industries addressed wholly to the gratification of +fanciful desire; and apt to suppose that whatever is widely coveted, +dearly bought, and pleasurable in possession, must be included in our +definition of wealth. It is the more difficult to quit ourselves of this +error because many things which are true wealth in moderate use, become +false wealth in immoderate; and many things are mixed of good and +evil,—as mostly, books, and works of art,—out of which one person Will +get the good, and another the evil; so that it seems as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> there were +no fixed good or evil in the things themselves, but only in the view +taken, and use made of them.</p> + +<p>But that is not so. The evil and good are fixed; in essence, and in +proportion. And in things in which evil depends upon excess, the point +of excess, though indefinable, is fixed; and the power of the thing is +on the hither side for good, and on the farther side for evil. And in +all cases this power is inherent, not dependent on opinion or choice. +Our thoughts of things neither make, nor mar their eternal force; +nor—which is the most serious point for future consideration—can they +prevent the effect of it (within certain limits) upon ourselves.</p> + +<p>33. Therefore, the object of any special analysis of wealth will be not +so much to enumerate what is serviceable, as to distinguish what is +destructive; and to show that it is inevitably destructive; that to +receive pleasure from an evil thing is not to escape from, or alter the +evil of it, but to be <i>altered by</i> it; that is, to suffer from it to the +utmost, having our own nature, in that degree, made evil also. And it +may be shown farther, that, through whatever length of time or +subtleties of connexion the harm is accomplished, (being also less or +more according to the fineness and worth of the humanity on which it is +wrought), still, nothing <i>but</i> harm ever comes of a bad thing.</p> + +<p>34. So that, in sum, the term wealth is never to be attached to the +<i>accidental object of a morbid</i> desire, but only to the <i>constant object +of a legitimate one</i>.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> By the fury of ignorance, and fitfulness of +caprice, large interests may be continually attached to things +unserviceable or hurtful; if their nature could be altered by our +passions, the science of Political Economy would remain, what it has +been hitherto among us, the weighing of clouds, and the portioning out +of shadows. But of ignorance there is no science; and of caprice no law. +Their disturbing forces interfere with the operations of faithful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +Economy, but have nothing in common with them: she, the calm arbiter of +national destiny, regards only essential power for good in all that she +accumulates, and alike disdains the wanderings<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> of imagination, and +the thirsts of disease.</p> + +<p>35. II. Secondly. The assertion that wealth is not <i>only</i> intrinsic, but +dependent, in order to become effectual, on a given degree of vital +power in its possessor, is opposed to another popular view of +wealth;—namely, that though it may always be constituted by caprice, it +is, when so constituted, a substantial thing, of which given quantities +may be counted as existing here, or there, and exchangeable at rated +prices.</p> + +<p>In this view there are three errors. The first and chief is the +overlooking the fact that all exchangeableness of commodity, or +effective demand for it, depends on the sum of capacity for its use +existing, here or elsewhere. The book we cannot read, or picture we take +no delight in, may indeed be called part of our wealth, in so far as we +have power of exchanging either for something we like better. But our +power of effecting such exchange, and yet more, of effecting it to +advantage, depends absolutely on the number of accessible persons who +can understand the book, or enjoy the painting, and who will dispute the +possession of them. Thus the actual worth of either, even to us, depends +no more on their essential goodness than on the capacity existing +somewhere for the perception of it; and it is vain in any completed +system of production to think of obtaining one without the other. So +that, though the true political economist knows that co-existence of +capacity for use with temporary possession cannot be always secured, the +final fact, on which he bases all action and administration, is that, in +the whole nation, or group of nations, he has to deal with, for every +atom of intrinsic value produced he must with exactest chemistry produce +its twin atom of acceptant digestion, or understanding capacity; or, in +the degree of his failure, he has no wealth. Nature's challenge to us +is, in earnest, as the Assyrians mock; "I will give thee two thousand +horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> upon them." Bavieca's +paces are brave, if the Cid backs him; but woe to us, if we take the +dust of capacity, wearing the armour of it, for capacity itself, for so +all procession, however goodly in the show of it, is to the tomb.</p> + +<p>36. The second error in this popular view of wealth is, that in giving +the name of wealth to things which we cannot use, we in reality confuse +wealth with money. The land we have no skill to cultivate, the book +which is sealed to us, or dress which is superfluous, may indeed be +exchangeable, but as such are nothing more than a cumbrous form of +bank-note, of doubtful or slow convertibility. As long as we retain +possession of them, we merely keep our bank-notes in the shape of gravel +or clay, of book-leaves, or of embroidered tissue. Circumstances may, +perhaps, render such forms the safest, or a certain complacency may +attach to the exhibition of them; into both these advantages we shall +inquire afterwards; I wish the reader only to observe here, that +exchangeable property which we cannot use is, to us personally, merely +one of the forms of money, not of wealth.</p> + +<p>37. The third error in the popular view is the confusion of Guardianship +with Possession; the real state of men of property being, too commonly, +that of curators, not possessors, of wealth.</p> + +<p>A man's power over his property is at the widest range of it, fivefold; +it is power of Use, for himself, Administration, to others, Ostentation, +Destruction, or Bequest: and possession is in use only, which for each +man is sternly limited; so that such things, and so much of them as he +can use, are, indeed, well for him, or Wealth; and more of them, or any +other things, are ill for him, or Illth.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Plunged to the lips in +Orinoco, he shall drink to his thirst measure; more, at his peril: with +a thousand oxen on his lands, he shall eat to his hunger measure; more, +at his peril. He cannot live in two houses at once; a few bales of silk +or wool will suffice for the fabric of all the clothes he can ever wear, +and a few books will probably hold all the furniture good for his brain. +Beyond these, in the best of us but narrow, capacities, we have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> but the +power of administering, or <i>mal</i>-administering, wealth: (that is to say, +distributing, lending, or increasing it);—of exhibiting it (as in +magnificence of retinue or furniture),—of destroying, or, finally, of +bequeathing it. And with multitudes of rich men, administration +degenerates into curatorship; they merely hold their property in charge, +as Trustees, for the benefit of some person or persons to whom it is to +be delivered upon their death; and the position, explained in clear +terms, would hardly seem a covetable one. What would be the probable +feelings of a youth, on his entrance into life, to whom the career hoped +for him was proposed in terms such as these: "You must work +unremittingly, and with your utmost intelligence, during all your +available years, you will thus accumulate wealth to a large amount; but +you must touch none of it, beyond what is needful for your support. +Whatever sums you gain, beyond those required for your decent and +moderate maintenance, and whatever beautiful things you may obtain +possession of, shall be properly taken care of by servants, for whose +maintenance you will be charged, and whom you will have the trouble of +superintending, and on your deathbed you shall have the power of +determining to whom the accumulated property shall belong, or to what +purposes be applied."</p> + +<p>38. The labour of life, under such conditions, would probably be neither +zealous nor cheerful; yet the only difference between this position and +that of the ordinary capitalist is the power which the latter supposes +himself to possess, and which is attributed to him by others, of +spending his money at any moment. This pleasure, taken <i>in the +imagination of power to part with that with which we have no intention +of parting</i>, is one of the most curious, though commonest forms of the +Eidolon, or Phantasm of Wealth. But the political economist has nothing +to do with this idealism, and looks only to the practical issue of +it—namely, that the holder of wealth, in such temper, may be regarded +simply as a mechanical means of collection; or as a money-chest with a +slit in it, not only receptant but suctional, set in the public +thoroughfare;—chest of which only Death has the key, and evil Chance +the distribution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> of the contents. In his function of Lender (which, +however, is one of administration, not use, as far as he is himself +concerned), the capitalist takes, indeed, a more interesting aspect; but +even in that function, his relations with the state are apt to +degenerate into a mechanism for the convenient contraction of debt;—a +function the more mischievous, because a nation invariably appeases its +conscience with respect to an unjustifiable expense, by meeting it with +borrowed funds, expresses its repentance of a foolish piece of business, +by letting its tradesmen wait for their money, and always leaves its +descendants to pay for the work which will be of the least advantage to +them.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>39. Quit of these three sources of misconception, the reader will have +little farther difficulty in apprehending the real nature of Effectual +value. He may, however, at first not without surprise, perceive the +consequences involved in his acceptance of the definition. For if the +actual existence of wealth be dependent on the power of its possessor, +it follows that the sum of wealth held by the nation, instead of being +constant, or calculable, varies hourly, nay, momentarily, with the +number and character of its holders! and that in changing hands, it +changes in quantity. And farther, since the worth of the currency is +proportioned to the sum of material wealth which it represents, if the +sum of the wealth changes, the worth of the currency changes. And thus +both the sum of the property, and power of the currency, of the state, +vary momentarily as the character and number of the holders. And not +only so, but different rates and kinds of variation are caused by the +character of the holders of different kinds of wealth. The transitions +of value caused by the character of the holders of land differ in mode +from those caused by character in holders of works of art; and these +again from those caused by character in holders of machinery or other +working capital. But we cannot examine these special phenomena<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> of any +kind of wealth until we have a clear idea of the way in which true +currency expresses them; and of the resulting modes in which the cost +and price of any article are related to its value. To obtain this we +must approach the subject in its first elements.</p> + +<p>40. Let us suppose a national store of wealth, composed of material +things either useful, or believed to be so, taken charge of by the +Government,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> and that every workman, having produced any article +involving labour in its production, and for which he has no immediate +use, brings it to add to this store, receiving from the Government, in +exchange, an order either for the return of the thing itself, or of its +equivalent in other things, such as he may choose out of the store, at +any time when he needs them. The question of equivalence itself (how +much wine a man is to receive in return for so much corn, or how much +coal in return for so much iron) is a quite separate one, which we will +examine presently. For the time, let it be assumed that this equivalence +has been determined, and that the Government order, in exchange for a +fixed weight of any article (called, suppose <i>a</i>), is either for the +return of that weight of the article itself, or of another fixed weight +of the article <i>b</i>, or another of the article <i>c</i>, and so on.</p> + +<p>Now, supposing that the labourer speedily and continually presents these +general orders, or, in common language, "spends the money," he has +neither changed the circumstances of the nation, nor his own, except in +so far as he may have produced useful and consumed useless articles, or +<i>vice versâ</i>. But if he does not use, or uses in part only, the orders +he receives, and lays aside some portion of them; and thus every day +bringing his contribution to the national store, lays by some +per-centage of the orders received in exchange for it, he increases the +national wealth daily by as much as he does not use of the received +order, and to the same amount accumulates a monetary claim on the +Government. It is, of course, always in his power, as it is his legal +right, to bring forward this accumulation of claim, and at once to +consume, destroy, or distribute, the sum of his wealth. Supposing he +never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> does so, but dies, leaving his claim to others, he has enriched +the State during his life by the quantity of wealth over which that +claim extends, or has, in other words, rendered so much additional life +possible in the State, of which additional life he bequeaths the +immediate possibility to those whom he invests with his claim. Supposing +him to cancel the claim, he would distribute this possibility of life +among the nation at large.</p> + +<p>41. We hitherto consider the Government itself as simply a conservative +power, taking charge of the wealth entrusted to it.</p> + +<p>But a Government may be more or less than a conservative power. It may +be either an improving, or destructive one.</p> + +<p>If it be an improving power, using all the wealth entrusted to it to the +best advantage, the nation is enriched in root and branch at once, and +the Government is enabled, for every order presented, to return a +quantity of wealth greater than the order was written for, according to +the fructification obtained in the interim. This ability may be either +concealed, in which case the currency does not completely represent the +wealth of the country, or it may be manifested by the continual payment +of the excess of value on each order, in which case there is +(irrespectively, observe, of collateral results afterwards to be +examined) a perpetual rise in the worth of the currency, that is to say, +a fall in the price of all articles represented by it.</p> + +<p>42. But if the Government be destructive, or a consuming power, it +becomes unable to return the value received on the presentation of the +order.</p> + +<p>This inability may either be concealed by meeting demands to the full, +until it issue in bankruptcy, or in some form of national debt;—or it +may be concealed during oscillatory movements between destructiveness +and productiveness, which result on the whole in stability;—or it may +be manifested by the consistent return of less than value received on +each presented order, in which case there is a consistent fall in the +worth of the currency, or rise in the price of the things represented by +it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>43. Now, if for this conception of a central Government, we substitute +that of a body of persons occupied in industrial pursuits, of whom each +adds in his private capacity to the common store, we at once obtain an +approximation to the actual condition of a civilized mercantile +community, from which approximation we might easily proceed into still +completer analysis. I purpose, however, to arrive at every result by the +gradual expansion of the simpler conception; but I wish the reader to +observe, in the meantime, that both the social conditions thus supposed +(and I will by anticipation say also, all possible social conditions), +agree in two great points; namely, in the primal importance of the +supposed national store or stock, and in its destructibility or +improveability by the holders of it.</p> + +<p>44. I. Observe that in both conditions, that of central +Government-holding, and diffused private-holding, the quantity of stock +is of the same national moment. In the one case, indeed, its amount may +be known by examination of the persons to whom it is confided; in the +other it cannot be known but by exposing the private affairs of every +individual. But, known or unknown, its significance is the same under +each condition. The riches of the nation consist in the abundance, and +their wealth depends on the nature, of this store.</p> + +<p>45. II. In the second place, both conditions, (and all other possible +ones) agree in the destructibility or improveability of the store by its +holders. Whether in private hands, or under Government charge, the +national store may be daily consumed, or daily enlarged, by its +possessors; and while the currency remains apparently unaltered, the +property it represents may diminish or increase.</p> + +<p>46. The first question, then, which we have to put under our simple +conception of central Government, namely, "What store has it?" is one of +equal importance, whatever may be the constitution of the State; while +the second question—namely, "Who are the holders of the store?" +involves the discussion of the constitution of the State itself.</p> + +<p>The first inquiry resolves itself into three heads:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. What is the nature of the store?</p> + +<p>2. What is its quantity in relation to the population?</p> + +<p>3. What is its quantity in relation to the currency?</p> + +<p>The second inquiry into two:</p> + +<p>1. Who are the Holders of the store, and in what proportions?</p> + +<p>2. Who are the Claimants of the store, (that is to say, the holders of +the currency,) and in what proportions?</p> + +<p>We will examine the range of the first three questions in the present +paper; of the two following, in the sequel.</p> + +<p>47. I. <span class="smcap">Question First</span>. What is the nature of the store? Has the nation +hitherto worked for and gathered the right thing or the wrong? On that +issue rest the possibilities of its life.</p> + +<p>For example, let us imagine a society, of no great extent, occupied in +procuring and laying up store of corn, wine, wool, silk, and other such +preservable materials of food and clothing; and that it has a currency +representing them. Imagine farther, that on days of festivity, the +society, discovering itself to derive satisfaction from pyrotechnics, +gradually turns its attention more and more to the manufacture of +gunpowder; so that an increasing number of labourers, giving what time +they can spare to this branch of industry, bring increasing quantities +of combustibles into the store, and use the general orders received in +exchange to obtain such wine, wool, or corn, as they may have need of. +The currency remains the same, and represents precisely the same amount +of material in the store, and of labour spent in producing it. But the +corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear +sulphur and saltpetre, till at last the labourers who have consumed corn +and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their +currency to obtain materials for the feast, discover that no amount of +currency will command anything Festive, except Fire. The supply of +rockets is unlimited, but that of food, limited, in a quite final +manner; and the whole currency in the hands of the society represents an +infinite power of detonation, but none of existence.</p> + +<p>48. This statement, caricatured as it may seem, is only exaggerated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> in +assuming the persistence of the folly to extremity, unchecked, as in +reality it would be, by the gradual rise in price of food. But it falls +short of the actual facts of human life in expression of the depth and +intensity of the folly itself. For a great part (the reader would not +believe how great until he saw the statistics in detail) of the most +earnest and ingenious industry of the world is spent in producing +munitions of war; gathering, that is to say the materials, not of +festive, but of consuming fire; filling its stores with all power of the +instruments of pain, and all affluence of the ministries of death. It +was no true <i>Trionfo della Morte</i><a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> which men have seen and feared +(sometimes scarcely feared) so long; wherein he brought them rest from +their labours. We see, and share, another and higher form of his triumph +now. Task-master, instead of Releaser, he rules the dust of the arena no +less than of the tomb; and, content once in the grave whither man went, +to make his works to cease and his devices to vanish,—now, in the busy +city and on the serviceable sea, makes his work to increase, and his +devices to multiply.</p> + +<p>49. To this doubled loss, or negative power of labour, spent in +producing means of destruction, we have to add, in our estimate of the +consequences of human folly, whatever more insidious waste of toil there +is in production of unnecessary luxury. Such and such an occupation (it +is said) supports so many labourers, because so many obtain wages in +following it; but it is never considered that unless there be a +supporting power in the product of the occupation, the wages given to +one man are merely withdrawn from another. We cannot say of any trade +that it maintains such and such a number of persons, unless we know how +and where the money, now spent in the purchase of its produce, would +have been spent, if that produce had not been manufactured. The +purchasing funds truly support a number of people in making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> This; but +(probably) leave unsupported an equal number who are making, or could +have made That. The manufacturers of small watches thrive at Geneva;—it +is well;—but where would the money spent on small watches have gone, +had there been no small watches to buy?</p> + +<p>50. If the so frequently uttered aphorism of mercantile economy—"labour +is limited by capital," were true, this question would be a definite +one. But it is untrue; and that widely. Out of a given quantity of funds +for wages, more or less labour is to be had, according to the quantity +of will with which we can inspire the workman; and the true limit of +labour is only in the limit of this moral stimulus of the will, and of +the bodily power. In an ultimate, but entirely unpractical sense, labour +is limited by capital, as it is by matter—that is to say, where there +is no material, there can be no work,—but in the practical sense, +labour is limited only by the great original capital of head, heart, and +hand. Even in the most artificial relations of commerce, labour is to +capital as fire to fuel: out of so much fuel, you <i>can</i> have only so +much fire; but out of so much fuel, you <i>shall</i> have so much fire,—not +in proportion to the mass of combustible, but to the force of wind that +fans and water that quenches; and the appliance of both. And labour is +furthered, as conflagration is, not so much by added fuel, as by +admitted air.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>51. For which reasons, I had to insert, in § 49, the qualifying +"probably;" for it can never be said positively that the purchase-money, +or wages fund of any trade is withdrawn from some other trade. The +object itself may be the stimulus of the production of the money which +buys it; that is to say, the work by which the purchaser obtained the +means of buying it, would not have been done by him unless he had wanted +that particular thing. And the production of any article not +intrinsically (nor in the process of manufacture) injurious, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> useful, +if the desire of it causes productive labour in other directions.</p> + +<p>52. In the national store, therefore, the presence of things +intrinsically valueless does not imply an entirely correlative absence +of things valuable. We cannot be certain that all the labour spent on +vanity has been diverted from reality, and that for every bad thing +produced, a precious thing has been lost. In great measure, the vain +things represent the results of roused indolence; they have been carved, +as toys, in extra time; and, if they had not been made, nothing else +would have been made. Even to munitions of war this principle applies; +they partly represent the work of men who, if they had not made spears, +would never have made pruning hooks, and who are incapable of any +activities but those of contest.</p> + +<p>53. Thus then, finally, the nature of the store has to be considered +under two main lights; the one, that of its immediate and actual +utility; the other, that of the past national character which it +signifies by its production, and future character which it must develop +by its use. And the issue of this investigation will be to show us that.</p> + +<p>Economy does not depend merely on principles of "demand and supply," but +primarily on what is demanded, and what is supplied; which I will beg of +you to observe, and take to heart.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>54. II. <span class="smcap">Question Second</span>.—What is the quantity of the store, in relation +to the population?</p> + +<p>It follows from what has been already stated that the accurate form in +which this question has to be put is—"What quantity of each article +composing the store exists in proportion to the real need for it by the +population?" But we shall for the time assume, in order to keep all our +terms at the simplest, that the store is wholly composed of useful +articles, and accurately proportioned to the several needs for them.</p> + +<p>Now it cannot be assumed, because the store is large in proportion to +the number of the people, that the people must be in comfort; nor +because it is small, that they must be in distress. An active and +economical race always produces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> more than it requires, and lives (if it +is permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its daily labour. +The quantity of its store, great or small, is therefore in many respects +indifferent to it, and cannot be inferred from its aspect. Similarly an +inactive and wasteful population, which cannot live by its daily labour, +but is dependent, partly or wholly, on consumption of its store, may be +(by various difficulties, hereafter to be examined, in realizing or +getting at such store) retained in a state of abject distress, though +its possessions may be immense. But the results always involved in the +magnitude of store are, the commercial power of the nation, its +security, and its mental character. Its commercial power, in that +according to the quantity of its store, may be the extent of its +dealings; its security, in that according to the quantity of its store +are its means of sudden exertion or sustained endurance; and its +character, in that certain conditions of civilization cannot be attained +without permanent and continually accumulating store, of great intrinsic +value, and of peculiar nature.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>55. Now, seeing that these three advantages arise from largeness of +store in proportion to population, the question arises immediately, +"Given the store—is the nation enriched by diminution of its numbers? +Are a successful national speculation, and a pestilence, economically +the same thing?"</p> + +<p>This is in part a sophistical question; such as it would be to ask +whether a man was richer when struck by disease which must limit his +life within a predicable period, than he was when in health. He is +enabled to enlarge his current expenses, and has for all purposes a +larger sum at his immediate disposal (for, given the fortune, the +shorter the life, the larger the annuity); yet no man considers himself +richer because he is condemned by his physician.</p> + +<p>56. The logical reply is that, since Wealth is by definition only the +means of life, a nation cannot be enriched by its own mortality. Or in +shorter words, the life is more than the meat; and existence itself, +more wealth than the means of existence. Whence, of two nations who have +equal store, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> more numerous is to be considered the richer, provided +the type of the inhabitant be as high (for, though the relative bulk of +their store be less, its relative efficiency, or the amount of effectual +wealth, must be greater). But if the type of the population be +deteriorated by increase of its numbers, we have evidence of poverty in +its worst influence; and then, to determine whether the nation in its +total may still be justifiably esteemed rich, we must set or weigh, the +number of the poor against that of the rich.</p> + +<p>To effect which piece of scale-work, it is of course necessary to +determine, first, who are poor and who are rich; nor this only, but also +how poor and how rich they are. Which will prove a curious +thermometrical investigation; for we shall have to do for gold and for +silver, what we have done for quicksilver;—determine, namely, their +freezing-point, their zero, their temperate and fever-heat points; +finally, their vaporescent point, at which riches, sometimes +explosively, as lately in America, "make to themselves wings:"—and +correspondently, the number of degrees <i>below</i> zero at which poverty, +ceasing to brace with any wholesome cold, burns to the bone.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>57. For the performance of these operations, in the strictest sense +scientific, we will first look to the existing so-called "science" of +Political Economy; we will ask it to define for us the comparatively and +superlatively rich, and the comparatively and superlatively poor; and on +its own terms—if any terms it can pronounce—examine, in our prosperous +England, how many rich and how many poor people there are; and whether +the quantity and intensity of the poverty is indeed so overbalanced by +the quantity and intensity of wealth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> that we may permit ourselves a +luxurious blindness to it, and call ourselves, complacently, a rich +country. And if we find no clear definition in the existing science, we +will endeavour for ourselves to fix the true degrees of the scale, and +to apply them.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>58. <span class="smcap">Question Third</span>. What is the quantity of the store in relation to the +Currency?</p> + +<p>We have seen that the real worth of the currency, so far as dependent on +its relation to the magnitude of the store, may vary, within certain +limits, without affecting its worth in exchange. The diminution or +increase of the represented wealth may be unperceived, and the currency +may be taken either for more or less than it is truly worth. Usually it +is taken for much more; and its power in exchange, or credit-power, is +thus increased up to a given strain upon its relation to existing +wealth. This credit-power is of chief importance in the thoughts, +because most sharply present to the experience, of a mercantile +community: but the conditions of its stability<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and all other +relations of the currency to the material<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> store are entirely simple in +principle, if not in action. Far other than simple are the relations of +the currency to the available labour which it also represents. For this +relation is involved not only with that of the magnitude of the store to +the number, but with that of the magnitude of the store to the mind, of +the population. Its proportion to their number, and the resulting worth +of currency, are calculable; but its proportion to their will for labour +is not. The worth of the piece of money which claims a given quantity of +the store is, in exchange, less or greater according to the facility of +obtaining the same quantity of the same thing without having recourse to +the store. In other words it depends on the immediate Cost and Price of +the thing. We must now, therefore, complete the definition of these +terms.</p> + +<p>59. All cost and price are counted in Labour. We must know first, +therefore, what is to be counted <i>as</i> Labour.</p> + +<p>I have already defined labour to be the Contest of the life of man with +an opposite. Literally, it is the quantity of "Lapse," loss, or failure +of human life, caused by any effort. It is usually confused with effort +itself, or the application of power (opera); but there is much effort +which is merely a mode of recreation, or of pleasure. The most beautiful +actions of the human body, and the highest results of the human +intelligence, are conditions, or achievements, of quite +unlaborious,—nay, of recreative,—effort. But labour is the <i>suffering</i> +in effort. It is the negative quantity, or quantity of de-feat, which +has to be counted against every Feat, and of de-fect which has to be +counted against every Fact, or Deed of men. In brief, it is "that +quantity of our toil which we die in."</p> + +<p>We might, therefore, <i>à priori</i>, conjecture (as we shall ultimately +find), that it cannot be bought, nor sold. Everything else is bought and +sold for Labour, but labour itself cannot be bought nor sold for +anything, being priceless.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> The idea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> that it is a commodity to be +bought or sold, is the alpha and omega of Politico-Economic fallacy.</p> + +<p>60. This being the nature of labour, the "Cost" of anything is the +quantity of labour necessary to obtain it;—the quantity for which, or +at which, it "stands" (constant). It is literally the "Constancy" of the +thing;—you shall win it—move it—come at it, for no less than this.</p> + +<p>Cost is measured and measurable (using the accurate Latin terms) only in +"labour," not in "opera."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> It does not matter how much <i>work</i> a thing +needs to produce it; it matters only how much <i>distress</i>. Generally the +more the power it requires, the less the distress; so that the noblest +works of man cost less than the meanest.</p> + +<p>True labour, or spending of life, is either of the body, in fatigue or +pain; of the temper or heart (as in perseverance of search for +things,—patience in waiting for them,—fortitude or degradation in +suffering for them, and the like), or of the intellect. All these kinds +of labour are supposed to be included in the general term, and the +quantity of labour is then expressed by the time it lasts. So that a +unit of labour is "an hour's work" or a day's work, as we may +determine.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>61. Cost, like value, is both intrinsic and effectual. Intrinsic cost is +that of getting the thing in the right way; effectual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> cost is that of +getting the thing in the way we set about it. But intrinsic cost cannot +be made a subject of analytical investigation, being only partially +discoverable, and that by long experience. Effectual cost is all that +the political Economist can deal with; that is to say, the cost of the +thing under existing circumstances, and by known processes.</p> + +<p>Cost, being dependent much on application of method, varies with the +quantity of the thing wanted, and with the number of persons who work +for it. It is easy to get a little of some things, but difficult to get +much; it is impossible to get some things with few hands, but easy to +get them with many.</p> + +<p>62. The cost and value of things, however difficult to determine +accurately, are thus both dependent on ascertainable physical +circumstances.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> +<p>But their <i>price</i> is dependent on the human will.</p> + +<p>Such and such a thing is demonstrably good for so much. And it may +demonstrably be had for so much.</p> + +<p>But it remains questionable, and in all manner of ways questionable, +whether I choose to give so much.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p>This choice is always a relative one. It is a choice to give a price for +this, rather than for that;—a resolution to have the thing, if getting +it does not involve the loss of a better thing. Price depends, +therefore, not only on the cost of the commodity itself, but on its +relation to the cost of every other attainable thing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>Farther. The <i>power</i> of choice is also a relative one. It depends not +merely on our own estimate of the thing, but on everybody else's +estimate; therefore on the number and force of the will of the +concurrent buyers, and on the existing quantity of the thing in +proportion to that number and force.</p> + +<p>Hence the price of anything depends on four variables.</p> + +<p>(1.) Its cost.</p> + +<p>(2.) Its attainable quantity at that cost.</p> + +<p>(3.) The number and power of the persons who want it.</p> + +<p>(4.) The estimate they have formed of its desirableness.</p> + +<p>Its value only affects its price so far as it is contemplated in this +estimate; perhaps, therefore, not at all.</p> + +<p>63. Now, in order to show the manner in which price is expressed in +terms of a currency, we must assume these four quantities to be known, +and the "estimate of desirableness," commonly called the Demand, to be +certain. We will take the number of persons at the lowest. Let A and B +be two labourers who "demand," that is to say, have resolved to labour +for, two articles, <i>a</i> and <i>b</i>. Their demand for these articles (if the +reader likes better, he may say their need) is to be conceived as +absolute, their existence depending on the getting these two things. +Suppose, for instance, that they are bread and fuel, in a cold country, +and let a represent the least quantity of bread, and <i>b</i> the least +quantity of fuel, which will support a man's life for a day. Let <i>a</i> be +producible by an hour's labour, but <i>b</i> only by two hours' labour.</p> + +<p>Then the <i>cost of a</i> is one hour, and of <i>b</i> two (cost, by our +definition, being expressible in terms of time). If, therefore, each man +worked both for his corn and fuel, each would have to work three hours a +day. But they divide the labour for its greater ease.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Then if A +works three hours, he produces 3 <i>a</i>, which is one a more than both the +men want. And if B works three hours, he produces only 1-1/2 <i>b</i>, or +half of <i>b</i> less than both want. But if A work three hours and B six, A +has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> 3 <i>a</i>, and B has 3 <i>b</i>, a maintenance in the right proportion for +both for a day and half; so that each might take half a day's rest. But +as B has worked double time, the whole of this day's rest belongs in +equity to him. Therefore the just exchange should be, A giving two <i>a</i> +for one <i>b</i>, has one <i>a</i> and one <i>b</i>;—maintenance for a day. B giving +one <i>b</i> for two <i>a</i>, has two <i>a</i> and two <i>b</i>; maintenance for two days.</p> + +<p>But B cannot rest on the second day, or A would be left without the +article which B produces. Nor is there any means of making the exchange +just, unless a third labourer is called in. Then one workman, A, +produces <i>a</i>, and two, B and C, produce <i>b</i>:—A, working three hours, +has three <i>a</i>;—B, three hours, 1-1/2 <i>b</i>;—C, three hours, 1-1/2 <i>b</i>. B +and C each give half of <i>b</i> for <i>a</i>, and all have their equal daily +maintenance for equal daily work.</p> + +<p>To carry the example a single step farther, let three articles, <i>a</i>, +<i>b</i>, and <i>c</i> be needed.</p> + +<p>Let <i>a</i> need one hour's work, <i>b</i> two, and <i>c</i> four; then the day's work +must be seven hours, and one man in a day's work can make 7 <i>a</i>, or +3-1/2 <i>b</i>, or 1-3/4 <i>c</i>.</p> + +<p>Therefore one A works for <i>a</i>, producing 7 <i>a</i>; two B's work for <i>b</i>, +producing 7 <i>b</i>; four C's work for <i>c</i>, producing 7 <i>c</i>.</p> + +<p>A has six <i>a</i> to spare, and gives two <i>a</i> for one <i>b</i>, and four <i>a</i> for +one <i>c</i>. Each B has 2-1/2 <i>b</i> to spare, and gives 1/2 <i>b</i> for one <i>a</i>, +and two <i>b</i> for one <i>c</i>.</p> + +<p>Each C has 3/4 of <i>c</i> to spare, and gives 1/2 <i>c</i> for one <i>b</i>, and 1/4 +of <i>c</i> for one <i>a</i>.</p> + +<p>And all have their day's maintenance.</p> + +<p>Generally, therefore, it follows that if the demand is constant,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> the +relative prices of things are as their costs, or as the quantities of +labour involved in production.</p> + +<p>64. Then, in order to express their prices in terms of a currency, we +have only to put the currency into the form of orders for a certain +quantity of any given article (with us it is in the form of orders for +gold), and all quantities of other articles are priced by the relation +they bear to the article which the currency claims.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> +<p>But the worth of the currency itself is not in the slightest degree +founded more on the worth of the article which it either claims or +consists in (as gold) than on the worth of every other article for which +the gold is exchangeable. It is just as accurate to say, "so many pounds +are worth an acre of land," as "an acre of land is worth so many +pounds." The worth of gold, of land, of houses, and of food, and of all +other things, depends at any moment on the existing quantities and +relative demands for all and each; and a change in the worth of, or +demand for, any one, involves an instantaneously correspondent change in +the worth of, and demand for, all the rest;—a change as inevitable and +as accurately balanced (though often in its process as untraceable) as +the change in volume of the outflowing river from some vast lake, caused +by change in the volume of the inflowing streams, though no eye can +trace, nor instrument detect, motion, either on its surface, or in the +depth.</p> + +<p>65. Thus, then, the real working power or worth of the currency is +founded on the entire sum of the relative estimates formed by the +population of its possessions; a change in this estimate in any +direction (and therefore every change in the national character), +instantly alters the value of money, in its second great function of +commanding labour. But we must always carefully and sternly distinguish +between this worth of currency, dependent on the conceived or +appreciated value of what it represents, and the worth of it, dependent +on the <i>existence</i> of what it represents. A currency is <i>true, or +false</i>, in proportion to the security with which it gives claim to the +possession of land, house, horse, or picture; but a currency is <i>strong +or weak</i>,<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> worth much, or worth little, in proportion to the degree +of estimate in which the nation holds the house, horse, or picture which +is claimed. Thus the power of the English currency has been, till of +late, largely based on the national estimate of horses and of wine: so +that a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> might always give any price to furnish choicely his stable, +or his cellar; and receive public approval therefor: but if he gave the +same sum to furnish his library, he was called mad or a biblio-maniac. +And although he might lose his fortune by his horses, and his health or +life by his cellar, and rarely lost either by his books, he was yet +never called a Hippo-maniac nor an Oino-maniac; but only Biblio-maniac, +because the current worth of money was understood to be legitimately +founded on cattle and wine, but not on literature. The prices lately +given at sales for pictures and MSS. indicate some tendency to change in +the national character in this respect, so that the worth of the +currency may even come in time to rest, in an acknowledged manner, +somewhat on the state and keeping of the Bedford missal, as well as on +the health of Caractacus or Blink Bonny; and old pictures be considered +property, no less than old port. They might have been so before now, but +that it is more difficult to choose the one than the other.</p> + +<p>66. Now, observe, all these sources of variation in the power of the +currency exist, wholly irrespective of the influences of vice, +indolence, and improvidence. We have hitherto supposed, throughout the +analysis, every professing labourer to labour honestly, heartily, and in +harmony with his fellows. We have now to bring farther into the +calculation the effects of relative industry, honour, and forethought; +and thus to follow out the bearings of our second inquiry: Who are the +holders of the Store and Currency, and in what proportions?</p> + +<p>This, however, we must reserve for our next paper—noticing here only +that, however distinct the several branches of the subject are, +radically, they are so interwoven in their issues that we cannot rightly +treat any one, till we have taken cognizance of all. Thus the need of +the currency in proportion to number of population is materially +influenced by the probable number of the holders in proportion to the +non-holders; and this again, by the number of holders of goods, or +wealth, in proportion to the non-holders of goods. For as, by +definition, the currency is a claim to goods which are not possessed, +its quantity indicates the number of claimants in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> proportion to the +number of holders; and the force and complexity of claim. For if the +claims be not complex, currency as a means of exchange may be very small +in quantity. A sells some corn to B, receiving a promise from B to pay +in cattle, which A then hands over to C, to get some wine. C in due time +claims the cattle from B; and B takes back his promise. These exchanges +have, or might have been, all effected with a single coin or promise; +and the proportion of the currency to the store would in such +circumstances indicate only the circulating vitality of it—that is to +say, the quantity and convenient divisibility of that part of the store +which the <i>habits</i> of the nation keep in circulation. If a cattle +breeder is content to live with his household chiefly on meat and milk, +and does not want rich furniture, or jewels, or books—if a wine and +corn grower maintains himself and his men chiefly on grapes and +bread;—if the wives and daughters of families weave and spin the +clothing of the household, and the nation, as a whole, remains content +with the produce of its own soil and the work of its own hands, it has +little occasion for circulating media. It pledges and promises little +and seldom; exchanges only so far as exchange is necessary for life. The +store belongs to the people in whose hands it is found, and money is +little needed either as an expression of right, or practical means of +division and exchange.</p> + +<p>67. But in proportion as the habits of the nation become complex and +fantastic (and they may be both, without therefore being civilized), its +circulating medium must increase in proportion to its store. If every +one wants a little of everything,—if food must be of many kinds, and +dress of many fashions,—if multitudes live by work which, ministering +to fancy, has its pay measured by fancy, so that large prices will be +given by one person for what is valueless to another,—if there are +great inequalities of knowledge, causing great inequalities of +estimate,—and, finally, and worst of all, if the currency itself, from +its largeness, and the power which the possession of it implies, becomes +the sole object of desire with large numbers of the nation, so that the +holding of it is disputed among them as the main object of life:—in +each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> and all of these cases, the currency necessarily enlarges in +proportion to the store; and as a means of exchange and division, as a +bond of right, and as an object of passion, has a more and more +important and malignant power over the nation's dealings, character, and +life.</p> + +<p>Against which power, when, as a bond of Right, it becomes too +conspicuous and too burdensome, the popular voice is apt to be raised in +a violent and irrational manner, leading to revolution instead of +remedy. Whereas all possibility of Economy depends on the clear +assertion and maintenance of this bond of right, however burdensome. The +first necessity of all economical government is to secure the +unquestioned and unquestionable working of the great law of +Property—that a man who works for a thing shall be allowed to get it, +keep it, and consume it, in peace; and that he who does not eat his cake +to-day, shall be seen, without grudging, to have his cake to-morrow. +This, I say, is the first point to be secured by social law; without +this, no political advance, nay, no political existence, is in any sort +possible. Whatever evil, luxury, iniquity, may seem to result from it, +this is nevertheless the first of all Equities; and to the enforcement +of this, by law and by police-truncheon, the nation must always +primarily set its mind—that the cupboard door may have a firm lock to +it, and no man's dinner be carried off by the mob, on its way home from +the baker's. Which, thus fearlessly asserting, we shall endeavour in +next paper to consider how far it may be practicable for the mob itself, +also, in due breadth of dish, to have dinners to carry home.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Remember carefully this statement, that Wealth consists +only in the things which the nature of humanity has rendered in all +ages, and must render in all ages to come, (that is what I meant by +"constant") the objects of legitimate desire. And see Appendix II.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> The <i>Wanderings</i>, observe, not the Right goings, of +Imagination. She is very far from despising these.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>See</i> Appendix III.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> I would beg the reader's very close attention to these +37th and 38th paragraphs. It would be well if a dogged conviction could +be enforced on nations, as on individuals, that, with few exceptions, +what they cannot at present pay for, they should not at present have.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>See</i> Appendix IV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> I little thought, what <i>Trionfo della Morte</i> would be, for +this very cause, and in literal fulfilment of the closing words of the +47th paragraph, over the fields and houses of Europe, and over its +fairest city—within seven years from the day I wrote it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> The meaning of which is, that you may spend a great deal +of money, and get very little work for it, and that little bad; but +having good "air" or "spirit," to put life into it, with very little +money, you may get a great deal of work, and all good; which, observe, +is an arithmetical, not at all a poetical or visionary circumstance.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> More especially, works of great art.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> The meaning of that, in plain English, is, that we must +find out how far poverty and riches are good or bad for people, and what +is the difference between being miserably poor—so as, perhaps, to be +driven to crime, or to pass life in suffering—and being blessedly poor, +in the sense meant in the Sermon on the Mount. For I suppose the people +who believe that sermon, do not think (if they ever honestly ask +themselves what they do think), either that Luke vi. 24. is a merely +poetical exclamation, or that the Beatitude of Poverty has yet been +attained in St. Martin's Lane and other back streets of London.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Large plans!—Eight years are gone, and nothing done yet. +But I keep my purpose of making one day this balance, or want of +balance, visible, in those so seldom used scales of Justice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> These are nearly all briefly represented by the image used +for the force of money by Dante, of mast and sail:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Quali dal vento le gonfiate vele<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Caggiono avvolte, poi che l'alber fiacca<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +The image may be followed out, like all of Dante's, into as close detail +as the reader chooses. Thus the stress of the sail must be proportioned +to the strength of the mast, and it is only in unforeseen danger that a +skilful seaman ever carries all the canvas his spars will bear, states +of mercantile languor are like the flap of the sail in a calm; of +mercantile precaution, like taking in reefs; and mercantile ruin is +instant on the breaking of the mast. +</p><p> +[I mean by credit-power, the general impression on the national mind +that a sovereign, or any other coin, is worth so much bread and +cheese—so much wine—so much horse and carriage—or so much fine art: +it may be really worth, when tried, less or more than is thought: the +thought of it is the credit-power.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> The object of Political Economy is not to buy, nor to sell +labour, but to spare it. Every attempt to buy or sell it is, in the +outcome, ineffectual; so far as successful, it is not sale, but +Betrayal; and the purchase-money is a part of that thirty pieces which +bought, first the greatest of labours, and afterwards the burial-field +of the Stranger; for this purchase-money, being in its very smallness or +vileness the exactly measured opposite of the "vilis annona amicorum," +makes all men strangers to each other.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Cicero's distinction, "sordidi quæstus, quorum operæ, non +quorum artes emuntur," admirable in principle, is inaccurate in +expression, because Cicero did not practically know how much operative +dexterity is necessary in all the higher arts; but the cost of this +dexterity is incalculable. Be it great or small, the "cost" of the mere +perfectness of touch in a hammer-stroke of Donatello's, or a +pencil-touch of Correggio's, is inestimable by any ordinary arithmetic. +</p><p> +[Old notes, these, more embarrassing I now perceive, than elucidatory; +but right, and worth retaining.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Only observe, as some labour is more destructive of life +than other labour, the hour or day of the more destructive toil is +supposed to include proportionate rest. Though men do not, or cannot, +usually take such rest, except in death.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> There is, therefore, observe, no such thing as cheapness +(in the common use of that term), without some error or injustice. A +thing is said to be cheap, not because it is common, but because it is +supposed to be sold under its worth. Everything has its proper and true +worth at any given time, in relation to everything else; and at that +worth should be bought and sold. If sold under it, it is cheap to the +buyer by exactly so much as the seller loses, and no more. Putrid meat, +at twopence a pound, is not "cheaper" than wholesome meat at sevenpence +a pound; it is probably much dearer; but if, by watching your +opportunity, you can get the wholesome meat for sixpence a pound, it is +cheaper to you by a penny, which you have gained, and the seller has +lost. The present rage for cheapness is either, therefore, simply and +literally a rage for badness of all commodities, or it is an attempt to +find persons whose necessities will force them to let you have more than +you should for your money. It is quite easy to produce such persons, and +in large numbers; for the more distress there is in a nation, the more +cheapness of this sort you can obtain, and your boasted cheapness is +thus merely a measure of the extent of your national distress. +</p><p> +There is, indeed, a condition of apparent cheapness, which we have some +right to be triumphant in; namely, the real reduction in cost of +articles by right application of labour. But in this case the article is +only cheap with reference to its <i>former</i> price; the so-called cheapness +is only our expression for the sensation of contrast between its former +and existing prices. So soon as the new methods of producing the article +are established, it ceases to be esteemed either cheap or dear, at the +new price, as at the old one, and is felt to be cheap only when accident +enables it to be purchased beneath this new value. And it is no +advantage to produce the article more easily, except as it enables you +to multiply your population. Cheapness of this kind is merely the +discovery that more men can be maintained on the same ground; and the +question how many you will maintain in proportion to your additional +means, remains exactly in the same terms that it did before. +</p><p> +A form of immediate cheapness results, however, in many cases, without +distress, from the labour of a population where food is redundant, or +where the labour by which the food is produced leaves much idle time on +their hands, which may be applied to the production of "cheap" articles. +</p><p> +All such phenomena indicate to the political economist places where the +labour is unbalanced. In the first case, the just balance is to be +effected by taking labourers from the spot where pressure exists, and +sending them to that where food is redundant. In the second, the +cheapness is a local accident, advantageous to the local purchaser, +disadvantageous to the local producer. It is one of the first duties of +commerce to extend the market, and thus give the local producer his full +advantage. +</p><p> +Cheapness caused by natural accidents of harvest, weather, &c., is +always counterbalanced, in due time, by natural scarcity, similarly +caused. It is the part of wise government, and healthy commerce, so to +provide in times and places of plenty for times and places of dearth, as +that there shall never be waste, nor famine. +</p><p> +Cheapness caused by gluts of the market is merely a disease of clumsy +and wanton commerce.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Price has been already defined (p. 9) to be the quantity +of labour which the possessor of a thing is willing to take for it. It +is best to consider the price to be that fixed by the possessor, because +the possessor has absolute power of refusing sale, while the purchaser +has no absolute power of compelling it; but the effectual or market +price is that at which their estimates coincide.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> This "greater ease" ought to be allowed for by a +diminution in the times of the divided work; but as the proportion of +times would remain the same, I do not introduce this unnecessary +complexity into the calculation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Compare <i>Unto this Last</i>, p. 115, <i>et seq.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> [That is to say, the love of money is founded first on the +intenseness of desire for given things; a youth will rob the till, +now-a-days, for pantomime tickets and cigars; the "strength" of the +currency being irresistible to him, in consequence of his desire for +those luxuries.]</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>COIN-KEEPING.</h3> + + +<p>68. It will be seen by reference to the last chapter that our present +task is to examine the relation of holders of store to holders of +currency; and of both to those who hold neither. In order to do this, we +must determine on which side we are to place substances such as gold, +commonly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous definitions the +reader will now be able to understand closer statements than have yet +been possible.</p> + +<p>69. <i>The currency of any country consists of every document +acknowledging debt, which is transferable in the country.</i><a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility and credit. Its +intelligibility depends chiefly on the difficulty of forging anything +like it;—its credit much on national character, but ultimately <i>always +on the existence of substantial means of meeting its demand</i>.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p>As the degrees of transferableness are variable, (some documents passing +only in certain places, and others passing, if at all, for less than +their inscribed value), both the mass, and, so to speak, fluidity, of +the currency, are variable. True or perfect currency flows freely, like +a pure stream; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in proportion to the +quantity of less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> transferable matter which mixes with it, adding to its +bulk, but diminishing its purity. [Articles of commercial value, on +which bills are drawn, increase the currency indefinitely; and +substances of intrinsic value if stamped or signed without restriction +so as to become acknowledgments of debt, increase it indefinitely also.] +Every bit of gold found in Australia, so long as it remains uncoined, is +an article offered for sale like any other; but as soon as it is coined +into pounds, it diminishes the value of every pound we have now in our +pockets.</p> + +<p>70. Legally authorized or national currency, in its perfect condition, +is a form of public acknowledgment of debt, so regulated and divided +that any person presenting a commodity of tried worth in the public +market, shall, if he please, receive in exchange for it a document +giving him claim to the return of its equivalent, (1) in any place, (2) +at any time, and (3) in any kind.</p> + +<p>When currency is quite healthy and vital, the persons entrusted with its +management are always able to give on demand either,</p> + +<p>A. The assigning document for the assigned quantity of goods. Or,</p> + +<p>B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning document.</p> + +<p>If they cannot give document for goods, the national exchange is at +fault.</p> + +<p>If they cannot give goods for document, the national credit is at fault.</p> + +<p>The nature and power of the document are therefore to be examined under +the three relations it bears to Place, Time, and Kind.</p> + +<p>71. (1.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth in any +<i>Place</i>. Its use in this function is to save carriage, so that parting +with a bushel of corn in London, we may receive an order for a bushel of +corn at the Antipodes, or elsewhere. To be perfect in this use, the +substance of currency must be to the maximum portable, credible, and +intelligible. Its non-acceptance or discredit results always from some +form of ignorance or dishonour: so far as such interruptions rise out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +of differences in denomination, there is no ground for their continuance +among civilized nations. It may be convenient in one country to use +chiefly copper for coinage, in another silver, and in another +gold,—reckoning accordingly in centimes, francs, or zecchins: but that +a franc should be different in weight and value from a shilling, and a +zwanziger vary from both, is wanton loss of commercial power.</p> + +<p>72. (2.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth at any +<i>Time</i>. In this second use, currency is the exponent of accumulation: it +renders the laying-up of store at the command of individuals unlimitedly +possible;—whereas, but for its intervention, all gathering would be +confined within certain limits by the bulk of property, or by its decay, +or the difficulty of its guardianship. "I will pull down my barns and +build greater," cannot be a daily saying; and all material investment is +enlargement of care. The national currency transfers the guardianship of +the store to many; and preserves to the original producer the right of +re-entering on its possession at any future period.</p> + +<p>73. (3.) It gives claim (practical, though not legal) to the return of +equivalent wealth in any <i>Kind</i>. It is a transferable right, not merely +to this or that, but to anything; and its power in this function is +proportioned to the range of choice. If you give a child an apple or a +toy, you give him a determinate pleasure, but if you give him a penny, +an indeterminate one, proportioned to the range of selection offered by +the shops in the village. The power of the world's currency is similarly +in proportion to the openness of the world's fair, and, commonly, +enhanced by the brilliancy of external aspect, rather than solidity of +its wares.</p> + +<p>74. We have said that the currency consists of orders for equivalent +goods. If equivalent, their quality must be guaranteed. The kinds of +goods chosen for specific claim must, therefore, be capable of test, +while, also, that a store may be kept in hand to meet the call of the +currency, smallness of bulk, with great relative value, is desirable; +and indestructibility, over at least a certain period, essential.</p> + +<p>Such indestructibility, and facility of being tested, are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> united in +gold; its intrinsic value is great, and its imaginary value greater; so +that, partly through indolence, partly through necessity and want of +organization, most nations have agreed to take gold for the only basis +of their currencies;—with this grave disadvantage, that its portability +enabling the metal to become an active part of the medium of exchange, +the stream of the currency itself becomes opaque with gold—half +currency and half commodity, in unison of functions which partly +neutralize, partly enhance each other's force.</p> + +<p>75. They partly neutralize, since in so far as the gold is commodity, it +is bad currency, because liable to sale; and in so far as it is +currency, it is bad commodity, because its exchange value interferes +with its practical use. Especially its employment in the higher branches +of the arts becomes unsafe on account of its liability to be melted down +for exchange.</p> + +<p>Again. They partly enhance, since in so far as the gold has acknowledged +intrinsic value, it is good currency, because everywhere acceptable; and +in so far as it has legal exchangeable value, its worth as a commodity +is increased. We want no gold in the form of dust or crystal; but we +seek for it coined, because in that form it will pay baker and butcher. +And this worth in exchange not only absorbs a large quantity in that +use,<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> but greatly increases the effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> on the imagination of the +quantity used in the arts. Thus, in brief, the force of the functions is +increased, but their precision blunted, by their unison.</p> + +<p>76. These inconveniences, however, attach to gold as a basis of currency +on account of its portability and preciousness. But a far greater +inconvenience attaches to it as the only legal basis of currency. +Imagine gold to be only attainable in masses weighing several pounds +each, and its value, like that of malachite or marble, proportioned to +its largeness of bulk;—it could not then get itself confused with the +currency in daily use, but it might still remain as its basis; and this +second inconvenience would still affect it, namely, that its +significance as an expression of debt varies, as that of every other +article would, with the popular estimate of its desirableness, and with +the quantity offered in the market. My power of obtaining other goods +for gold depends always on the strength of public passion for gold, and +on the limitation of its quantity, so that when either of two things +happen—that the world esteems gold less, or finds it more easily—<i>my +right of claim is in that degree effaced</i>; and it has been even gravely +maintained that a discovery of a mountain of gold would cancel the +National Debt; in other words, that men may be paid for what costs much +in what costs nothing. Now, it is true that there is little chance of +sudden convulsion in this respect; the world will not so rapidly +increase in wisdom as to despise gold on a sudden; and perhaps may [for +a little time] desire it more eagerly the more easily it is obtained; +nevertheless, the right of debt ought not to rest on a basis of +imagination; nor should the frame of a national currency vibrate with +every miser's panic, and every merchant's imprudence.</p> + +<p>77. There are two methods of avoiding this insecurity, which would have +been fallen upon long ago, if, instead of calculating the conditions of +the supply of gold, men had only considered how the world might live and +manage its affairs without gold at all.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> One is, to base the currency +on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> substances of truer intrinsic value; the other, to base it on +several substances instead of one. If I can only claim gold, the +discovery of a golden mountain starves me; but if I can claim bread, the +discovery of a continent of corn-fields need not trouble me. If, +however, I wish to exchange my bread for other things, a good harvest +will for the time limit my power in this respect; but if I can claim +either bread, iron, or silk at pleasure, the standard of value has three +feet instead of one, and will be proportionately firm. Thus, ultimately, +the steadiness of currency depends upon the breadth of its base; but the +difficulty of organization increasing with this breadth, the discovery +of the condition at once safest and most convenient<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> can only be by +long analysis, which must for the present be deferred. Gold or +silver<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> may always be retained in limited use, as a luxury of coinage +and questionless standard, of one weight and alloy among all nations, +varying only in the die. The purity of coinage, when metallic, is +closely indicative of the honesty of the system of revenue, and even of +the general dignity of the State.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>78. Whatever the article or articles may be which the national currency +promises to pay, a premium on that article indicates bankruptcy of the +government in that proportion, the division of its assets being +restrained only by the remaining confidence of the holders of notes in +the return of prosperity to the firm. Currencies of forced acceptance, +or of unlimited issue, are merely various modes of disguising taxation, +and delaying its pressure, until it is too late to interfere with the +cause of pressure. To do away with the possibility of such disguise +would have been among the first results of a true economical science, +had any such existed; but there have been too many motives for the +concealment, so long as it could by any artifices be maintained, to +permit hitherto even the founding of such a science.</p> + +<p>79. And indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wilfully persisted in, +that there is any embarrassment, either in the theory or working of +currency. No exchequer is ever embarrassed, nor is any financial +question difficult of solution, when people keep their practice honest, +and their heads cool. But when governments lose all office of pilotage, +protection, or scrutiny; and live only in magnificence of authorized +larceny, and polished mendacity; or when the people, choosing +Speculation (the s usually redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil, +visit no dishonesty with chastisement, that each may with impunity take +his dishonest turn;—there are no tricks of financial terminology that +will save them; all signature and mintage do but magnify the ruin they +retard; and even the riches that remain, stagnant or current, change +only from the slime of Avernus to the sand of Phlegethon—<i>quick</i>sand at +the embouchure;—land fluently recommended by recent auctioneers as +"eligible for building leases."</p> + +<p>80. Finally, then, the power of true currency is fourfold.</p> + +<p>(1.) Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion of +the stability and honesty of the issuer.</p> + +<p>(2.) Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currency +expressly promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes; +and that the call cannot be met in full. Then the actual worth of the +document would be, and its actual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> worth at any moment is, therefore to +be defined as, what the division of the assets of the issuer would +produce for it.</p> + +<p>(3.) The exchange power, of its base. Granting that we can get five +pounds in gold for our note, it remains a question how much of other +things we can get for five pounds in gold. The more of other things +exist, and the less gold, the greater this power.</p> + +<p>(4.) The power over labour, exercised by the given quantity of the base, +or of the things to be got for it. The question in this case is, how +much work, and (question of questions!) <i>whose</i> work, is to be had for +the food which five pounds will buy. This depends on the number of the +population, on their gifts, and on their dispositions, with which, down +to their slightest humours, and up to their strongest impulses, the +power of the currency varies.</p> + +<p>81. Such being the main conditions of national currency, we proceed to +examine those of the total currency, under the broad definition, +"transferable acknowledgment of debt;"<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> among the many forms of +which there are in effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, the +acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which will +not. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those of +good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of +imposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it clear of +dross), and then range, in their exact quantities, the true currency of +the country on one side, and the store or property of the country on the +other. We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents, +as far as they operate by signature;—on the side of store as far as +they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debt +in the country, and the store the quantity of its possession. The +ownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currency +and holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency is +at any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of the +store-holders.</p> + +<p>82. Farther, as true currency represents by definition debts which will +be paid, it represents either the debtor's wealth, or his ability and +willingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in his hands +transferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at some +time surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing, +has the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency therefore, as +by its increase it represents enlarging debt, represents also enlarging +means; but in this curious way, that a certain quantity of it marks the +deficiency of the wealth of the country from what it would have been if +that currency had not existed.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> In this respect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> it is like the +detritus of a mountain; assume that it lies at a fixed angle, and the +more the detritus, the larger must be the mountain; but it would have +been larger still, had there been none.</p> + +<p>83. Farther, though, as above stated, every man possessing money has +usually also some property beyond what is necessary for his immediate +wants, and men possessing property usually also hold currency beyond +what is necessary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determines +the class to which they belong, whether in their eyes the money is an +adjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In the first case +the holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his money +subordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In the +second, his pleasure is in his money, and in his possessions only as +representing it. (In the first case the money is as an atmosphere +surrounding the wealth, rising from it and raining back upon it; but in +the second, it is as a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for the +most part perishing in it.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>) The shortest distinction between the men +is that the one wishes always to buy, and the other to sell.</p> + +<p>84. Such being the great relations of the classes, their several +characters are of the highest importance to the nation; for on the +character of the store-holders chiefly depend the preservation, display, +and serviceableness of its wealth; on that of the currency-holders, its +distribution; on that of both, its reproduction.</p> + +<p>We shall, therefore, ultimately find it to be of incomparably greater +importance to the nation in whose hands the thing is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> put, than how much +of it is got; and that the character of the holders may be conjectured +by the quality of the store; for such and such a man always asks for +such and such a thing; nor only asks for it, but if it can be bettered, +betters it: so that possession and possessor reciprocally act on each +other, through the entire sum of national possession. The base nation, +asking for base things, sinks daily to deeper vileness of nature and +weakness in use; while the noble nation, asking for noble things, rises +daily into diviner eminence in both; the tendency to degradation being +surely marked by "αταξια;" that is to say, (expanding the Greek +thought), by carelessness as to the hands in which things are put, +consequent dispute for the acquisition of them, disorderliness in the +accumulation of them, inaccuracy in the estimate of them, and bluntness +in conception as to the entire nature of possession.</p> + +<p>85. The currency-holders always increase in number and influence in +proportion to the bluntness of nature and clumsiness of the +store-holders; for the less use people can make of things, the more they +want of them, and the sooner weary of them, and want to change them for +something else; and all frequency of change increases the quantity and +power of currency. The large currency-holder himself is essentially a +person who never has been able to make up his mind as to what he will +have, and proceeds, therefore, in vague collection and aggregation, with +more and more infuriate passion, urged by complacency in progress, +vacancy in idea, and pride of conquest.</p> + +<p>While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature of possession of +currency, there is a charm in the seclusion of it, which is to some +people very enticing. In the enjoyment of real property, others must +partly share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, and the gardener +of the garden; but the money is, or seems, shut up; it is wholly +enviable. No one else can have part in any complacencies arising from +it.</p> + +<p>The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great thing to +unimaginative people. They know always they are so much better than they +were, in money; so much better than others,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> in money; but wit cannot be +so compared, nor character. My neighbour cannot be convinced that I am +wiser than he is, but he can, that I am worth so much more; and the +universality of the conviction is no less flattering than its clearness. +Only a few can understand,—none measure—and few will willingly adore, +superiorities in other things; but everybody can understand money, +everybody can count it, and most will worship it.</p> + +<p>86. Now, these various temptations to accumulation would be politically +harmless if what was vainly accumulated had any fair chance of being +wisely spent. For as accumulation cannot go on for ever, but must some +day end in its reverse—if this reverse were indeed a beneficial +distribution and use, as irrigation from reservoir, the fever of +gathering, though perilous to the gatherer, might be serviceable to the +community. But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may be +stated as a political law having few exceptions), that what is +unreasonably gathered is also unreasonably spent by the persons into +whose hands it finally falls. Very frequently it is spent in war, or +else in a stupefying luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged by +the rich and witnessed by the poor. So that the <i>mal tener</i> and <i>mal +dare</i> are as correlative as complementary colours; and the circulation +of wealth, which ought to be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, and +full of warmth, like the Gulf stream, being narrowed into an eddy, and +concentrated at a point, changes into the alternate suction and +surrender of Charybdis. Which is indeed, I doubt not, the true meaning +of that marvellous fable, "infinite," as Bacon said of it, "in matter of +meditation."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p> + +<p>87. It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas only, so +that the highest truths and usefullest laws must be hunted for through +whole picture-galleries of dreams, which to the vulgar seem dreams only. +Thus Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and +Goethe, have hidden all that is chiefly serviceable in their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> work, and +in all the various literature they absorbed and re-embodied, under types +which have rendered it quite useless to the multitude. What is worse, +the two primal declarers of moral discovery, Homer and Plato, are partly +at issue; for Plato's logical power quenched his imagination, and he +became incapable of understanding the purely imaginative element either +in poetry or painting: he therefore somewhat overrates the pure +discipline of passionate art in song and music, and misses that of +meditative art. There is, however, a deeper reason for his distrust of +Homer. His love of justice, and reverently religious nature, made him +dread, as death, every form of fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy respecting +the world to come (his own myths being only symbolic exponents of a +rational hope). We shall perhaps now every day discover more clearly how +right Plato was in this, and feel ourselves more and more wonderstruck +that men such as Homer and Dante (and, in an inferior sphere, Milton), +not to speak of the great sculptors and painters of every age, have +permitted themselves, though full of all nobleness and wisdom, to coin +idle imaginations of the mysteries of eternity, and guide the faiths of +the families of the earth by the courses of their own vague and +visionary arts: while the indisputable truths of human life and duty, +respecting which they all have but one voice, lie hidden behind these +veils of phantasy, unsought, and often unsuspected. I will gather +carefully, out of Dante and Homer, what, in this kind, bears on our +subject, in its due place; the first broad intention of their symbols +may be sketched at once.</p> + +<p>88. The rewards of a worthy use of riches, subordinate to other ends, +are shown by Dante in the fifth and sixth orbs of Paradise; for the +punishment of their unworthy use, three places are assigned; one for the +avaricious and prodigal whose souls are lost, (<i>Hell</i>, canto 7); one for +the avaricious and prodigal whose souls are capable of purification, +(<i>Purgatory</i>, canto 19); and one for the usurers, of whom <i>none</i> can be +redeemed (<i>Hell</i>, canto 17). The first group, the largest in all hell +("gente piu che altrove troppa," compare Virgil's "quæ maxima turba"), +meet in contrary currents, <i>as the</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> <i>waves of Charybdis</i>, casting +weights at each other from opposite sides. This weariness of contention +is the chief element of their torture; so marked by the beautiful lines +beginning "Or puoi, figliuol," &c.: (but the usurers, who made their +money inactively, <i>sit</i> on the sand, equally without rest, however. "Di +qua, di la, soccorrien," &c.) For it is not avarice, but <i>contention</i> +for riches, leading to this double misuse of them, which, in Dante's +light, is the unredeemable sin. The place of its punishment is guarded +by Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fièra crudele," a spirit quite +different from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is not +cruel, and is curable, so as to become far-sighted. (ου τυφλος αλλ' οξυ βλεπων.—Plato's epithets in first book of the <i>Laws</i>.) Still +more does this Dantesque type differ from the resplendent Plutus of +Goethe in the second part of <i>Faust</i>, who is the personified power of +wealth for good or evil—not the passion for wealth; and again from the +Plutus of Spenser, who is the passion of mere aggregation. Dante's +Plutus is specially and definitely the Spirit of Contention and +Competition, or Evil Commerce; because, as I showed before, this kind of +commerce "makes all men strangers;" his speech is therefore +unintelligible, and no single soul of all those ruined by him <i>has +recognizable features</i>.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and prodigality are, +in Dante's sight, those which are without deliberate or calculated +operation. The lust, or lavishness, of riches can be purged, so long as +there has been no servile consistency of dispute and competition for +them. The sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of earth; +it is purified by deeper humiliation—the souls crawl on their bellies; +their chant is, "my soul cleaveth unto the dust." But the spirits thus +condemned are all recognizable, and even the worst examples of the +thirst for gold, which they are compelled to tell the histories of +during the night, are of men swept by the passion of avarice into +violent crime, but not sold to its steady work.</p> + +<p>89. The precept given to each of these spirits for its deliverance +is—Turn thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> Eternal King rolls +with the mighty wheels. Otherwise, the wheels of the "Greater Fortune," +of which the constellation is ascending when Dante's dream begins. +Compare George Herbert—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">"Lift up thy head;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take stars for money; stars, not to be told<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By any art, yet to be purchased."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of the <i>Polity</i>.—"Tell +them they have divine gold and silver in their souls for ever; that they +need no money stamped of men—neither may they otherwise than impiously +mingle the gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, <i>for +through that which the law of the multitude has coined, endless crimes +have been done and suffered; but in their's is neither pollution nor +sorrow</i>."</p> + +<p>90. At the entrance of this place of punishment an evil spirit is seen +by Dante, quite other than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyed +knowingly and willingly; but this spirit—feminine—and called a +Siren—is the "<i>Deceitfulness</i> of riches," απατη πλουτου of the +Gospels, winning obedience by guile. This is the Idol of riches, made +doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing her in a dream. She is lovely to +look upon, and enchants by her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome. +Now, Dante does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more than +he speaks of Charybdis carelessly; and though he had got at the meaning +of the Homeric fable only through Virgil's obscure tradition of it, the +clue he has given us is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the +Sirens, <i>or pleasures</i>," which has become universal since his time, is +opposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are not +pleasures, but <i>Desires</i>: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain +desire; but in Plato's Vision of Destiny, phantoms of divine desire; +singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff of +Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put +words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was +that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal; (desire of the +eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters of the +Muses. Yet not of the Muses, heavenly or historical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> but of the Muse of +pleasure; and they are at first winged, because even vain hope excites +and helps when first formed; but afterwards, contending for the +possession of the imagination with the Muses themselves, they are +deprived of their wings.</p> + +<p>91. And thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the power of +Circe, who is no daughter of the Muses, but of the strong elements, Sun +and Sea; her power is that of frank, and full vital pleasure, which, if +governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no +"moly," bitterness or delay, mixed with it, turns men into beasts, but +does not slay them,—leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. She +is herself indeed an Enchantress;—pure Animal life; transforming—or +degrading—but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the ship +invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost); even the wild beasts +rejoice and are softened around her cave; the transforming poisons she +gives to men are mixed with no rich feast, but with pure and right +nourishment,—Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour; that is, wine, milk, and +corn, the three great sustainers of life—it is their own fault if these +make swine of them; (see Appendix V.) and swine are chosen merely as the +type of consumption; as Plato's ὑων πολις, in the second book +of the <i>Polity</i>, and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of +the likeness in variety of nourishment, and internal form of body.</p> + +<p>"Et quel est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'être +bâti au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"</p> + +<p>"Hélas! chère enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne faudra pas m'en +vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est pas précisément flatteur +pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous là, et si cela vous contrarie par +trop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses +fussent arrangées ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu'à manger, +a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous et c'est toujours une +consolation."—<i>(Histoire d'une Bouchée de Pain</i>, Lettre ix.)</p> + +<p>92. But the deadly Sirens are in all things opposed to the Circean +power. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in no +wise; but slay by slow death. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> whereas they corrupt the heart and +the head, instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery +from their power; they do not tear nor scratch, like Scylla, but the men +who have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that the +Sirens' field is covered, not merely with the bones, but with the +<i>skins</i>, of those who have been consumed there. They address themselves, +in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of +Ulysses, but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within +hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who silenced the +vain imaginations by singing the praises of the gods.</p> + +<p>93. It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm or +deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that she says it was her song +that deceived Ulysses. Look back to Dante's account of Ulysses' death, +and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that +betrayed him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning: that +the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been first deceived +into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. His +Siren is therefore the Philotimé of Spenser, daughter of Mammon—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Whom all that folk with such contention<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Honour and dignitie from her alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Derived are."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotimé with Dante's of +the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full meaning of both poets; but +that of Homer lies hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens are +indefinite; and they are desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is +not specially indicated by him, until, escaping the 'harmonious danger +of imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical ways of +life, indicated by the two <i>rocks</i> of Scylla and Charybdis. The monsters +that haunt them are quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which, +having many other subordinate significations, are in the main Labour and +Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant monster, or +betraying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> demon. The rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds, +invisible, and not to be climbed; that of spending is low, but marked by +the cursed fig-tree, which has leaves, but no fruit. We know the type +elsewhere; and there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when +Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion and +committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto degli Agli, +endeavouring to hide himself among them. We shall hereafter examine the +type completely; here I will only give an approximate rendering of +Homer's words, which have been obscured more by translation than even by +tradition.</p> + +<p>94. "They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water break +round them; and the blessed Gods call them the Wanderers.</p> + +<p>"By one of them no winged thing can pass—not even the wild doves that +bring ambrosia to their father Jove—but the smooth rock seizes its +sacrifice of them." (Not even ambrosia to be had without Labour. The +word is peculiar—as a part of anything is offered for Sacrifice; +especially used of heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with its +top, and a dark blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither does +the clear sky hold it, in summer nor in harvest. Nor can any man climb +it—not if he had twenty feet and hands, for it is smooth as though it +were hewn.</p> + +<p>"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of hell. And +therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry, indeed, is no louder +than that of a newly-born whelp: but she herself is an awful thing—nor +can any creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a god that +rose against her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks, +and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of teeth, full of +black death.</p> + +<p>"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a bow-shot +distant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree, full of leaves; and +under it the terrible Charybdis sucks down the black water. Thrice in +the day she sucks it down, and thrice; casts it up again: be not thou +there when she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>[Thus far went my rambling note, in <i>Fraser's Magazine</i>. The Editor sent +me a compliment on it—of which I was very proud; what the Publisher +thought of it, I am not informed; only I know that eventually he stopped +the papers. I think a great deal of it myself, now, and have put it all +in large print accordingly, and should like to write more; but will, on +the contrary, self-denyingly, and in gratitude to any reader who has got +through so much, end my chapter.]</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Remember this definition: it is of great importance as +opposed to the imperfect ones usually given. When first these essays +were published, I remember one of their reviewers asking contemptuously, +"Is half-a-crown a document?" it never having before occurred to him +that a document might be stamped as well as written, and stamped on +silver as well as on parchment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> I do not mean the demand of the holder of a five-pound +note for five pounds, but the demand of the holder of a pound for a +pound's worth of something good.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> [Read and think over, the following note very carefully.] +The waste of labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot be estimated +by help of any existing data, may be understood in its bearing on entire +economy by supposing it limited to transactions between two persons. If +two farmers in Australia have been exchanging corn and cattle with each +other for years, keeping their accounts of reciprocal debt in any simple +way, the sum of the possessions of either would not be diminished, +though the part of it which was lent or borrowed were only reckoned by +marks on a stone, or notches on a tree; and the one counted himself +accordingly, so many scratches, or so many notches, better than the +other. But it would soon be seriously diminished if, discovering gold in +their fields, each resolved only to accept golden counters for a +reckoning; and accordingly, whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a cow, +was obliged to go and wash sand for a week before he could get the means +of giving a receipt for them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of +discussions such as that which lately occupied a section of the British +Association, on the absorption of gold, while no one can produce even +the simplest of the data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first +occurring one,—What means have we of ascertaining the weight of gold +employed this year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to speak +of Asia); and, supposing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight +by which, next year, their fancies, and the changes of style among their +jewellers, will diminish or increase it?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the +difficulties and uses of a currency literally "pecuniary"—(consisting +of herds of cattle). +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"His Grace will game—to White's a bull be led," &c.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found +expedient ultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts. As a means +of reckoning, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been, +entirely ideal.—<i>See</i> Mill's <i>Political Economy</i>, book iii. chap. VII. +at beginning.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The purity of the drachma and zecchin were not without +significance of the state of intellect, art, and policy, both in Athens +and Venice;—a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in +taking daguerreotypes at Venice, I found no purchaseable gold pure +enough to gild them with, except that of the old Venetian zecchin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Under which term, observe, we include all documents of +debt, which, being honest, might be transferable, though they +practically are not transferred; while we exclude all documents which +are in reality worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily, as bad +money is. The document of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to +paper currency as gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. +Much confusion has crept into the reasoning on this subject from the +idea that the withdrawal from circulation is a definable state, whereas +it is a graduated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my pocket is +withdrawn from circulation as long as I choose to keep it there. It is +no otherwise withdrawn if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it, +and others, into a golden cup, and drink out of them; since a rise in +the price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time cause me to +melt the cup and throw it back into currency; and the bullion operates +on the prices of the things in the market as directly, though not as +forcibly, while it is in the form of a cup as it does in the form of a +sovereign. No calculation can be founded on my humour in either case. If +I like to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep a quantity of gold, to +play with, in the form of jointed basaltic columns, it is all one in its +effect on the market as if I kept it in the form of twisted filigree, +or, steadily "amicus lamnæ," beat the narrow gold pieces into broad +ones, and dined off them. The probability is greater that I break the +rouleau than that I melt the plate; but the increased probability is not +calculable. Thus, documents are only withdrawn from the currency when +cancelled, and bullion when it is so effectually lost as that the +probability of finding it is no greater than of finding new gold in the +mine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> For example, suppose an active peasant, having got his +ground into good order and built himself a comfortable house, finding +time still on his hands, sees one of his neighbours little able to work, +and ill-lodged, and offers to build him also a house, and to put his +land in order, on condition of receiving for a given period rent for the +building and tithe of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and a document +given promissory of rent and tithe. This note is money. It can only be +good money if the man who has incurred the debt so far recovers his +strength as to be able to take advantage of the help he has received, +and meet the demand of the note; if he lets his house fall to ruin, and +his field to waste, his promissory note will soon be valueless: but the +existence of the note at all is a consequence of his not having worked +so stoutly as the other. Let him gain as much as to be able to pay back +the entire debt; the note is cancelled, and we have two rich +store-holders and no currency.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> [You need not trouble yourself to make out the sentence in +parenthesis, unless you like, but do not think it is mere metaphor. It +states a fact which I could not have stated so shortly, <i>but</i> by +metaphor.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> [What follows, to the end of the chapter, was a note only, +in the first printing; but for after service, it is of more value than +any other part of the book, so I have put it into the main text.]</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>COMMERCE.</h3> + + +<p>95. As the currency conveys right of choice out of many things in +exchange for one, so Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice +is obtained; so that countries producing only timber can obtain for +their timber silk and gold; or, naturally producing only jewels and +frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this function, +commerce is of more importance to a country in proportion to the +limitations of its products, and the restlessness of its +fancy;—generally of greater importance towards Northern latitudes.</p> + +<p>96. Commerce is necessary, however, not only to exchange local products, +but local skill. Labour requiring the agency of fire can only be given +abundantly in cold countries; labour requiring suppleness of body and +sensitiveness of touch, only in warm ones; labour involving accurate +vivacity of thought only in temperate ones; while peculiar imaginative +actions are produced by extremes of heat and cold, and of light and +darkness. The production of great art is limited to climates warm enough +to admit of repose in the open air, and cool enough to render such +repose delightful. Minor variations in modes of skill distinguish every +locality. The labour which at any place is easiest, is in that place +cheapest; and it becomes often desirable that products raised in one +country should be wrought in another. Hence have arisen discussions on +"International values" which will be one day remembered as highly +curious exercises of the human mind. For it will be discovered, in due +course of tide and time, that international value is regulated just as +inter-provincial or inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are +exchanged between Northumberland and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> Kent on absolutely the same +principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and Spain. The greater +breadth of an arm of the sea increases the cost, but does not modify the +principle of exchange; and a bargain written in two languages will have +no other economical results than a bargain written in one. The distances +of nations are measured, not by seas, but by ignorances; and their +divisions determined, not by dialects, but by enmities.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p>97. Of course, a system of international values may always be +constructed if we assume a relation of moral law to physical geography; +as, for instance, that it is right to cheat or rob across a river, +though not across a road; or across a sea, though not across a river, +&c.;—again, a system of such values may be constructed by assuming +similar relations of taxation to physical geography; as, for instance, +that an article should be taxed in crossing a river, but not in crossing +a road; or in being carried fifty miles, but not in being carried five, +&c.; such positions are indeed not easily maintained when once put in +logical form; but <i>one</i> law of international value is maintainable in +any form: namely, that the farther your neighbour lives from you, and +the less he understands you, <i>the more you are bound to be true in your +dealings with him</i>; because your power over him is greater in proportion +to his ignorance, and his remedy more difficult in proportion to his +distance.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p> + +<p>98. I have just said the breadth of sea increases the cost of exchange. +Now note that exchange, or commerce, <i>in itself</i>, is always costly; the +sum of the value of the goods being diminished by the cost of their +conveyance, and by the maintenance of the persons employed in it; so +that it is only when there is advantage to both producers (in getting +the one thing for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> other) greater than the loss in conveyance, that +the exchange is expedient. And it can only be justly conducted when the +porters kept by the producers (commonly called merchants) expect <i>mere</i> +pay, and not profit.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> For in just commerce there are but three +parties—the two persons or societies exchanging, and the agent or +agents of exchange; the value of the things to be exchanged is known by +both the exchangers, and each receives equal value, neither gaining nor +losing (for whatever one gains the other loses). The intermediate agent +is paid a known per-centage by both, partly for labour in conveyance, +partly for care, knowledge, and risk; every attempt at concealment of +the amount of the pay indicates either effort on the part of the agent +to obtain unjust profit, or effort on the part of the exchangers to +refuse him just pay. But for the most part it is the first, namely, the +effort on the part of the merchant to obtain larger profit (so-called) +by buying cheap and selling dear. Some part, indeed, of this larger gain +is deserved, and might be openly demanded, because it is the reward of +the merchant's knowledge, and foresight of probable necessity; but the +greater part of such gain is unjust; and unjust in this most fatal way, +that it depends, first, on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the +exchange value of the articles; and, secondly, on taking advantage of +the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of the +essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means +merely taking an exorbitant<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> sum for the use of anything; and it is +no matter whether the exorbitance is on loan or exchange, on rent or on +price—the essence of the usury being that it is obtained by advantage +of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward for labour. All the +great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> thinkers, therefore, have held it to be unnatural and impious, in +so far as it feeds on the distress of others, or their folly.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> +Nevertheless, attempts to repress it by law must for ever be +ineffective; though Plato, Bacon, and the First Napoleon—all three of +them men who knew somewhat more of humanity than the "British merchant" +usually does—tried their hands at it, and have left some (probably) +good moderative forms of law, which we will examine in their place. But +the only final check upon it must be radical purifying of the national +character, for being, as Bacon calls it, "concessum propter duritiem +cordis," it is to be done away with by touching the heart only; not, +however, without medicinal law—as in the case of the other permission, +"propter duritiem." But in this more than in anything (though much in +all, and though in this he would not himself allow of their application, +for his own laws against usury are sharp enough), Plato's words in the +fourth book of the Polity are true, that neither drugs, nor charms, nor +burnings, will touch a deep-lying political sore, any more than a deep +bodily one; but only right and utter change of constitution: and that +"they do but lose their labour who think that by any tricks of law they +can get the better of these mischiefs of commerce, and see not that they +hew at a Hydra."</p> + +<p>99. And indeed this Hydra seems so unslayable, and sin sticks so fast +between the joinings of the stones of buying and selling, that "to +trade" in things, or literally "cross-give" them, has warped itself, by +the instinct of nations, into their worst word for fraud; for, because +in trade there cannot but be trust, and it seems also that there cannot +but also be injury in answer to it, what is merely fraud between enemies +becomes treachery among friends: and "trader," "traditor," and "traitor" +are but the same word. For which simplicity of language there is more +reason than at first appears: for as in true commerce there is no +"profit," so in true commerce there is no "sale." The idea of sale is +that of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> interchange between enemies respectively endeavouring to get +the better one of another; but commerce is an exchange between friends; +and there is no desire but that it should be just, any more than there +would be between members of the same family.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> The moment there is a +bargain over the pottage, the family relation is dissolved:—typically, +"the days of mourning for my father are at hand." Whereupon follows the +resolve, "then will I slay my brother."</p> + +<p>100. This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because +it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the +worst. For as, taking the body natural for symbol of the body politic, +the governing and forming powers may be likened to the brain, and the +labouring to the limbs, the mercantile, presiding over circulation and +communication of things in changed utilities, is symbolized by the +heart; and, if that hardens, all is lost. And this is the ultimate +lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us, (a lesson, +indeed, not all his own, but part of the old wisdom of humanity), in the +tale of the <i>Merchant of Venice</i>; in which the true and incorrupt +merchant,—<i>kind and free beyond every other Shakspearian conception of +men</i>,—is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being +deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted +merchant bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn,—</p> + +<p>"This is the fool that lent out money gratis; look to him, jailer," (as +to lunatic no less than criminal) the enmity, observe, having its +symbolism literally carried out by being aimed straight at the heart, +and finally foiled by a literal appeal to the great moral law that flesh +and blood cannot be weighed, enforced by "Portia"<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> ("Portion"), the +type of divine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> Fortune, found, not in gold, nor in silver, but in lead, +that is to say, in endurance and patience, not in splendour; and finally +taught by her lips also, declaring, instead of the law and quality of +"merces," the greater law and quality of mercy, which is not strained, +but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him that takes. And +observe that this "mercy" is not the mean "Misericordia," but the mighty +"Gratia," answered by Gratitude, (observe Shylock's leaning on the, to +him detestable, word, <i>gratis</i>, and compare the relations of Grace to +Equity given in the second chapter of the second book of the +<i>Memorabilia</i>;) that is to say, it is the gracious or loving, instead of +the strained, or competing manner, of doing things, answered, not only +with "merces" or pay, but with "merci" or thanks. And this is indeed the +meaning of the great benediction "Grace, mercy, and peace," for there +can be no peace without grace, (not even by help of rifled cannon), nor +even without triplicity of graciousness, for the Greeks, who began but +with one Grace, had to open their scheme into three before they had +done.</p> + +<p>101. With the usual tendency of long repeated thought, to take the +surface for the deep, we have conceived these goddesses as if they only +gave loveliness to gesture; whereas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> their true function is to give +graciousness to deed, the other loveliness arising naturally out of +that. In which function Charis becomes Charitas;<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> and has a name and +praise even greater than that of Faith or Truth, for these may be +maintained sullenly and proudly; but Charis is in her countenance always +gladdening (Aglaia), and in her service instant and humble; and the true +wife of Vulcan, or Labour. And it is not until her sincerity of function +is lost, and her mere beauty contemplated instead of her patience, that +she is born again of the foam flake, and becomes Aphrodite; and it is +then only that she becomes capable of joining herself to war and to the +enmities of men, instead of to labour and their services. Therefore the +fable of Mars and Venus is chosen by Homer, picturing himself as +Demodocus, to sing at the games in the court of Alcinous. Phæacia is the +Homeric island of Atlantis; an image of noble and wise government, +concealed, (how slightly!) merely by the change of a short vowel for a +long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> one in the name of its queen; yet misunderstood by all later +writers, (even by Horace, in his "pinguis, Phæaxque"). That fable +expresses the perpetual error of men in thinking that grace and dignity +can only be reached by the soldier, and never by the artisan; so that +commerce and the useful arts have had the honour and beauty taken away, +and only the Fraud and Pain left to them, with the lucre. Which is, +indeed, one great reason of the continual blundering about the offices +of government with respect to commerce. The higher classes are ashamed +to employ themselves in it; and though ready enough to fight for (or +occasionally against) the people,—to preach to them,—or judge them, +will not break bread for them; the refined upper servant who has +willingly looked after the burnishing of the armoury and ordering of the +library, not liking to set foot in the larder.</p> + +<p>102. Farther still. As Charis becomes Charitas on the one side, she +becomes—better still—Chara, Joy, on the other; or rather this is her +very mother's milk and the beauty of her childhood; for God brings no +enduring Love, nor any other good, out of pain; nor out of contention; +but out of joy and harmony. And in this sense, human and divine, music +and gladness, and the measures of both, come into her name; and Cher +becomes full-vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful; and Chara opens into Choir +and Choral.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a></p> + +<p>103. And lastly. As Grace passes into Freedom of action, Charis becomes +Eleutheria, or Liberality; a form of liberty quite curiously and +intensely different from the thing usually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> understood by "Liberty" in +modern language: indeed, much more like what some people would call +slavery: for a Greek always understood, primarily, by liberty, +deliverance from the law of his own passions (or from what the Christian +writers call bondage of corruption), and this a complete liberty: not +being merely safe from the Siren, but also unbound from the mast, and +not having to resist the passion, but making it fawn upon, and follow +him—(this may be again partly the meaning of the fawning beasts about +the Circean cave; so, again, George Herbert—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Correct thy passion's spite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then may the beasts draw thee to happy light)—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And it is only in such generosity that any man becomes capable of so +governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy. +Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower +classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, +and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the +separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the +lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth and +economy in any state,—the Gods giving it no greater gift than the power +to discern its true freemen, and "malignum spernere vulgus."</p> + +<p>104. While I have traced the finer and higher laws of this matter for +those whom they concern, I have also to note the material law—vulgarly +expressed in the proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." That proverb is +indeed wholly inapplicable to matters of private interest. It is not +true that honesty, as far as material gain is concerned, profits +individuals. A clever and cruel knave will in a mixed society always be +richer than an honest person can be. But Honesty is the best "policy," +if policy mean practice of State. For fraud gains nothing in a State. It +only enables the knaves in it to live at the expense of honest people; +while there is for every act of fraud, however small, a loss of wealth +to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> community. Whatever the fraudulent person gains, some other +person loses, as fraud produces nothing; and there is, <i>besides</i>, the +loss of the time and thought spent in accomplishing the fraud, and of +the strength otherwise obtainable by mutual help (not to speak of the +fevers of anxiety and jealousy in the blood, which are a heavy physical +loss, as I will show in due time). Practically, when the nation is +deeply corrupt cheat answers to cheat; every one is in turn imposed +upon, and there is to the body politic the dead loss of the ingenuity, +together with the incalculable mischief of the injury to each defrauded +person, producing collateral effect unexpectedly. My neighbour sells me +bad meat: I sell him in return flawed iron. We neither of us get one +atom of pecuniary advantage on the whole transaction, but we both suffer +unexpected inconvenience; my men get scurvy, and his cattle-truck runs +off the rails.</p> + +<p>105. The examination of this form of Charis must, therefore, lead us +into the discussion of the principles of government in general, and +especially of that of the poor by the rich, discovering how the +Graciousness joined with the Greatness, or Love with Majestas, is the +true Dei Gratia, or Divine Right, of every form and manner of King; <i>i. +e.</i>, specifically, of the thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, and +powers of the earth:—of the thrones, stable, or "ruling," literally +right-doing powers ("rex eris, recte si facies"):—of the +dominations—lordly, edifying, dominant and harmonious powers; chiefly +domestic, over the "built thing," domus, or house; and inherently +twofold, Dominus and Domina; Lord and Lady:—of the Princedoms, +pre-eminent, incipient, creative, and demonstrative powers; thus poetic +and mercantile, in the "princeps carmen deduxisse" and the +merchant-prince:—of the Virtues or Courages; militant, guiding, or +Ducal powers:—and finally of the Strengths, or Forces pure; magistral +powers, of the More over the less, and the forceful and free over the +weak and servile elements of life.</p> + +<p>Subject enough for the next paper, involving "economical" principles of +some importance, of which, for theme, here is a sentence, which I do not +care to translate, for it would sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> harsh in English,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> though, +truly, it is one of the tenderest ever uttered by man; which may be +meditated over, or rather <i>through</i>, in the meanwhile, by any one who +will take the pains:—</p> + +<p>Αρ' ουν, ὡσπερ Ἱππος τω ανεπιστημονι μεν εγχειρουντι δε χρησθαι ζημια +εστιν, ουτω και αδελφος, +ὁταν τις αυτω μη επισταμενος εγχειρ χρησθαι, ζημια εστι;</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> I have repeated the substance of this and the next +paragraph so often since, that I am ashamed and weary. The thing is too +true, and too simple, it seems, for anybody ever to believe. Meantime, +the theories of "international values," as explained by Modern Political +Economy, have brought about last year's pillage of France by Germany, +and the affectionate relations now existing in consequence between the +inhabitants of the right and left banks of the Rhine.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> I wish some one would examine and publish accurately the +late dealings of the Governors of the Cape with the Caffirs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> By "pay," I mean wages for labour or skill; by "profit," +gain dependent on the state of the market.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Since I wrote this, I have worked out the question of +interest of money, which always, until lately, had embarrassed and +defeated me; and I find that the payment of interest of any amount +whatever is real "usury," and entirely unjustifiable. I was shown this +chiefly by the pamphlets issued by Mr. W. C. Sillar, though I greatly +regret the impatience which causes Mr. Sillar to regard usury as the +radical crime in political economy. There are others worse, that act +with it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Hence Dante's companionship of Cahors, <i>Inf.</i>, canto xi., +supported by the view taken of the matter throughout the middle ages, in +common with the Greeks.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> I do not wonder when I re-read this, that people talk +about my "sentiment." But there is no sentiment whatever in the matter. +It is a hard and bare commercial fact, that if two people deal together +who don't try to cheat each other, they will in a given time, make more +money out of each other than if they do. See § 104.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Shakspeare would certainly never have chosen this name had +he been forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita, "lost lady," +or Cordelia, "heart-lady," Portia is "fortune" lady. The two great +relative groups of words, Fortuna, fero, and fors—Portio, porto, and +pars (with the lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, +&c.), are of deep and intricate significance; their various senses of +bringing, abstracting, and sustaining being all centralized by the wheel +(which bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of +Fortune,—"Volve sua spera, e beata si gode:" the motive power of this +wheel distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas +with her iron nails; or ανανκη, with her pillar of fire and +iridescent orbits, <i>fixed</i> at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in +its connexion with gain, form another interesting branch group; and +Mors, the concentration of delaying, is always to be remembered with +Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, passing on into Fortis +and Fortitude. +</p><p> +[This note is literally a mere memorandum for the future work which I am +now completing in <i>Fors Clavigera</i>; it was printed partly in vanity, but +also with real desire to get people to share the interest I found in the +careful study of the leading words in noble languages. Compare the next +note.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> As Charis becomes Charitas, the word "Cher," or "Dear," +passes from Shylock's sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into +Antonio's sense of it: emphasized with the final <i>i</i> in tender "Cheri," +and hushed to English calmness in our noble "Cherish." The reader must +not think that any care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and +power of the words which we have to use in the sequel. (See Appendix +VI.) Much education sums itself in making men economize their words, and +understand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the harm which has been +done, in matters of higher speculation and conduct, by loose verbiage, +though we may guess at it by observing the dislike which people show to +having anything about their religion said to them in simple words, +because then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to +invoke the influence of a Spirit of Life and Truth; yet if any part of +that character were intelligibly expressed to them by the formulas of +the service, they would be offended. Suppose, for instance, in the +closing benediction, the clergyman were to give vital significance to +the vague word "Holy," and were to say, "the fellowship of the Helpful +and Honest Ghost be with you, and remain with you always," what would be +the horror of many, first at the irreverence of so intelligible an +expression; and secondly, at the discomfortable occurrence of the +suspicion that while throughout the commercial dealings of the week they +had denied the propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty, the Person +whose company they had been now asking to be blessed with could have no +fellowship with cruel people or knaves.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> "τα μεν ουν αγγα ζωα ουκ εχειν αισθησιν των εν +ταις κινησεσι ταξεων ουδε +αταξιων οις δη ρυθμος υνομα και ἁομονια ημιν +δε ους ειπομεν τους Θεους (Apollo, the Muses, and Bacchus—the grave +Bacchus, that is—ruling the choir of age; or Bacchus restraining; 'sæva +<i>tene</i>, cum Berecyntio cornu tympana,' &c.) συνχορευτας +δεδοσθαι, τουτους ειναι και τους δεδωκοτας την ενρυθμον τε και +εναρμονιον αισθησιν μεθ' ηδονης ... χορους τε ωνομακεναι παρα της +χαρας εμφυτον ονομα." "Other animals have no perception of order nor +of disorder in motion; but for us, Apollo and Bacchus and the Muses are +appointed to mingle in our dances; and there are they who have given us +the sense of delight in rhythm and harmony. And the name of choir, +choral dance, (we may believe,) came from chara (delight)."—Laws, book +ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> [My way now, is to say things plainly, if I can, whether +they sound harsh or not;—this is the translation—"Is it possible, +then, that as a horse is only a mischief to any one who attempts to use +him without knowing how, so also our brother, if we attempt to use him +without knowing how, may be a mischief to us?"]</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>GOVERNMENT.</h3> + + +<p>106. It remains for us, as I stated in the close of the last chapter, to +examine first the principles of government in general, and then those of +the government of the Poor by the Rich.</p> + +<p>The government of a state consists in its customs, laws, and councils, +and their enforcements.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<p>I. <span class="smcap">Customs</span>.</p> + +<p>As one person primarily differs from another by fineness of nature, and, +secondarily, by fineness of training, so also, a polite nation differs +from a savage one, first, by the refinement of its nature, and secondly +by the delicacy of its customs.</p> + +<p>In the completeness of custom, which is the nation's self-government, +there are three stages—first, fineness in method of doing or of +being;—called the manner or moral of acts; secondly, firmness in +holding such method after adoption, so that it shall become a habit in +the character: <i>i. e.</i>, a constant "having" or "behaving;" and, lastly, +ethical power in performance and endurance, which is the skill following +on habit, and the ease reached by frequency of right doing.</p> + +<p>The sensibility of the nation is indicated by the fineness of its +customs; its courage, continence, and self-respect by its persistence in +them.</p> + +<p>By sensibility I mean its natural perception of beauty, fitness, and +rightness; or of what is lovely, decent, and just: faculties dependent +much on race, and the primal signs of fine breeding in man; but +cultivable also by education, and necessarily perishing without it. True +education has, indeed, no other function than the development of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +faculties, and of the relative will. It has been the great error of +modern intelligence to mistake science for education. You do not educate +a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was +not.</p> + +<p>And making him what he will remain for ever: for no wash of weeds will +bring back the faded purple. And in that dyeing there are two +processes—first, the cleansing and wringing-out, which is the baptism +with water; and then the infusing of the blue and scarlet colours, +gentleness and justice, which is the baptism with fire.</p> + +<p>107.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> The customs and manners of a sensitive and highly-trained race +are always Vital: that is to say, they are orderly manifestations of +intense life, like the habitual action of the fingers of a musician. The +customs and manners of a vile and rude race, on the contrary, are +conditions of decay: they are not, properly speaking, habits, but +incrustations; not restraints, or forms, of life; but gangrenes, +noisome, and the beginnings of death.</p> + +<p>And generally, so far as custom attaches itself to indolence instead of +action, and to prejudice instead of perception, it takes this deadly +character, so that thus</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Custom hangs upon us with a weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But that weight, if it become impetus, (living instead of dead weight) +is just what gives value to custom, when it works <i>with</i> life, instead +of against it.</p> + +<p>108. The high ethical training of a nation implies perfect Grace, +Pitifulness, and Peace; it is irreconcilably inconsistent with filthy or +mechanical employments,—with the desire of money,—and with mental +states of anxiety, jealousy, or indifference to pain. The present +insensibility of the upper classes of Europe to the surrounding aspects +of suffering, uncleanness, and crime, binds them not only into one +responsibility with the sin, but into one dishonour with the foulness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +which rot at their thresholds. The crimes daily recorded in the +police-courts of London and Paris (and much more those which are +<i>un</i>recorded) are a disgrace to the whole body politic;<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> they are, as +in the body natural, stains of disease on a face of delicate skin, +making the delicacy itself frightful. Similarly, the filth and poverty +permitted or ignored in the midst of us are as dishonourable to the +whole social body, as in the body natural it is to wash the face, but +leave the hands and feet foul. Christ's way is the only true one: begin +at the feet; the face will take care of itself.</p> + +<p>109. Yet, since necessarily, in the frame of a nation, nothing but the +head can be of gold, and the feet, for the work they have to do, must be +part of iron, part of clay;—foul or mechanical work is always reduced +by a noble race to the minimum in quantity; and, even then, performed +and endured, not without sense of degradation, as a fine temper is +wounded by the sight of the lower offices of the body. The highest +conditions of human society reached hitherto have cast such work to +slaves; but supposing slavery of a politically defined kind to be done +away with, mechanical and foul employment must, in all highly organized +states, take the aspect either of punishment or probation. All criminals +should at once be set to the most dangerous and painful forms of it, +especially to work in mines and at furnaces,<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> so as to relieve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> the +innocent population as far as possible: of merely rough (not mechanical) +manual labour, especially agricultural, <i>a large portion should be done +by the upper classes</i>;—<i>bodily health, and sufficient contrast and +repose for the mental functions, being unattainable without it</i>; what +necessarily inferior labour remains to be done, as especially in +manufactures, should, and always will, when the relations of society are +reverent and harmonious, fall to the lot of those who, for the time, are +fit for nothing better. For as, whatever the perfectness of the +educational system, there must remain infinite differences between the +natures and capacities of men; and these differing natures are generally +rangeable under the two qualities of lordly, (or tending towards rule, +construction, and harmony), and servile (or tending towards misrule, +destruction, and discord); and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> since the lordly part is only in a state +of profitableness while ruling, and the servile only in a state of +redeemableness while serving, the whole health of the state depends on +the manifest separation of these two elements of its mind; for, if the +servile part be not separated and rendered visible in service, it mixes +with, and corrupts, the entire body of the state; and if the lordly part +be not distinguished, and set to rule, it is crushed and lost, being +turned to no account, so that the rarest qualities of the nation are all +given to it in vain.<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> +<p><br /></p> + +<p>II. <span class="smcap">Laws.</span></p> + +<p>110. These are the definitions and bonds of custom, or of what the +nation desires should become custom.</p> + +<p>Law is either archic,<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> (of direction), meristic, (of division), or +critic, (of judgment).</p> + +<p>Archic law is that of appointment and precept: it defines what is and is +not to be <i>done</i>.</p> + +<p>Meristic law is that of balance and distribution: it defines what is and +is not to be <i>possessed</i>.</p> + +<p>Critic law is that of discernment and award: it defines what is and is +not to be <i>suffered</i>.</p> + + +<p>111. A. <span class="smcap">Archic Law.</span> If we choose to unite the laws of precept and +distribution under the head of "statutes," all law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> is simply either of +statute or judgment; that is, first the establishment of ordinance, and, +secondly, the assignment of the reward, or penalty, due to its +observance or violation.</p> + +<p>To some extent these two forms of law must be associated, and, with +every ordinance, the penalty of disobedience to it be also determined. +But since the degrees and guilt of disobedience vary, the determination +of due reward and punishment must be modified by discernment of special +fact, which is peculiarly the office of the judge, as distinguished from +that of the lawgiver and law-sustainer, or king; not but that the two +offices are always theoretically, and in early stages, or limited +numbers, of society, are often practically, united in the same person or +persons.</p> + +<p>112. Also, it is necessary to keep clearly in view the distinction +between these two kinds of law, because the possible range of law is +wider in proportion to their separation. There are many points of +conduct respecting which the nation may wisely express its will by a +written precept or resolve, yet not enforce it by penalty:<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> and the +expedient degree of penalty is always quite a separate consideration +from the expedience of the statute; for the statute may often be better +enforced by mercy than severity, and is also easier in the bearing, and +less likely to be abrogated. Farther, laws of precept have reference +especially to youth, and concern themselves with training; but laws of +judgment to manhood, and concern themselves with remedy and reward. +There is a highly curious feeling in the English mind against +educational law: we think no man's liberty should be interfered with +till he has done irrevocable wrong; whereas it is then just too late for +the only gracious and kingly interference, which is to hinder him from +doing it. Make your educational laws strict, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> your criminal ones may +be gentle; but, leave youth its liberty and you will have to dig +dungeons for age. And it is good for a man that he "wear the yoke in his +youth:" for the reins may then be of silken thread; and with sweet chime +of silver bells at the bridle; but, for the captivity of age, you must +forge the iron fetter, and cast the passing bell.</p> + +<p>113. Since no law can be, in a final or true sense, established, but by +right, (all unjust laws involving the ultimate necessity of their own +abrogation), the law-giving can only become a law-sustaining power in so +far as it is Royal, or "right doing;"—in so far, that is, as it rules, +not misrules, and orders, not dis-orders, the things submitted to it. +Throned on this rock of justice, the kingly power becomes established +and establishing; "θειος," or divine, and, therefore, it is +literally true that no ruler can err, so long as he is a ruler, or +αρχων ουδεις αμαρτανει τοτε ὁταν αρχων η; perverted by +careless thought, which has cost the world somewhat, into—"the king can +do no wrong."</p> + +<p>114. B. <span class="smcap">Meristic Law</span>,<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> or that of the tenure of property, first +determines what every individual possesses by right, and secures it to +him; and what he possesses by wrong, and deprives him of it. But it has +a far higher provisory function: it determines what every man <i>should</i> +possess, and puts it within his reach on due conditions; and what he +should <i>not</i> possess, and puts this out of his reach, conclusively.</p> + +<p>115. Every article of human wealth has certain conditions attached to +its merited possession; when these are unobserved, possession becomes +rapine. And the object of meristic law is not only to secure to every +man his rightful share (the share, that is, which he has worked for, +produced, or received by gift from a rightful owner), but to enforce the +due conditions of possession, as far as law may conveniently reach; for +instance, that land shall not be wantonly allowed to run to waste, that +streams shall not be poisoned by the persons through whose properties +they pass, nor air be rendered unwholesome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> beyond given limits. Laws of +this kind exist already in rudimentary degree, but need large +development; the just laws respecting the possession of works of art +have not hitherto been so much as conceived, and the daily loss of +national wealth, and of its use, in this respect, is quite incalculable. +And these laws need revision quite as much respecting property in +national as in private hands. For instance: the public are under a vague +impression that, because they have paid for the contents of the British +Museum, every one has an equal right to see and to handle them. But the +public have similarly paid for the contents of Woolwich arsenal; yet do +not expect free access to it, or handling of its contents. The British +Museum is neither a free circulating library, nor a free school: it is a +place for the safe preservation, and exhibition on due occasion, of +unique books, unique objects of natural history, and unique works of +art; its books can no more be used by everybody than its coins can be +handled, or its statues cast. There ought to be free libraries in every +quarter of London, with large and complete reading-rooms attached; so +also free educational museums should be open in every quarter of London, +all day long, until late at night, well lighted, well catalogued, and +rich in contents both of art and natural history. But neither the +British Museum nor National Gallery is a school; they are <i>treasuries</i>; +and both should be severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some +order of this kind is made, and that soon, for the MSS. department of +the Museum, (its superintendents have sorrowfully told me this, and +repeatedly), the best MSS. in the collection will be destroyed, +irretrievably, by the careless and continual handling to which they are +now subjected.</p> + +<p>Finally, in certain conditions of a nation's progress, laws limiting +accumulation of any kind of property may be found expedient.</p> + +<p>116. C. <span class="smcap">Critic Law</span> determines questions of injury, and assigns due +rewards and punishments to conduct.</p> + +<p>Two curious economical questions arise laterally with respect to this +branch of law, namely, the cost of crime, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> the cost of judgment. The +cost of crime is endured by nations ignorantly, that expense being +nowhere stated in their budgets; the cost of judgment, patiently, +(provided only it can be had pure for the money), because the science, +or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to found a +noble profession and discipline; so that civilized nations are usually +glad that a number of persons should be supported by exercise in oratory +and analysis. But it has not yet been calculated what the practical +value might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence now +occupied in deciding, through courses of years, what might have been +decided as justly, had the date of judgment been fixed, in as many +hours. Imagine one half of the funds which any great nation devotes to +dispute by law, applied to the determination of physical questions in +medicine, agriculture, and theoretic science; and calculate the probable +results within the next ten years!</p> + +<p>I say nothing yet of the more deadly, more lamentable loss, involved in +the use of purchased, instead of personal, justice—"επακτω παρ αλλων—απορια οικεων."</p> + +<p>117. In order to true analysis of critic law, we must understand the +real meaning of the word "injury."</p> + +<p>We commonly understand by it, any kind of harm done by one man to +another; but we do not define the idea of harm: sometimes we limit it to +the harm which the sufferer is conscious of; whereas much the worst +injuries are those he is unconscious of; and, at other times, we limit +the idea to violence, or restraint; whereas much the worse forms of +injury are to be accomplished by indolence, and the withdrawal of +restraint.</p> + +<p>118. "Injury" is then simply the refusal, or violation of, any man's +right or claim upon his fellows: which claim, much talked of in modern +times, under the term "right," is mainly resolvable into two branches: a +man's claim not to be hindered from doing what he should; and his claim +to be hindered from doing what he should not; these two forms of +hindrance being intensified by reward, help, and fortune, or Fors, on +one side, and by punishment, impediment, and even final arrest, or Mors, +on the other.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + +<p>119. Now, in order to a man's obtaining these two rights, it is clearly +needful that the <i>worth</i> of him should be approximately known; as well +as the <i>want</i> of worth, which has, unhappily, been usually the principal +subject of study for critic law, careful hitherto only to mark degrees +of de-merit, instead of merit;—assigning, indeed, to the <i>De</i>ficiencies +(not always, alas! even to these) just estimate, fine, or penalty; but +to the <i>Ef</i>ficiencies, on the other side, which are by much the more +interesting, as well as the only profitable part of its subject, +assigning neither estimate nor aid.</p> + +<p>120. Now, it is in this higher and perfect function of critic law, +<i>en</i>abling instead of <i>dis</i>abling, that it becomes truly Kingly, instead +of Draconic: (what Providence gave the great, wrathful legislator his +name?): that is, it becomes the law of man and of life, instead of the +law of the worm and of death—both of these laws being set in changeless +poise one against another, and the enforcement of both being the eternal +function of the lawgiver, and true claim of every living soul: such +claim being indeed strong to be mercifully hindered, and even, if need +be, abolished, when longer existence means only deeper destruction, but +stronger still to be mercifully helped, and recreated, when longer +existence and new creation mean nobler life. So that reward and +punishment will be found to resolve themselves mainly<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> into help and +hindrance; and these again will issue naturally from time recognition of +deserving, and the just reverence and just wrath which follow +instinctively on such recognition.</p> + +<p>121. I say, "follow," but, in reality, they are part of the recognition. +Reverence is as instinctive as anger;—both of them instant on true +vision: it is sight and understanding that we have to teach, and these +<i>are</i> reverence. Make a man perceive worth, and in its reflection he +sees his own relative unworth, and worships thereupon inevitably, not +with stiff courtesy, but rejoicingly, passionately, and, best of all, +<i>restfully</i>: for the inner capacity of awe and love is infinite in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> man, +and only in finding these, can we find peace. And the common insolences +and petulances of the people, and their talk of equality, are not +irreverence in them in the least, but mere blindness, stupefaction, and +fog in the brains,<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> the first sign of any cleansing away of which is, +that they gain some power of discerning, and some patience in submitting +to, their true counsellors and governors. In the mode of such +discernment consists the real "constitution" of the state, more than in +the titles or offices of the discerned person; for it is no matter, save +in degree of mischief, to what office a man is appointed, if he cannot +fulfil it.</p> + +<p>122. III. <span class="smcap">Government by Council.</span></p> + +<p>This is the determination, by living authority, of the national conduct +to be observed under existing circumstances; and the modification or +enlargement, abrogation or enforcement, of the code of national law +according to present needs or purposes. This government is necessarily +always by council, for though the authority of it may be vested in one +person, that person cannot form any opinion on a matter of public +interest but by (voluntarily or involuntarily) submitting himself to the +influence of others.</p> + +<p>This government is always twofold—visible and invisible.</p> + +<p>The visible government is that which nominally carries on the national +business; determines its foreign relations, raises taxes, levies +soldiers, orders war or peace, and otherwise becomes the arbiter of the +national fortune. The invisible government is that exercised by all +energetic and intelligent men, each in his sphere, regulating the inner +will and secret ways of the people, essentially forming its character, +and preparing its fate.</p> + +<p>Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of +others, the harness of some, the burdens of more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> the necessity of all. +Sometimes their career is quite distinct from that of the people, and to +write it, as the national history, is as if one should number the +accidents which befall a man's weapons and wardrobe, and call the list +his biography. Nevertheless, a truly noble and wise nation necessarily +has a noble and wise visible government, for its wisdom issues in that +conclusively.</p> + +<p>123. Visible governments are, in their agencies, capable of three pure +forms, and of no more than three.</p> + +<p>They are either monarchies, where the authority is vested in one person; +oligarchies, when it is vested in a minority; or democracies, when +vested in a majority.</p> + +<p>But these three forms are not only, in practice, variously limited and +combined, but capable of infinite difference in character and use, +receiving specific names according to their variations; which names, +being nowise agreed upon, nor consistently used, either in thought or +writing, no man can at present tell, in speaking of any kind of +government, whether he is understood; nor, in hearing, whether he +understands. Thus we usually call a just government by one person a +monarchy, and an unjust or cruel one, a tyranny: this might be +reasonable if it had reference to the divinity of true government; but +to limit the term "oligarchy" to government by a few rich people, and to +call government by a few wise or noble people "aristocracy," is +evidently absurd, unless it were proved that rich people never could be +wise, or noble people rich; and farther absurd, because there are other +distinctions in character, as well as riches or wisdom (greater purity +of race, or strength of purpose, for instance), which may give the power +of government to the few. So that if we had to give names to every group +or kind of minority, we should have verbiage enough. But there is only +one right name—"oligarchy."</p> + +<p>124. So also the terms "republic" and "democracy"<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> confused, +especially in modern use; and both of them are liable to every sort of +misconception. A republic means, properly, a polity in which the state, +with its all, is at every man's service, and every man, with his all, at +the state's service—(people are apt to lose sight of the last +condition), but its government may nevertheless be oligarchic (consular, +or decemviral, for instance), or monarchic (dictatorial). But a +democracy means a state in which the government rests directly with the +majority of the citizens. And both these conditions have been judged +only by such accidents and aspects of them as each of us has had +experience of; and sometimes both have been confused with anarchy, as it +is the fashion at present to talk of the "failure of republican +institutions in America," when there has never yet been in America any +such thing as an institution, but only defiance of institution; neither +any such thing as a <i>res-publica</i>, but only a multitudinous +<i>res-privata</i>; every man for himself. It is not republicanism which +fails now in America; it is your model science of political economy, +brought to its perfect practice. There you may see competition, and the +"law of demand and supply" (especially in paper), in beautiful and +unhindered operation.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> Lust of wealth, and trust in it; vulgar faith +in magnitude and multitude, instead of nobleness; besides that faith +natural to backwoodsmen—"lucum ligna,"<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a>—perpetual +self-contemplation, issuing in passionate vanity; total ignorance of the +finer and higher arts, and of all that they teach and bestow; and the +discontent of energetic minds unoccupied, frantic with hope of +uncomprehended change, and progress they know not whither;<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a>—these +are the things that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> have "failed" in America; and yet not altogether +failed—it is not collapse, but collision; the greatest railroad +accident on record, with fire caught from the furnace, and Catiline's +quenching "non aquâ, sed ruinâ."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> But I see not, in any of our talk +of them, justice enough done to their erratic strength of purpose, nor +any estimate taken of the strength of endurance of domestic sorrow, in +what their women and children suppose a righteous cause. And out of that +endurance and suffering, its own fruit will be born with time; [<i>not</i> +abolition of slavery, however. See § 130.] and Carlyle's prophecy of +them (June, 1850), as it has now come true in the first clause, will, in +the last:—</p> + +<p>"America, too, will find that caucuses, divisionalists, stump-oratory, +and speeches to Buncombe will not carry men to the immortal gods; that +the Washington Congress, and constitutional battle of Kilkenny cats is +there, as here, naught for such objects; quite incompetent for such; +and, in fine, that said sublime constitutional arrangement will require +to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few expect yet) +remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed, torn asunder, put together +again—not without heroic labour and effort, quite other than that of +the stump-orator and the revival preacher, one day."</p> + +<p>125.<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Understand, then, once for all, that no form of government, +provided it be a government at all, is, as such, to be either condemned +or praised, or contested for in anywise, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> by fools. But all forms of +government are good just so far as they attain this one vital necessity +of policy—<i>that the wise and kind, few or many, shall govern the unwise +and unkind</i>; and they are evil so far as they miss of this, or reverse +it. Not does the form, in any case, signify one whit, but its +<i>firmness</i>, and adaptation to the need; for if there be many foolish +persons in a state, and few wise, then it is good that the few govern; +and if there be many wise, and few foolish, then it is good that the +many govern; and if many be wise, yet one wiser, then it is good that +one should govern; and so on. Thus, we may have "the ant's republic, and +the realm of bees," both good in their kind; one for groping, and the +other for building; and nobler still, for flying;—the Ducal +monarchy<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> of those</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Intelligent of seasons, that set forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The aery caravan, high over seas.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>126. Nor need we want examples, among the inferior creatures, of +dissoluteness, as well as resoluteness, in government. I once saw +democracy finely illustrated by the beetles of North Switzerland, who by +universal suffrage, and elytric acclamation, one May twilight, carried +it, that they would fly over the Lake of Zug; and flew <i>short</i>, to the +great disfigurement of the Lake of Zug,—Κανθαρον λιμην—over +some leagues square, and to the close of the cockchafer democracy for +that year. Then, for tyranny, the old fable of the frogs and the stork +finely touches one form of it; but truth will image it more closely than +fable, for tyranny is not complete when it is only over the idle, but +when it is over the laborious and the blind. This description of +pelicans and climbing perch, which I find quoted in one of our popular +natural histories, out of Sir Emerson Tennant's <i>Ceylon</i>, comes as near +as may be to the true image of the thing:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Heavy rains came on, and as we stood on the high ground, we observed a +pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging himself; our people +went towards him, and raised a cry of 'Fish, fish!' We hurried down, and +found numbers of fish struggling upward through the grass, in the rills +formed by the trickling of the rain. There was scarcely water to cover +them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank, on which +our followers collected about two baskets of them. They were forcing +their way up the knoll, and had they not been interrupted, first by the +pelican, and afterwards by ourselves, they would in a few minutes have +gained the highest point, and descended on the other side into a pool +which formed another portion of the tank. In going this distance, +however, they must have used muscular exertion enough to have taken them +half a mile on level ground; for at these places all the cattle and wild +animals of the neighbourhood had latterly come to drink, so that the +surface was everywhere indented with footmarks, in addition to the +cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which the fish tumbled in +their progress. In those holes, which were deep, and the sides +perpendicular, they remained to die, and were carried off by kites and +crows."<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p> + +<p>127. But whether governments be bad or good, one general disadvantage +seems to attach to them in modern times—that they are all <i>costly</i>.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> +This, however, is not essentially the fault of the governments. If +nations choose to play at war, they will always find their governments +willing to lead the game, and soon coming under that term of +Aristophanes, "καπηλοι ασπιδων," "shield-sellers." And when +(πημ επι πηματι)<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> the shields take the form of iron ships, +with apparatus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> "for defence against liquid fire,"—as I see by latest +accounts they are now arranging the decks in English dockyards—they +become costly biers enough for the grey convoy of chief mourner waves, +wreathed with funereal foam, to bear back the dead upon; the massy +shoulders of those corpse-bearers being intended for quite other work, +and to bear the living, and food for the living, if we would let them.</p> + +<p>128. Nor have we the least right to complain of our governments being +expensive, so long as we set the government <i>to do precisely the work +which brings no return</i>. If our present doctrines of political economy +be just, let us trust them to the utmost; take that war business out of +the government's hands, and test therein the principles of supply and +demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract—no +capture, no pay—(I admit that things might sometimes go better so); and +let us sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, +to the lowest bidder; so may we have cheap victories, and divinity. On +the other hand, if we have so much suspicion of our science that we dare +not trust it on military or spiritual business, would it not be but +reasonable to try whether some authoritative handling may not prosper in +matters utilitarian? If we were to set our governments to do useful +things instead of mischievous, possibly even the apparatus itself might +in time come to be less costly. The machine, applied to the building of +the house, might perhaps pay, when it seems not to pay, applied to +pulling it down. If we made in our dockyards ships to carry timber and +coals, instead of cannon, and with provision for the brightening of +domestic solid culinary fire, instead of for the scattering of liquid +hostile fire, it might have some effect on the taxes. Or suppose that we +tried the experiment on land instead of water carriage; already the +government, not unapproved, carries letters and parcels for us; larger +packages may in time follow;—even general merchandise—why not, at +last, ourselves? Had the money spent in local mistakes and vain private +litigation, on the railroads of England, been laid out, instead, under +proper government restraint, on really useful railroad work, and had no +absurd expense been incurred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> in ornamenting stations, we might already +have had,—what ultimately it will be found we must have,—quadruple +rails, two for passengers, and two for traffic, on every great line; and +we might have been carried in swift safety, and watched and warded by +well-paid pointsmen, for half the present fares. [For, of course, a +railroad company is merely an association of turnpike-keepers, who make +the tolls as high as they can, not to mend the roads with, but to +pocket. The public will in time discover this, and do away with +turnpikes on railroads, as on all other public-ways.]</p> + + +<p>129. Suppose it should thus turn out, finally, that a true government +set to true work, instead of being a costly engine, was a paying one? +that your government, rightly organized, instead of itself subsisting by +an income-tax, would produce its subjects some subsistence in the shape +of an income dividend?—police, and judges duly paid besides, only with +less work than the state at present provides for them.</p> + +<p>A true government set to true work!—Not easily to be imagined, still +less obtained; but not beyond human hope or ingenuity. Only you will +have to alter your election systems somewhat, first. Not by universal +suffrage, nor by votes purchasable with beer, is such government to be +had. That is to say, not by universal <i>equal</i> suffrage. Every man +upwards of twenty, who has been convicted of no legal crime, should have +his say in this matter; but afterwards a louder voice, as he grows +older, and approves himself wiser. If he has one vote at twenty, he +should have two at thirty, four at forty, ten at fifty. For every single +vote which he has with an income of a hundred a year, he should have ten +with an income of a thousand, (provided you first see to it that wealth +is, as nature intended it to be, the reward of sagacity and +industry—not of good luck in a scramble or a lottery). For every single +vote which he had as subordinate in any business, he should have two +when he became a master; and every office and authority nationally +bestowed, implying trustworthiness and intellect, should have its known +proportional number of votes attached to it. But into the detail and +working of a true system in these matters we cannot now enter; we are +concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> as yet with definitions only, and statements of first +principles, which will be established now sufficiently for our purposes +when we have examined the nature of that form of government last on the +list in § 105,—the purely "Magistral," exciting at present its full +share of public notice, under its ambiguous title of "slavery."</p> + +<p>130. I have not, however, been able to ascertain in definite terms, from +the declaimers against slavery, what they understand by it. If they mean +only the imprisonment or compulsion of one person by another, such +imprisonment or compulsion being in many cases highly expedient, +slavery, so defined, would be no evil in itself, but only in its abuse; +that is, when men are slaves, who should not be, or masters, who should +not be, or even the fittest characters for either state, placed in it +under conditions which should not be. It is not, for instance, a +necessary condition of slavery, nor a desirable one, that parents should +be separated from children, or husbands from wives; but the institution +of war, against which people declaim with less violence, effects such +separations,—not unfrequently in a very permanent manner. To press a +sailor, seize a white youth by conscription for a soldier, or carry off +a black one for a labourer, may all be right acts, or all wrong ones, +according to needs and circumstances. It is wrong to scourge a man +unnecessarily. So it is to shoot him. Both must be done on occasion; and +it is better and kinder to flog a man to his work, than to leave him +idle till he robs, and flog him afterwards. The essential thing for all +creatures is to be made to do right; how they are made to do it—by +pleasant promises, or hard necessities, pathetic oratory, or the +whip—is comparatively immaterial.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> To be deceived is perhaps as +incompatible with human dignity as to be whipped; and I suspect the last +method to be not the worst, for the help of many individuals. The Jewish +nation throve under it, in the hand of a monarch reputed not unwise; it +is only the change of whip for scorpion which is inexpedient; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> that +change is as likely to come to pass on the side of license as of law. +For the true scorpion whips are those of the nation's pleasant vices, +which are to it as St. John's locusts—crown on the head, ravin in the +mouth, and sting in the tail. If it will not bear the rule of Athena and +Apollo, who shepherd without smiting (ου πληγη νεμοντες), +Athena at last calls no more in the corners of the streets; and then +follows the rule of Tisiphone, who smites without shepherding.</p> + +<p>131. If, however, by slavery, instead of absolute compulsion, is meant +<i>the purchase, by money, of the right of compulsion</i>, such purchase is +necessarily made whenever a portion of any territory is transferred, for +money, from one monarch to another: which has happened frequently enough +in history, without its being supposed that the inhabitants of the +districts so transferred became therefore slaves. In this, as in the +former case, the dispute seems about the fashion of the thing, rather +than the fact of it. There are two rocks in mid-sea, on each of which, +neglected equally by instructive and commercial powers, a handful of +inhabitants live as they may. Two merchants bid for the two properties, +but not in the same terms. One bids for the people, buys <i>them</i>, and +sets them to work, under pain of scourge; the other bids for the rock, +buys <i>it</i>, and throws the inhabitants into the sea. The former is the +American, the latter the English method, of slavery; much is to be said +for, and something against, both, which I hope to say in due time and +place.<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> + +<p>132. If, however, slavery mean not merely the purchase of the right of +compulsion, but <i>the purchase of the body and soul of the creature +itself for money</i>, it is not, I think, among the black races that +purchases of this kind are most extensively made, or that separate souls +of a fine make fetch the highest price. This branch of the inquiry we +shall have occasion also to follow out at some length, for in the worst +instances of the selling of souls, we are apt to get, when we ask if the +sale is valid, only Pyrrhon's answer<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a>—"None can know."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p><p>133. The fact is that slavery is not a political institution at all, +<i>but an inherent, natural, and eternal inheritance</i> of a large portion +of the human race—to whom, the more you give of their own free will, +the more slaves they will make themselves. In common parlance, we idly +confuse captivity with slavery, and are always thinking of the +difference between pine-trunks (Ariel in the pine), and cowslip-bells +("in the cowslip-bell I lie"), or between carrying wood and drinking +(Caliban's slavery and freedom), instead of noting the far more serious +differences between Ariel and Caliban themselves, and the means by +which, practically, that difference may be brought about or diminished.</p> + +<p>134.<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> Plato's slave, in the <i>Polity</i>, who, well dressed and washed, +aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds curiously to +Caliban attacking Prospero's cell; and there is an undercurrent of +meaning throughout, in the <i>Tempest</i> as well as in the <i>Merchant of +Venice</i>; referring in this case to government, as in that to commerce. +Miranda<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> ("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you +wonder!") corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +respectively the spirits of faithful and imaginative labour, opposed to +rebellious, hurtful and slavish labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true +governor, is opposed to Sycorax, the mother of slavery, her name +"Swine-raven," indicating at once brutality and deathfulness; hence the +line—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed, with <i>raven's feather</i>,"—&c.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For all these dreams of Shakespeare, as those of true and strong men +must be, are "φαντασματα θεια, και σκιαι των οντων"—divine +phantasms, and shadows of things that are. We hardly tell our children, +willingly, a fable with no purport in it; yet we think God sends his +best messengers only to sing fairy tales to us, fond and empty. The +<i>Tempest</i> is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, "clasped where +paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of generous and free-hearted service, +in early stages of human society oppressed by ignorance and wild +tyranny: venting groans as fast as mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of +states, dreadful; so that "all but mariners plunge in the brine, and +quit the vessel, then all afire with <i>me</i>," yet having in itself the +will and sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially called +"Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands, and there, <i>take hands</i>," +"courtesied when you have, and kissed, the wild waves whist:" (mind, it +is "cortesia," not "curtsey,") and read "quiet" for "whist," if you want +the full sense. Then you may indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits +bear the burden for you—with watch in the night, and call in early +morning. The <i>vis viva</i> in elemental transformation follows—"Full +fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving +rest <i>after</i> labour, it "fetches dew from the still vext Bermoöthes, +and, with a charm joined to their suffered labour, leaves men asleep." +Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it seems to them as a harpy; +followed by the utterly vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to +whom it is the picture of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their +false and mocking catch, "Thought is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> free;" but leads them into briers +and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon them. Minister of +fate against the great criminal, it joins itself with the "incensed seas +and shores "—the sword that layeth at it cannot hold, and may "with +bemocked-at stabs as soon kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one +dowle that is in its plume." As the guide and aid of true love, it is +always called by Prospero "fine" (the French "fine," not the English), +or "delicate"—another long note would be needed to explain all the +meaning in this word. Lastly, its work done, and war, it resolves itself +into the elements. The intense significance of the last song, "Where the +bee sucks," I will examine in its due place.</p> + +<p>The types of slavery in Caliban are more palpable, and need not be dwelt +on now: though I will notice them also, severally, in their proper +places;—the heart of his slavery is in his worship: "That's a brave +god, and bears celestial—liquor." But, in illustration of the sense in +which the Latin "benignus" and "malignus" are to be coupled with +Eleutheria and Douleia, note that Caliban's torment is always the +physical reflection of his own nature—"cramps" and "side stiches that +shall pen thy breath up; thou shalt be pinched, as thick as honeycombs:" +the whole nature of slavery being one cramp and cretinous contraction. +Fancy this of Ariel! You may fetter him, but you set no mark on him; you +may put him to hard work and far journey, but you cannot give him a +cramp.</p> + +<p>135. I should dwell, even in these prefatory papers, at more length on +this subject of slavery, had not all I would say been said already, in +vain, (not, as I hope, ultimately in vain), by Carlyle, in the first of +the <i>Latter-day Pamphlets</i>, which I commend to the reader's gravest +reading; together with that as much neglected, and still more +immediately needed, on model prisons, and with the great chapter on +"Permanence" (fifth of the last section of "Past and Present"), which +sums what is known, and foreshadows, or rather forelights, all that is +to be learned of National Discipline. I have only here farther to +examine the nature of one world-wide and everlasting form of slavery, +wholesome in use, as deadly in abuse;—the service of the rich by the +poor.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> [Think over this paragraph carefully; it should have been +much expanded to be quite intelligible; but it contains all that I want +it to contain.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> "The ordinary brute, who flourishes in the very centre of +ornate life, tells us of unknown depths on the verge of which we totter, +being bound to thank our stars every day we live that there is not a +general outbreak, and a revolt from the yoke of civilization."—<i>Times</i> +leader, Dec. 25, 1862. Admitting that our stars are to be thanked for +our safety, whom are we to thank for the danger?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Our politicians, even the best of them, regard only the +distress caused by the <i>failure</i> of mechanical labour. The degradation +caused by its excess is a far more serious subject of thought, and of +future fear. I shall examine this part of our subject at length +hereafter. There can hardly be any doubt, at present, cast on the truth +of the above passages, as all the great thinkers are unanimous on the +matter. Plato's words are terrific in their scorn and pity whenever he +touches on the mechanical arts. He calls the men employed in them not +even human, but partially and diminutively human, "ανθρωπισκοι," and opposes such work to noble occupations, not merely +as prison is opposed to freedom but as a convict's dishonoured prison is +to the temple (escape from them being like that of a criminal to the +sanctuary); and the destruction caused by them being of soul no less +than body.—<i>Rep.</i> vi. 9. Compare <i>Laws</i>, v. 11. Xenophon dwells on the +evil of occupations at the furnace and especially their "ασχολια, want of leisure."—<i>Econ.</i> i. 4. (Modern England, with all +its pride of education, has lost that first sense of the word "school;" +and till it recover that, it will find no other rightly.) His word for +the harm to the soul is to "break" it, as we say of the heart.—<i>Econ.</i> +i. 6. And herein, also, is the root of the scorn, otherwise apparently +most strange and cruel, with which Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare always +speak of the populace; for it is entirely true that, in great states, +the lower orders are low by nature as well as by task, being precisely +that part of the commonwealth which has been thrust down for its +coarseness or unworthiness (by coarseness I mean especially +insensibility and irreverence—the "profane" of Horace); and when this +ceases to be so, and the corruption and profanity are in the higher +instead of the lower orders, there arises, first, helpless confusion, +then, if the lower classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, and +they get it; but if neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it, +there follows mere darkness and dissolution, till, out of the putrid +elements, some new capacity of order rises, like grass on a grave; if +not, there is no more hope, nor shadow of turning, for that nation. +Atropos has her way with it. +</p><p> +So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea, +in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs fall continually to +the lowest place, and the clear water rise; yet so as that there shall +be no neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, +so that if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> "ολιγης, και αλλως γιγνομενης." (Little, and that +little born in vain.) The bitter sentence never was so true as at this +day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> [This following note is a mere cluster of memoranda, but I +keep it for reference.] Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better +term than archic; but liable to be confused with some which we shall +want relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three great +divisions of law are severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The +Archons are the true princes, or beginners of things; or leaders (as of +an orchestra). The Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords of houses +and nations. The Dicasts, properly, the judges, and that with Olympian +justice, which reaches to heaven and hell. The violation of archic law +is ἁμαρτια (error), πονηρια (failure), or πλημμελεια (discord). +The violation of meristic law is ανομια +(iniquity). The violation of critic law is αδικια (injury). +Iniquity is the central generic term; for all law is <i>fatal</i>; it is the +division to men of their fate; as the fold of their pasture, it is +νομος; as the assigning of their portion, μοιρα.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> [This is the only sentence which, in revising these +essays, I am now inclined to question; but the point is one of extreme +difficulty. There might be a law, for instance, of curfew, that candles +should be put out, unless for necessary service, at such and such an +hour, the idea of "necessary service" being quite indefinable, and no +penalty possible; yet there would be a distinct consciousness of illegal +conduct in young ladies' minds who danced by candlelight till dawn.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> [Read this and the next paragraph with attention; they +contain clear statements, which I cannot mend, of things most +necessary.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> [Mainly; not altogether. Conclusive reward of high virtue +is loving and crowning, not helping; and conclusive punishment of deep +vice is hating and crushing, not merely hindering.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness). +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eke villanous for to be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And little coulde of norture<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To worship any creature.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> [I leave this paragraph, in every syllable, as it was +written, during the rage of the American war; it was meant to refer, +however, chiefly to the Northerns: what modifications its hot and +partial terms require I will give in another place: let it stand now as +it stood.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Supply and demand! Alas! for what noble work was there +ever any audible "demand" in that poor sense (Past and Present)? Nay, +the demand is not loud, even for ignoble work. <i>See</i> "Average Earnings +of Betty Taylor," in <i>Times</i> of 4th February of this year [1863]: +"Worked from Monday morning at 8 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> to Friday night at 5.30 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> for +1<i>s.</i> 5-1/2<i>d.</i>"—<i>Laissez faire.</i> [This kind of slavery finds no +Abolitionists that I hear of.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> ["That the sacred grove is nothing but logs."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, says "that a monarchy is +a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, +and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never +sink, but then your feet are always in the water." Yes, that is +comfortable; and though your raft cannot sink (being too worthless for +that), it may go to pieces, I suppose, when the four winds (your only +pilots) steer competitively from its four corners, and carry it, ως οπωρινος Βορεης φορεησιν ακανθας, +and then more than your feet +will be in the water.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> ["Not with water, but with ruin." The worst ruin being +that which the Americans chiefly boast of. They sent all their best and +honestest youths, Harvard University men and the like, to that accursed +war; got them nearly all shot; wrote pretty biographies (to the ages of +17, 18, 19) and epitaphs for them; and so, having washed all the salt +out of the nation in blood, left themselves to putrefaction, and the +morality of New York.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> [This paragraph contains the gist of all that precede.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> [Whenever you are puzzled by any apparently mistaken use +of words in these essays, take your dictionary, remembering I had to fix +terms, as well as principles. A Duke is a "dux" or "leader;" the flying +wedge of cranes is under a "ducal monarch"—a very different personage +from a queen bee. The Venetians, with a beautiful instinct, gave the +name to their King of the Sea.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> [This is a perfect picture of the French under the +tyrannies of their Pelican Kings, before the Revolution. But they must +find other than Pelican Kings—or rather, Pelican Kings of the Divine +brood, that feed their children, and with their best blood.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> [Read carefully, from this point; because here begins the +statement of things requiring to be done, which I am now re-trying to +make definite in <i>Fors Clavigera</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> ["Evil on the top of Evil." Delphic oracle, meaning iron +on the anvil.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> [Permit me to enforce and reinforce this statement, with +all earnestness. It is the sum of what needs most to be understood in +the matter of education.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> [A pregnant paragraph, meant against English and Scotch +landlords who drive their people off the land.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> [In Lucian's dialogue, "The sale of lives."]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> [I raise this analysis of the <i>Tempest</i> into my text; but +it is nothing but a hurried note, which I may never have time to expand. +I have retouched it here and there a little, however.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Of Shakspeare's names I will afterwards speak at more +length; they are curiously—often barbarously—much by Providence,—but +assuredly not without Shakspeare's cunning purpose—mixed out of the +various traditions he confusedly adopted, and languages which he +imperfectly knew. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already +noticed. Desdemona, "δυσδαιμονια," "miserable fortune," is also +plain enough. Othello is, I believe, "the careful;" all the calamity of +the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently +collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of +Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother, +Laertes; and its signification is once exquisitely alluded to in that +brother's last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to +the uselessness of the churlish clergy—"A <i>ministering</i> angel shall my +sister be, when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in +some way with "homely" the entire event of the tragedy turning on +betrayal of home duty. Hermione (ερμα), "pillar-like," (ἡ ειδος εχε χρυσης 'ἡειδος Αφροδιτης). +Titania (τιτηνη), "the +queen;" Benedict and Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and +Proteus, enduring (or strong), (valens), and changeful. Iago and Iachimo +have evidently the same root—probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, "the +supplanter," Leonatus, and other such names, are interpreted, or played +with, in the plays themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and +reference to her raven's feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>MASTERSHIP.</h3> + + +<p>136. As in all previous discussions of our subject, we must study the +relation of the commanding rich to the obeying poor in its simplest +elements, in order to reach its first principles.</p> + +<p>The simplest state of it, then, is this:<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> a wise and provident person +works much, consumes little, and lays by a store; an improvident person +works little, consumes all his produce, and lays by no store. Accident +interrupts the daily work, or renders it less productive; the idle +person must then starve, or be supported by the provident one, who, +having him thus at his mercy, may either refuse to maintain him +altogether, or, which will evidently be more to his own interest, say to +him, "I will maintain you, indeed, but you shall now work hard, instead +of indolently, and instead of being allowed to lay by what you save, as +you might have done, had you remained independent, <i>I</i> will take all the +surplus. You would not lay it up for yourself; it is wholly your own +fault that has thrown you into my power, and I will force you to work, +or starve; yet you shall have no profit of your work, only your daily +bread for it; [and competition shall determine how much of that<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a>]." +This mode of treatment has now become<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> so universal that it is supposed +to be the only natural—nay, the only possible one; and the market wages +are calmly defined by economists as "the sum which will maintain the +labourer."</p> + +<p>137. The power of the provident person to do this is only checked by the +correlative power of some neighbour of similarly frugal habits, who says +to the labourer—"I will give you a little more than this other +provident person: come and work for me."</p> + +<p>The power of the provident over the improvident depends thus, primarily, +on their relative numbers; secondarily, on the modes of agreement of the +adverse parties with each other. The accidental level of wages is a +variable function of the number of provident and idle persons in the +world, of the enmity between them as classes, and of the agreement +between those of the same class. <i>It depends, from beginning to end, on +moral conditions.</i></p> + +<p>138. Supposing the rich to be entirely selfish, <i>it is always for their +interest that the poor should be as numerous as they can employ, and +restrain</i>. For, granting that the entire population is no larger than +the ground can easily maintain—that the classes are stringently +divided—and that there is sense or strength of hand enough with the +rich to secure obedience; then, if nine-tenths of a nation are poor, the +remaining tenth have the service of nine persons each;<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> but, if +eight-tenths are poor, only of four each; if seven-tenths are poor, of +two and a third each; if six-tenths are poor, of one and a half each; +and if five-tenths are poor, of only one each. But, practically, if the +rich strive always to obtain more power over the poor, instead of to +raise them—and if, on the other hand, the poor become continually more +vicious and numerous, through neglect and oppression,—though the +<i>range</i> of the power of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> the rich increases, its <i>tenure</i> becomes less +secure; until, at last the measure of iniquity being full, revolution, +civil war, or the subjection of the state to a healthier or stronger +one, closes the moral corruption, and industrial disease.<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<p>139. It is rarely, however, that things come to this extremity. Kind +persons among the rich, and wise among the poor, modify the connexion of +the classes: the efforts made to raise and relieve on the one side, and +the success of honest toil on the other, bind and blend the orders of +society into the confused tissue of half-felt obligation, +sullenly-rendered obedience, and variously-directed, or mis-directed +toil, which form the warp of daily life. But this great law rules all +the wild design: that success (while society is guided by laws of +competition) <i>signifies always so much victory over your neighbour</i> as +to obtain the direction of his work, and to take the profits of it. +<i>This is the real source of all great riches.</i> No man can become largely +rich by his personal toil.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> The work of his own hands, wisely +directed, will indeed always maintain himself and his family, and make +fitting provision for his age. <i>But it is only by the discovery of some +method of taxing the labour of others that he can become opulent.</i> Every +increase of his capital enables him to extend this taxation more widely; +that is, to invest larger funds in the maintenance of labourers,—to +direct, accordingly, vaster and yet vaster masses of labour, and to +appropriate its profits.</p> + +<p>140. There is much confusion of idea on the subject of this +appropriation. It is, of course, the interest of the employer to +disguise it from the persons employed; and, for his own comfort and +complacency, he often desires no less to disguise it from himself. And +it is matter of much doubt with me, how far the foul and foolish +arguments used habitually on this subject are indeed the honest +expression of foul and foolish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> convictions;—or rather (as I am +sometimes forced to conclude from the irritation with which they are +advanced) are resolutely dishonest, wilful, and malicious sophisms, +arranged so as to mask, to the last moment, the real laws of economy, +and future duties of men. By taking a simple example, and working it +thoroughly out, the subject may be rescued from all but such determined +misrepresentation.</p> + +<p>141. Let us imagine a society of peasants, living on a rivershore, +exposed to destructive inundation at somewhat extended intervals; and +that each peasant possesses of this good, but imperilled, ground, more +than he needs to cultivate for immediate subsistence. We will assume +farther (and with too great probability of justice), that the greater +part of them indolently keep in tillage just as much land as supplies +them with daily food;—that they leave their children idle, and take no +precautions against the rise of the stream. But one of them, (we will +say but one, for the sake of greater clearness) cultivates carefully +<i>all</i> the ground of his estate; makes his children work hard and +healthily; uses his spare time and theirs in building a rampart against +the river; and, at the end of some years, has in his storehouses large +reserves of food and clothing,—in his stables a well-tended breed of +cattle, and around his fields a wedge of wall against flood.</p> + +<p>The torrent rises at last—sweeps away the harvests, and half the +cottages of the careless peasants, and leaves them destitute. They +naturally come for help to the provident one, whose fields are unwasted, +and whose granaries are full. He has the right to refuse it to them: no +one disputes this right.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> But he will probably <i>not</i> refuse it; it is +not his interest to do so, even were he entirely selfish and cruel. The +only question with him will be on what terms his aid is to be granted.</p> + +<p>142. Clearly, not on terms of mere charity. To maintain his neighbours +in idleness would be not only his ruin, but theirs. He will require work +from them, in exchange for their maintenance; and, whether in kindness +or cruelty, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> the work they can give. Not now the three or four hours +they were wont to spend on their own land, but the eight or ten hours +they ought to have spent.<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> But how will he apply this labour? The men +are now his slaves;—nothing less, and nothing more. On pain of +starvation, he can force them to work in the manner, and to the end, he +chooses. And it is by his wisdom in this choice that the worthiness of +his mastership is proved, or its unworthiness. Evidently, he must first +set them to bank out the water in some temporary way, and to get their +ground cleansed and resown; else, in any case, their continued +maintenance will be impossible. That done, and while he has still to +feed them, suppose he makes them raise a secure rampart for their own +ground against all future flood, and rebuild their houses in safer +places, with the best material they can find; being allowed time out of +their working hours to fetch such material from a distance. And for the +food and clothing advanced, he takes security in land that as much shall +be returned at a convenient period.</p> + +<p>143. We may conceive this security to be redeemed, and the debt paid at +the end of a few years. The prudent peasant has sustained no loss; <i>but +is no richer than he was, and has had all his trouble for nothing</i>. But +he has enriched his neighbours materially; bettered their houses, +secured their land, and rendered them, in worldly matters, equal to +himself. In all rational and final sense, he has been throughout their +true Lord and King.</p> + +<p>144. We will next trace his probable line of conduct, presuming his +object to be exclusively the increase of his own fortune. After roughly +recovering and cleansing the ground, he allows the ruined peasantry only +to build huts upon it, such as he thinks protective enough from the +weather to keep them in working health. The rest of their time he +occupies, first in pulling down, and rebuilding on a magnificent scale, +his own house, and in adding large dependencies to it. This done, in +exchange for his continued supply of corn, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> buys as much of his +neighbours' land as he thinks he can superintend the management of; and +makes the former owners securely embank and protect the ceded portion. +By this arrangement, he leaves to a certain number of the peasantry only +as much ground as will just maintain them in their existing numbers; as +the population increases, he takes the extra hands, who cannot be +maintained on the narrowed estates, for his own servants; employs some +to cultivate the ground he has bought, giving them of its produce merely +enough for subsistence; with the surplus, which, under his energetic and +careful superintendence, will be large, he maintains a train of servants +for state, and a body of workmen, whom he educates in ornamental arts. +He now can splendidly decorate his house, lay out its grounds +magnificently, and richly supply his table, and that of his household +and retinue. And thus, without any abuse of right, we should find +established all the phenomena of poverty and riches, which (it is +supposed necessarily) accompany modern civilization. In one part of the +district, we should have unhealthy land, miserable dwellings, and +half-starved poor; in another, a well-ordered estate, well-fed servants, +and refined conditions of highly educated and luxurious life.</p> + +<p>145. I have put the two cases in simplicity, and to some extremity. But +though in more complex and qualified operation, all the relations of +society are but the expansion of these two typical sequences of conduct +and result. I do not say, observe, that the first procedure is entirely +recommendable; or even entirely right; still less, that the second is +wholly wrong. Servants, and artists, and splendour of habitation and +retinue, have all their use, propriety, and office. But I am determined +that the reader shall understand clearly what they cost; and see that +the condition of having them is the subjection to us of a certain number +of imprudent or unfortunate persons (or, it may be, more fortunate than +their masters), over whose destinies we exercise a boundless control. +"Riches" mean eternally and essentially this; and God send at last a +time when those words of our best-reputed economist shall be true, and +we <i>shall</i> indeed "all know what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> it is to be rich;"<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> that it is to +be slave-master over farthest earth, and over all ways and thoughts of +men. Every operative you employ is your true servant: distant or near, +subject to your immediate orders, or ministering to your +widely-communicated caprice,—for the pay he stipulates, or the price he +tempts,—all are alike under this great dominion of the gold. The +milliner who makes the dress is as much a servant (more so, in that she +uses more intelligence in the service) as the maid who puts it on; the +carpenter who smooths the door, as the footman who opens it; the +tradesmen who supply the table, as the labourers and sailors who supply +the tradesmen. Why speak of these lower services? Painters and singers +(whether of note or rhyme,) jesters and storytellers, moralists, +historians, priests,—so far as these, in any degree, paint, or sing, or +tell their tale, or charm their charm, or "perform" their rite, <i>for +pay</i>,—in so far, they are all slaves; abject utterly, if the service be +for pay only; abject less and less in proportion to the degrees of love +and of wisdom which enter into their duty, or <i>can</i> enter into it, +according as their function is to do the bidding and the work of a manly +people;—or to amuse, tempt, and deceive, a childish one.</p> + +<p>146. There is always, in such amusement and temptation, to a certain +extent, a government of the rich by the poor, as of the poor by the +rich; but the latter is the prevailing and necessary one, and it +consists, when it is honourable, in the collection of the profits of +labour from those who would have misused them, and the administration of +those profits for the service either of the same persons in future, or +of others; and when it is dishonourable, as is more frequently the case +in modern times, it consists in the collection of the profits of labour +from those who would have rightly used them, and their appropriation to +the service of the collector himself.</p> + +<p>147. The examination of these various modes of collection and use of +riches will form the third branch of our future inquiries; but the key +to the whole subject lies in the clear understanding of the difference +between selfish and unselfish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> expenditure. It is not easy, by any +course of reasoning, to enforce this on the generally unwilling hearer; +yet the definition of unselfish expenditure is brief and simple. It is +expenditure which, if you are a capitalist, does not pay <i>you</i>, but pays +somebody else; and if you are a consumer, does not please <i>you</i>, but +pleases somebody else. Take one special instance, in further +illustration of the general type given above. I did not invent that +type, but spoke of a real river, and of real peasantry, the languid and +sickly race which inhabits, or haunts—for they are often more like +spectres than living men—the thorny desolation of the banks of the Arve +in Savoy. Some years ago, a society, formed at Geneva, offered to embank +the river for the ground which would have been recovered by the +operation; but the offer was refused by the (then Sardinian) government. +The capitalists saw that this expenditure would have "paid" if the +ground saved from the river was to be theirs. But if, when the offer +that had this aspect of profit was refused, they had nevertheless +persisted in the plan, and merely taking security for the return of +their outlay, lent the funds for the work, and thus saved a whole race +of human souls from perishing in a pestiferous fen (as, I presume, some +among them would, at personal risk, have dragged any one drowning +creature out of the current of the stream, and not expected payment +therefor), such expenditure would have precisely corresponded to the use +of his power made, in the first instance, by our supposed richer +peasant—it would have been the king's, of grace, instead of the +usurer's, for gain.</p> + +<p>148. "Impossible, absurd, Utopian!" exclaim nine-tenths of the few +readers whom these words may find.</p> + +<p>No, good reader, <i>this</i> is not Utopian: but I will tell you what would +have seemed, if we had not seen it, Utopian on the side of evil instead +of good; that ever men should have come to value their money so much +more than their lives, that if you call upon them to become soldiers, +and take chance of a bullet through their heart, and of wife and +children being left desolate, for their pride's sake, they will do it +gaily, without thinking twice; but if you ask them, for their country's +sake,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> to spend a hundred pounds without security of getting back a +hundred-and-five,<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> they will laugh in your face.</p> + +<p>149. Not but that also this game of life-giving and taking is, in the +end, somewhat more costly than other forms of play might be. Rifle +practice is, indeed, a not unhealthy pastime, and a feather on the top +of the head is a pleasing appendage; but while learning the stops and +fingering of the sweet instrument, does no one ever calculate the cost +of an overture? What melody does Tityrus meditate on his tenderly spiral +pipe? The leaden seed of it, broadcast, true conical "Dents de Lion" +seed—needing less allowance for the wind than is usual with that kind +of herb—what crop are you likely to have of it? Suppose, instead of +this volunteer marching and countermarching, you were to do a little +volunteer ploughing and counter-ploughing? It is more difficult to do it +straight: the dust of the earth, so disturbed, is more grateful than for +merely rhythmic footsteps. Golden cups, also, given for good ploughing, +would be more suitable in colour: (ruby glass, for the wine which +"giveth his colour" on the ground, might be fitter for the rifle prize +in ladies' hands). Or, conceive a little volunteer exercise with the +spade, other than such as is needed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> for moat and breastwork, or even +for the burial of the fruit of the leaden avena-seed, subject to the +shrill Lemures' criticism—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wer hat das Haus so schlecht gebauet?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If you were to embank Lincolnshire more stoutly against the sea? or +strip the peat of Solway, or plant Plinlimmon moors with larch—then, in +due season, some amateur reaping and threshing?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Nay, we reap and thresh by steam, in these advanced days."</p></div> + +<p>I know it, my wise and economical friends. The stout arms God gave you +to win your bread by, you would fain shoot your neighbours, and God's +sweet singers with;<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> then you invoke the fiends to your farm-service; +and—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When young and old come forth to play<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a sulphurous holiday,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell how the darkling goblin sweat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(His feast of cinders duly set),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, belching night, where breathed the morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ten day-labourers could not end.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>150. Going back to the matter in hand, we will press the example closer. +On a green knoll above that plain of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> Arve, between Cluse and +Bonneville, there was, in the year 1860, a cottage, inhabited by a +well-doing family—man and wife, three children, and the grandmother. I +call it a cottage, but in truth, it was a large chimney on the ground, +wide at the bottom, so that the family might live round the fire; +lighted by one small broken window, and entered by an unclosing door. +The family, I say, was "well-doing;" at least it was hopeful and +cheerful; the wife healthy, the children, for Savoyards, pretty and +active, but the husband threatened with decline, from exposure under the +cliffs of the Mont Vergi by day, and to draughts between every plank of +his chimney in the frosty nights.</p> + +<p>"Why could he not plaster the chinks?" asks the practical reader. For +the same reason that your child cannot wash its face and hands till you +have washed them many a day for it, and will not wash them when it can, +till you force it.</p> + +<p>151. I passed this cottage often in my walks, had its window and door +mended; sometimes mended also a little the meal of sour bread and broth, +and generally got kind greeting and smile from the face of young or old; +which greeting this year, narrowed itself into the half-recognizing +stare of the elder child, and the old woman's tears; for the father and +mother were both dead,—one of sickness, the other of sorrow. It +happened that I passed not alone, but with a companion, a practised +English joiner, who, while these people were dying of cold, had been +employed from six in the morning to six in the evening, for two months, +in fitting, without nails, the panels of a single door in a large house +in London. Three days of his work taken, at the right time from +fastening the oak panels with useless precision, and applied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> to fasten +the larch timbers with decent strength, would have saved these +Savoyards' lives. <i>He</i> would have been maintained equally; (I suppose +him equally paid for his work by the owner of the greater house, only +the work not consumed selfishly on his own walls;) and the two peasants, +and eventually, probably their children, saved.</p> + +<p>152. There are, therefore,—let me finally enforce, and leave with the +reader, this broad conclusion,—three things to be considered in +employing any poor person. It is not enough to give him employment. You +must employ him first to produce useful things; secondly, of the several +(suppose equally useful) things he can equally well produce, you must +set him to make that which will cause him to lead the healthiest life; +lastly, of the things produced, it remains a question of wisdom and +conscience how much you are to take yourself, and how much to leave to +others. A large quantity, remember, unless you destroy it, <i>must</i> always +be so left at one time or another; the only questions you have to decide +are, not <i>what</i> you will give, but <i>when</i>, and <i>how</i>, and <i>to whom</i>, you +will give. The natural law of human life is, of course, that in youth a +man shall labour and lay by store for his old age, and when age comes, +shall use what he has laid by, gradually slackening his toil, and +allowing himself more frank use of his store; taking care always to +leave himself as much as will surely suffice for him beyond any possible +length of life. What he has gained, or by tranquil and unanxious toil +continues to gain, more than is enough for his own need, he ought so to +administer, while he yet lives, as to see the good of it again +beginning, in other hands; for thus he has himself the greatest sum of +pleasure from it, and faithfully uses his sagacity in its control. +Whereas most men, it appears, dislike the sight of their fortunes going +out into service again, and say to themselves,—"I can indeed nowise +prevent this money from falling at last into the hands of others, nor +hinder the good of it from becoming theirs, not mine; but at least let a +merciful death save me from being a witness of their satisfaction; and +may God so far be gracious to me as to let no good come of any of this +money of mine before my eyes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>153. Supposing this feeling unconquerable, the safest way of rationally +indulging it would be for the capitalist at once to spend all his +fortune on himself, which might actually, in many cases, be quite the +rightest as well as the pleasantest thing to do, if he had just tastes +and worthy passions. But, whether for himself only, or through the +hands, and for the sake, of others also, the law of wise life is, that +the maker of the money shall also be the spender of it, and spend it, +approximately, all, before he dies; so that his true ambition as an +economist should be, to die, not as rich, but as poor, as possible,<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> +calculating the ebb tide of possession in true and calm proportion to +the ebb tide of life. Which law, checking the wing of accumulative +desire in the mid-volley,<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> and leading to peace of possession and +fulness of fruition in old age, is also wholesome, in that by the +freedom of gift, together with present help and counsel, it at once +endears and dignifies age in the sight of youth, which then no longer +strips the bodies of the dead, but receives the grace of the living. Its +chief use would (or will be, for men are indeed capable of attaining to +this much use of their reason), that some temperance and measure will be +put to the acquisitiveness of commerce.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> For as things stand, a man +holds it his duty to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> temperate in his food, and of his body, but for +no duty to be temperate in his riches, and of his mind. He sees that he +ought not to waste his youth and his flesh for luxury; but he will waste +his age, and his soul, for money, and think he does no wrong, nor know +the <i>delirium tremens</i> of the intellect for disease. But the law of life +is, that a man should fix the sum he desires to make annually, as the +food he desires to eat daily; and stay when he has reached the limit, +refusing increase of business, and leaving it to others, so obtaining +due freedom of time for better thoughts.<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> How the gluttony of +business is punished, a bill of health for the principals of the richest +city houses, issued annually, would show in a sufficiently impressive +manner.</p> + +<p>154. I know, of course, that these statements will be received by the +modern merchant as an active border rider of the sixteenth century would +have heard of its being proper for men of the Marches to get their +living by the spade, instead of the spur. But my business is only to +state veracities and necessities; I neither look for the acceptance of +the one, nor hope for the nearness of the other. Near or distant, the +day <i>will</i> assuredly come when the merchants of a state shall be its +true ministers of exchange, its porters, in the double sense of carriers +and gate-keepers, bringing all lands into frank and faithful +communication, and knowing for their master of guild, Hermes the herald, +instead of Mercury the gain-guarder.</p> + +<p>155. And now, finally, for immediate rule to all who will accept it.</p> + +<p>The distress of any population means that they need food, house-room, +clothes, and fuel. You can never, therefore, be wrong in employing any +labourer to produce food, house-room, clothes, or fuel; but you are +<i>always</i> wrong if you employ him to produce nothing, (for then some +other labourer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> must be worked double time to feed him); and you are +generally wrong, at present, if you employ him (unless he can do nothing +else) to produce works of art or luxuries; because modern art is mostly +on a false basis, and modern luxury is criminally great.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p> + +<p>156. The way to produce more food is mainly to bring in fresh ground, +and increase facilities of carriage;—to break rock, exchange earth, +drain the moist, and water the dry, to mend roads, and build harbours of +refuge. Taxation thus spent will annihilate taxation, but spent in war, +it annihilates revenue.</p> + +<p>157. The way to produce house-room is to apply your force first to the +humblest dwellings. When your brick-layers are out of employ, do not +build splendid new streets, but better the old ones; send your paviours +and slaters to the poorest villages, and see that your poor are +healthily lodged, before you try your hand on stately architecture. You +will find its stateliness rise better under the trowel afterwards; and +we do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> do not yet build so well that we need hasten to display our skill +to future ages. Had the labour which has decorated the Houses of +Parliament filled, instead, rents in walls and roofs throughout the +county of Middlesex; and our deputies met to talk within massive walls +that would have needed no stucco for five hundred years,—the decoration +might have been afterwards, and the talk now. And touching even our +highly conscientious church building, it may be well to remember that in +the best days of church plans, their masons called themselves "logeurs +du bon Dieu;" and that since, according to the most trusted reports, God +spends a good deal of His time in cottages as well as in churches, He +might perhaps like to be a little better lodged there also.</p> + +<p>158. The way to get more clothes is—not, necessarily, to get more +cotton. There were words written twenty years ago<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> which would have +saved many of us some shivering, had they been minded in time. Shall we +read them again?</p> + +<p>"The Continental people, it would seem, are importing our machinery, +beginning to spin cotton, and manufacture for themselves; to cut us out +of this market, and then out of that! Sad news, indeed; but +irremediable. By no means the saddest news—the saddest news, is that we +should find our national existence, as I sometimes hear it said, depend +on selling manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any +other people. A most narrow stand for a great nation to base itself on! +A stand which, with all the Corn-law abrogations conceivable, I do not +think will be capable of enduring.</p> + +<p>"My friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came honestly +down from it and said—'This is our minimum of cotton prices; we care +not, for the present, to make cotton any cheaper. Do you, if it seem so +blessed to you, make cotton cheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton fur, +your heart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> with copperas fumes, with rage and mutiny; become ye the +general gnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!' I admire a nation which +fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other nations to the end +of the world. Brothers, we will cease to undersell them; we will be +content to equal-sell them; to be happy selling equally with them! I do +not see the use of underselling them: cotton-cloth is already twopence a +yard, or lower; and yet bare backs were never more numerous among us. +Let inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving +how cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent a little how cotton at +its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided among us.</p> + +<p>"Let inventive men consider—whether the secret of this universe does +after all consist in making money. With a hell which means—'failing to +make money,' I do not think there is any heaven possible that would suit +one well. In brief, all this Mammon gospel of supply-and-demand, +competition <i>laissez faire</i>, and devil take the hindmost (foremost, is +it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?), 'begins to be one of the shabbiest +gospels ever preached.'"</p> + +<p>159. The way to produce more fuel<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> is first to make your coal mines +safer, by sinking more shafts; then set all your convicts to work in +them, and if, as is to be hoped, you succeed in diminishing the supply +of that sort of labourer, consider what means there may be, first, of +growing forest where its growth will improve climate; secondly, of +splintering the forests which now make continents of fruitful land +pathless and poisonous, into fagots for fire;—so gaining at once +dominion icewards and sunwards. Your steam power has been given (you +will find eventually) for work such as that: and not for excursion +trains, to give the labourer a moment's breath, at the peril of his +breath for ever, from amidst the cities which it has crushed into masses +of corruption. When you know how to build cities, and how to rule them, +you will be able to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> breathe in their streets, and the "excursion" will +be the afternoon's walk or game in the fields round them.</p> + +<p>160. "But nothing of this work will pay?"</p> + +<p>No; no more than it pays to dust your rooms, or wash your doorsteps. It +will pay; not at first in currency, but in that which is the end and the +source of currency,—in life; (and in currency richly afterwards). It +will pay in that which is more than life,—in light, whose true price +has not yet been reckoned in any currency, and yet into the image of +which, all wealth, one way or other, must be cast. For your riches must +either be as the lightning, which,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">Begot but in a cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though shining bright, and speaking loud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whilst it begins, concludes its violent race;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, where it gilds, it wounds the place;—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or else, as the lightning of the sacred sign, which shines from one part +of the heaven to the other. There is no other choice; you must either +take dust for deity, spectre for possession, fettered dream for life, +and for epitaph, this reversed verse of the great Hebrew hymn of economy +(Psalm cxii.):—"He hath gathered together, he hath stripped the poor, +his iniquity remaineth for ever:"—or else, having the sun of justice to +shine on you, and the sincere substance of good in your possession, and +the pure law and liberty of life within you, leave men to write this +better legend over your grave:—</p> + +<p>"He hath dispersed abroad. He hath given to the poor. His righteousness +remaineth for ever."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> In the present general examination, I concede so much to +ordinary economists as to ignore all <i>innocent</i> poverty. I adapt my +reasoning, for once, to the modern English practical mind, by assuming +poverty to be always criminal; the conceivable exceptions we will +examine afterwards.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> [I have no terms of English, and can find none in Greek +nor Latin, nor in any other strong language known to me, contemptuous +enough to attach to the bestial idiotism of the modern theory that wages +are to be measured by competition.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> I say nothing yet of the quality of the servants, which, +nevertheless, is the gist of the business. Will you have Paul Veronese +to paint your ceiling, or the plumber from over the way? Both will work +for the same money; Paul, if anything, a little the cheaper of the two, +if you keep him in good humour; only you have to discern him first, +which will need eyes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> [I have not altered a syllable in these three paragraphs, +137, 138, 139, on revision; but have much italicised: the principles +stated being as vital, as they are little known.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> By his art he may; but only when its produce, or the sight +or hearing of it, becomes a subject of dispute, so as to enable the +artist to tax the labour of multitudes highly, in exchange for his own.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> [Observe this; the legal right to keep what you have +worked for, and use it as you please, is the corner-stone of all +economy: compare the end of Chap. II.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> [I should now put the time of necessary labour rather +under than over the third of the day.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> [See Preface to <i>Unto this Last</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> I have not hitherto touched on the subject of interest of +money; it is too complex, and must be reserved for its proper place in +the body of the work. The definition of interest (apart from +compensation for risk) is, "the exponent of the comfort of accomplished +labour, separated from its power;" the power being what is lent: and the +French economists who have maintained the entire illegality of interest +are wrong; yet by no means so curiously or wildly wrong as the English +and French ones opposed to them, whose opinions have been collected by +Dr. Whewell at page 41 of his <i>Lectures</i>; it never seeming to occur to +the mind of the compiler, any more than to the writers whom he quotes, +that it is quite possible, and even (according to Jewish proverb) +prudent, for men to hoard as ants and mice do, for use, not usury; and +lay by something for winter nights, in the expectation of rather sharing +than lending the scrapings. My Savoyard squirrels would pass a pleasant +time of it under the snow-laden pine branches, if they always declined +to economize because no one would pay them interest on nuts. +</p><p> +[I leave this note as it stood: but, as I have above stated, should now +side wholly with the French economists spoken of, in asserting the +absolute illegality of interest.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Compare Chaucer's feeling respecting birds (from Canace's +falcon, to the nightingale, singing, "Domine, labia—" to the Lord of +Love), with the usual modern British sentiments on this subject. Or even +Cowley's:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What prince's choir of music can excel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That which within this shade does dwell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To which we nothing pay, or give,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They, like all other poets, live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis well if they become not prey."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +Yes; it Is better than well; particularly since the seed sown by the +wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the +church-rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a +"Country parson," in <i>The Times</i> of June 4th (or 5th; the letter is +dated June 3rd,) 1862:—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of +higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have +never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of that part of the +rate which is invested in 50 or 100 dozens of birds' heads." +</p><p> +[If we could trace the innermost of all causes of modern war, I believe +it would be found, not in the avarice nor ambition of nations, but in +the mere idleness of the upper classes. They have nothing to do but to +teach the peasantry to kill each other.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> [See the <i>Life of Fenelon</i>. "The labouring peasantry were +at all times the objects of his tenderest care; his palace at Cambray, +with all his books and writings, being consumed by fire, he bore the +misfortune with unruffled calmness, and said it was better his palace +should be burnt than the cottage of a poor peasant." (These thoroughly +good men always go too far, and lose their power over the mass.) He died +exemplifying the mean he had always observed between prodigality and +avarice, leaving neither debts nor money.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> +και πενιαν ἡγουμενους ειναι μη το την ουσιαν +ελαττω ποιειν αλλα το τηι απληστιαν ρλειω. "And thinking (wisely) that +poverty consists not in making one's possessions less, but one's avarice +more."—<i>Laws</i>, v. 8. Read the context, and compare. "He who spends for +all that is noble, and gains by nothing but what is just, will hardly be +notably wealthy, or distressfully poor."—<i>Laws</i>, v. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> The fury of modern trade arises chiefly out of the +possibility of making sudden fortunes by largeness of transaction, and +accident of discovery or contrivance. I have no doubt that the final +interest of every nation is to check the action of these commercial +lotteries; and that all great accidental gains or losses should be +national,—not individual. But speculation absolute, unconnected with +commercial effort, is an unmitigated evil in a state, and the root of +countless evils beside.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> [I desire in the strongest terms to reinforce all that is +contained in this paragraph.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> It is especially necessary that the reader should keep his +mind fixed on the methods of consumption and destruction, as the true +sources of national poverty. Men are apt to call every exchange +"expenditure," but it is only consumption which is expenditure. A large +number of the purchases made by the richer classes are mere forms of +interchange of unused property, wholly without effect on national +prosperity. It matters nothing to the state whether, if a china pipkin +be rated as worth a hundred pounds, A has the pipkin and B the pounds, +or A the pounds and B the pipkin. But if the pipkin is pretty, and A or +B breaks it, there is national loss, not otherwise. So again, when the +loss has really taken place, no shifting of the shoulders that bear it +will do away with the reality of it. There is an intensely ludicrous +notion in the public mind respecting the abolishment of debt by denying +it. When a debt is denied, the lender loses instead of the borrower, +that is all; the loss is precisely, accurately, everlastingly the same. +The Americans borrow money to spend in blowing up their own houses. They +deny their debt, by one-third already [1863], gold being at fifty +premium; and they will probably deny it wholly. That merely means that +the holders of the notes are to be the losers instead of the issuers. +The quantity of loss is precisely equal, and irrevocable; it is the +quantity of human industry spent in effecting the explosion, plus the +quantity of goods exploded. Honour only decides <i>who</i> shall pay the sum +lost not whether it is to be paid or not. Paid it must be, and to the +uttermost farthing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> [(<i>Past and Present.</i> Chap. IX. of Third Section.) To +think that for these twenty—now twenty-six—years, this one voice of +Carlyle's has been the only faithful and useful utterance in all +England, and has sounded through all these years in vain! See <i>Fors +Clavigera</i>, Letter X.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> [We don't want to produce more fuel just now, but much +less; and to use what we get for cooking and warming ourselves, instead +of for running from place to place.]</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> +<h2>APPENDICES.</h2> + + +<p>I have brought together in these last pages a few notes, which were not +properly to be incorporated with the text, and which, at the bottom of +pages, checked the reader's attention to the main argument. They +contain, however, several statements to which I wish to be able to +refer, or have already referred, in other of my books, so that I think +right to preserve them.</p> + + +<p>APPENDIX I.—(p. 22.)</p> + +<p>The greatest of all economists are those most opposed to the doctrine of +"laissez faire," namely, the fortifying virtues, which the wisest men of +all time have arranged under the general heads of Prudence, or +Discretion (the spirit which discerns and adopts rightly); Justice (the +spirit which rules and divides rightly); Fortitude (the spirit which +persists and endures rightly); and Temperance (the spirit which stops +and refuses rightly). These cardinal and sentinel virtues are not only +the means of protecting and prolonging life itself, but they are the +chief guards, or sources, of the material means of life, and the +governing powers and princes of economy. Thus, precisely according to +the number of just men in a nation, is their power of avoiding either +intestine or foreign war. All disputes may be peaceably settled, if a +sufficient number of persons have been trained to submit to the +principles of justice, while the necessity for war is in direct ratio to +the number of unjust persons who are incapable of determining a quarrel +but by violence. Whether the injustice take the form of the desire of +dominion, or of refusal to submit to it, or of lust of territory, or +lust of money, or of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> mere irregular passion and wanton will, the result +is economically the same;—loss of the quantity of power and life +consumed in repressing the injustice, added to the material and moral +destruction caused by the fact of war. The early civil wars of England, +and the existing<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> war in America, are curious examples—these under +monarchical, this under republican, institutions—of the results on +large masses of nations of the want of education in principles of +justice. But the mere dread or distrust resulting from the want of the +inner virtues of Faith and Charity prove often no less costly than war +itself. The fear which France and England have of each other costs each +nation about fifteen millions sterling annually, besides various +paralyses of commerce; that sum being spent in the manufacture of means +of destruction instead of means of production. There is no more reason +in the nature of things that France and England should be hostile to +each other than that England and Scotland should be, or Lancashire and +Yorkshire; and the reciprocal terrors of the opposite sides of the +English Channel are neither more necessary, more economical, nor more +virtuous, than the old riding and reiving on the opposite flanks of the +Cheviots, or than England's own weaving for herself of crowns of thorn, +from the stems of her Red and White roses.</p> + + +<p>APPENDIX II.—(p. 34.)</p> + +<p>Few passages of the book which at least some part of the nations at +present most advanced in civilization accept as an expression of final +truth, have been more distorted than those bearing on Idolatry. For the +idolatry there denounced is neither sculpture, nor veneration of +sculpture. It is simply the substitution of an "Eidolon," phantasm, or +imagination of Good, for that which is real and enduring; from the +Highest Living Good, which gives life, to the lowest material good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +which ministers to it. The Creator, and the things created, which He is +said to have "seen good" in creating, are in this their eternal goodness +appointed always to be "worshipped,"—<i>i. e.</i>, to have goodness and +worth ascribed to them from the heart; and the sweep and range of +idolatry extend to the rejection of any or all of these, "calling evil +good, and good evil,—putting bitter for sweet, and sweet for +bitter."<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> For in that rejection and substitution we betray the first +of all Loyalties, to the fixed Law of life, and with resolute opposite +loyalty serve our own imagination of good, which is the law, not of the +House, but of the Grave, (otherwise called the law of "mark missing," +which we translate "law of Sin"); these "two masters," between whose +services we have to choose, being otherwise distinguished as God and +Mammon, which Mammon, though we narrowly take it as the power of money +only, is in truth the great evil Spirit of false and fond desire, or +"Covetousness, which is Idolatry." So that +Iconoclasm—<i>image</i>-breaking—is easy; but an Idol cannot be broken—it +must be forsaken; and this is not so easy, either to do, or persuade to +doing. For men may readily be convinced of the weakness of an image; but +not of the emptiness of an imagination.</p> + + +<p>APPENDIX III.—(p. 36.)</p> + +<p>I have not attempted to support, by the authority of other writers, any +of the statements made in these papers; indeed, if such authorities were +rightly collected, there would be no occasion for my writing at all. +Even in the scattered passages referring to this subject in three books +of Carlyle's—Sartor Resartus, Past and Present, and the Latter Day +Pamphlets,—all has been said that needs to be said, and far better than +I shall ever say it again. But the habit of the public mind at present +is to require everything to be uttered diffusely, loudly, and a hundred +times over, before it will listen; and it has revolted against these +papers of mine as if they contained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> things daring and new, when there +is not one assertion in them of which the truth has not been for ages +known to the wisest, and proclaimed by the most eloquent of men. It +would be [I had written <i>will</i> be; but have now reached a time of life +for which there is but one mood—the conditional,] a far greater +pleasure to me hereafter, to collect their words than to add to mine; +Horace's clear rendering of the substance of the passages in the text +may be found room for at once,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Si quis emat citharas, emptas comportet in unum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nec studio citharae, nec Musae deditus ulli;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Si scalpra et formas non sutor, nautica vela<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aversus mercaturis, delirus et amens<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Undique dicatur merito. Qui discrepat istis<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qui nummos aurumque recondit, nescius uti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compositis; metuensque velut contingere sacrum?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>[Which may be roughly thus translated:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Were anybody to buy fiddles, and collect a number, being in +no wise given to fiddling, nor fond of music: or if, being +no cobbler, he collected awls and lasts, or, having no mind +for sea-adventure, bought sails, every one would call him a +madman, and deservedly. But what difference is there between +such a man and one who lays by coins and gold, and does not +know how to use, when he has got them?"]</p></div> + +<p>With which it is perhaps desirable also to give Xenophon's statement, it +being clearer than any English one can be, owing to the power of the +general Greek term for wealth, "useable things."</p> + +<p>[I have cut out the Greek because I can't be troubled to correct the +accents, and am always nervous about them; here it is in English, as +well as I can do it:—</p> + +<p>"This being so, it follows that things are only property to the man who +knows how to use them; as flutes, for instance, are property to the man +who can pipe upon them respectably; but to one who knows not how to +pipe, they are no property, unless he can get rid of them +advantageously.... For if they are not sold, the flutes are no property +(being serviceable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> for nothing); but, sold, they become property. To +which Socrates made answer,—'and only then if he knows how to sell +them, for if he sell them to another man who cannot play on them, still +they are no property.'"]</p> + + +<p>APPENDIX IV.—(p. 39.)</p> + +<p>The reader is to include here in the idea of "Government," any branch of +the Executive, or even any body of private persons, entrusted with the +practical management of public interests unconnected directly with their +own personal ones. In theoretical discussions of legislative +interference with political economy, it is usually, and of course +unnecessarily, assumed that Government must be always of that form and +force in which we have been accustomed to see it;—that its abuses can +never be less, nor its wisdom greater, nor its powers more numerous. +But, practically, the custom in most civilized countries is, for every +man to deprecate the interference of Government as long as things tell +for his personal advantage, and to call for it when they cease to do so. +The request of the Manchester Economists to be supplied with cotton by +Government (the system of supply and demand having, for the time, fallen +sorrowfully short of the expectations of scientific persons from it), is +an interesting case in point. It were to be wished that less wide and +bitter suffering, suffering, too, of the innocent, had been needed to +force the nation, or some part of it, to ask itself why a body of men, +already confessedly capable of managing matters both military and +divine, should not be permitted, or even requested, at need, to provide +in some wise for sustenance as well as for defence; and secure, if it +might be,—(and it might, I think, even the <i>rather</i> be),—purity of +bodily, as well as of spiritual, aliment? Why, having made many roads +for the passage of armies, may they not make a few for the conveyance of +food; and after organizing, with applause, various schemes of +theological instruction for the Public, organize,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> moreover, some +methods of bodily nourishment for them? Or is the soul so much less +trustworthy in its instincts than the stomach, that legislation is +necessary for the one, but inapplicable to the other.</p> + + +<p>APPENDIX V.—(p. 70.)</p> + +<p>I debated with myself whether to make the note on Homer longer by +examining the typical meaning of the shipwreck of Ulysses, and his +escape from Charybdis by help of her fig-tree; but as I should have had +to go on to the lovely myth of Leucothea's veil, and did not care to +spoil this by a hurried account of it, I left it for future examination; +and, three days after the paper was published, observed that the +reviewers, with their customary helpfulness, were endeavouring to throw +the whole subject back into confusion by dwelling on this single (as +they imagined) oversight. I omitted also a note on the sense of the word +λυγρον, with respect to the pharmacy of Circe, and herb-fields +of Helen, (compare its use in Odyssey, xvii., 473, &c.), which would +farther have illustrated the nature of the Circean power. But, not to be +led too far into the subtleties of these myths, observe respecting them +all, that even in very simple parables, it is not always easy to attach +indisputable meaning to every part of them. I recollect some years ago, +throwing an assembly of learned persons who had met to delight +themselves with interpretations of the parable of the prodigal son, +(interpretations which had up to that moment gone very smoothly,) into +mute indignation, by inadvertently asking who the <i>un</i>prodigal son was, +and what was to be learned by <i>his</i> example. The leading divine of the +company, Mr. Molyneux, at last explained to me that the unprodigal son +was a lay figure, put in for dramatic effect, to make the story +prettier, and that no note was to be taken of him. Without, however, +admitting that Homer put in the last escape of Ulysses merely to make +his story prettier, this is nevertheless true of all Greek myths, that +they have many opposite lights and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> shades; they are as changeful as +opal, and like opal, usually have one colour by reflected, and another +by transmitted light. But they are true jewels for all that, and full of +noble enchantment for those who can use them; for those who cannot, I am +content to repeat the words I wrote four years ago, in the appendix to +the <i>Two Paths</i>—</p> + +<p>"The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and +we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his +meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless and unredeemable +mistake, is the fool's thought, that he had <i>no</i> meaning."</p> + + +<p>APPENDIX VI.—(p. 84)</p> + +<p>The derivation of words is like that of rivers: there is one real +source, usually small, unlikely, and difficult to find, far up among the +hills; then, as the word flows on and comes into service, it takes in +the force of other words from other sources, and becomes quite another +word—often much more than one word, after the junction—a word as it +were of many waters, sometimes both sweet and bitter. Thus the whole +force of our English "charity" depends on the guttural in "charis" +getting confused with the c of the Latin "carus;" thenceforward +throughout the middle ages, the two ideas ran on together, and both got +confused with St. Paul's αγαρη, which expresses a different +idea in all sorts of ways; our "charity" having not only brought in the +entirely foreign sense of alms-giving, but lost the essential sense of +contentment, and lost much more in getting too far away from the +"charis" of the final Gospel benedictions. For truly it is fine +Christianity we have come to, which, professing to expect the perpetual +grace or charity of its Founder, has not itself grace or charity enough +to hinder it from overreaching its friends in sixpenny bargains; and +which, supplicating evening and morning the forgiveness of its own +debts, goes forth at noon to take its fellow-servants by the throat, +saying,—not merely "Pay me that thou owest," but "Pay me that thou +owest me <i>not</i>."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is true that we sometimes wear Ophelia's rue with a difference, and +call it "Herb o' grace o' Sundays," taking consolation out of the +offertory with—"Look, what he layeth out; it shall be paid him again." +Comfortable words indeed, and good to set against the old royalty of +Largesse—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whose moste joie was, I wis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When that she gave, and said, "Have this."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>[I am glad to end, for this time, with these lovely words of Chaucer. We +have heard only too much lately of "Indiscriminate charity," with +implied reproval, not of the Indiscrimination merely, but of the Charity +also. We have partly succeeded in enforcing on the minds of the poor the +idea that it is disgraceful to receive; and are likely, without much +difficulty, to succeed in persuading not a few of the rich that it is +disgraceful to give. But the political economy of a great state makes +both giving and receiving graceful; and the political economy of true +religion interprets the saying that "it is more blessed to give than to +receive," not as the promise of reward in another life for mortified +selfishness in this, but as pledge of bestowal upon us of that sweet and +better nature, which does not mortify itself in giving.]</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>Brantwood, Coniston,</i><br /> +<i>5th October, 1871.</i> +</p> + + +<h4>THE END</h4> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> [Written in 1862. I little thought that when I next +corrected my type, the "existing" war best illustrative of the sentence +would be between Frenchmen in the Elysian Fields of Paris.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Compare the close of the Fourth Lecture in <i>Aratra +Pentelici</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PRE-RAPHAELITISM</h2> + + +<p class="center">To<br /> +FRANCIS HAWKSWORTH FAWKES, ESQ<br /> +OF FARNLEY<br /><br /> + +THESE PAGES<br /> +WHICH OWE THEIR PRESENT FORM TO ADVANTAGES GRANTED<br /> +BY HIS KINDNESS<br /> +ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED<br /> +BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND<br /> +JOHN RUSKIN<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>Eight years ago, in the close of the first volume of "Modern Painters," +I ventured to give the following advice to the young artists of +England:—</p> + +<p>"They should go to nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her +laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to +penetrate her meaning; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and +scorning nothing." Advice which, whether bad or good, involved infinite +labor and humiliation in the following it; and was therefore, for the +most part, rejected.</p> + +<p>It has, however, at last been carried out, to the very letter, by a +group of men who, for their reward, have been assailed with the most +scurrilous abuse which I ever recollect seeing issue from the public +press. I have, therefore, thought it due to them to contradict the +directly false statements which have been made respecting their works; +and to point out the kind <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>of merit which, however deficient in some +respects, those works possess beyond the possibility of dispute.</p> + + +<p class="right">Denmark Hill,<br /> + +Aug. 1851.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PRE-RAPHAELITISM.</h2> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>It may be proved, with much certainty, that God intends no man to live +in this world without working: but it seems to me no less evident that +He intends every man to be happy in his work. It is written, "in the +sweat of thy brow," but it was never written, "in the breaking of thine +heart," thou shalt eat bread; and I find that, as on the one hand, +infinite misery is caused by idle people, who both fail in doing what +was appointed for them to do, and set in motion various springs of +mischief in matters in which they should have had no concern, so on the +other hand, no small misery is caused by over-worked and unhappy people, +in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force +upon others, of work itself. Were it not so, I believe the fact of their +being unhappy is in itself a violation of divine law, and a sign of some +kind of folly or sin in their way of life. Now in order that people may +be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit +for it: They must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of +success in it—not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of +other people for its confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather +knowledge, that so much work has been done well, and fruitfully done, +whatever the world may say or think about it. So that in order that a +man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of +his work, but a good judge of his work.</p> + +<p>The first thing then that he has to do, if unhappily his parents or +masters have not done it for him, is to find out what he is fit for. In +which inquiry a man may be very safely guided by his likings, if he be +not also guided by his pride.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> People usually reason in some such +fashion as this: "I don't seem quite fit for a head-manager in the firm +of —— & Co., therefore, in all probability, I am fit to be Chancellor +of the Exchequer." Whereas, they ought rather to reason thus: "I don't +seem quite fit to be head-manager in the firm of —— & Co., but I +daresay I might do something in a small green-grocery business; I used +to be a good judge of peas;" that is to say, always trying lower instead +of trying higher, until they find bottom: once well set on the ground, a +man may build up by degrees, safely, instead of disturbing every one in +his neighborhood by perpetual catastrophes. But this kind of humility is +rendered especially difficult in these days, by the contumely thrown on +men in humble employments. The very removal of the massy bars which once +separated one class of society from another, has rendered it tenfold +more shameful in foolish people's, i. e. in most people's eyes, to +remain in the lower grades of it, than ever it was before. When a man +born of an artisan was looked upon as an entirely different species of +animal from a man born of a noble, it made him no more uncomfortable or +ashamed to remain that different species of animal, than it makes a +horse ashamed to remain a horse, and not to become a giraffe. But now +that a man may make money, and rise in the world, and associate himself, +unreproached, with people once far above him, not only is the natural +discontentedness of humanity developed to an unheard-of extent, whatever +a man's position, but it becomes a veritable shame to him to remain in +the state he was born in, and everybody thinks it his <i>duty</i> to try to +be a "gentleman." Persons who have any influence in the management of +public institutions for charitable education know how common this +feeling has become. Hardly a day passes but they receive letters from +mothers who want all their six or eight sons to go to college, and make +the grand tour in the long vacation, and who think there is something +wrong in the foundations of society, because this is not possible. Out +of every ten letters of this kind, nine will allege, as the reason of +the writers' importunity, their desire to keep their families in such +and such a "station of life." There is no real desire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> for the safety, +the discipline, or the moral good of the children, only a panic horror +of the inexpressibly pitiable calamity of their living a ledge or two +lower on the molehill of the world—a calamity to be averted at any cost +whatever, of struggle, anxiety, and shortening of life itself. I do not +believe that any greater good could be achieved for the country, than +the change in public feeling on this head, which might be brought about +by a few benevolent men, undeniably in the class of "gentlemen," who +would, on principle, enter into some of our commonest trades, and make +them honorable; showing that it was possible for a man to retain his +dignity, and remain, in the best sense, a gentleman, though part of his +time was every day occupied in manual labor, or even in serving +customers over a counter. I do not in the least see why courtesy, and +gravity, and sympathy with the feelings of others, and courage, and +truth, and piety, and what else goes to make up a gentleman's character, +should not be found behind a counter as well as elsewhere, if they were +demanded, or even hoped for, there.</p> + +<p>Let us suppose, then, that the man's way of life and manner of work have +been discreetly chosen; then the next thing to be required is, that he +do not over-work himself therein. I am not going to say anything here +about the various errors in our systems of society and commerce, which +appear (I am not sure if they ever do more than appear) to force us to +over-work ourselves merely that we may live; nor about the still more +fruitful cause of unhealthy toil—the incapability, in many men, of +being content with the little that is indeed necessary to their +happiness. I have only a word or two to say about one special cause of +over-work—the ambitious desire of doing great or clever things, and the +hope of accomplishing them by immense efforts: hope as vain as it is +pernicious; not only making men over-work themselves, but rendering all +the work they do unwholesome to them. I say it is a vain hope, and let +the reader be assured of this (it is a truth all-important to the best +interests of humanity). <i>No great intellectual thing was ever done by +great effort</i>; a great thing can only be done by a great man, and he +does it <i>without</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> effort. Nothing is, at present, less understood by us +than this—nothing is more necessary to be understood. Let me try to say +it as clearly, and explain it as fully as I may.</p> + +<p>I have said no great <i>intellectual</i> thing: for I do not mean the +assertion to extend to things moral. On the contrary, it seems to me +that just because we are intended, as long as we live, to be in a state +of intense moral effort, we are <i>not</i> intended to be in intense physical +or intellectual effort. Our full energies are to be given to the soul's +work—to the great fight with the Dragon—the taking the kingdom of +heaven by force. But the body's work and head's work are to be done +quietly, and comparatively without effort. Neither limbs nor brain are +ever to be strained to their utmost; that is not the way in which the +greatest quantity of work is to be got out of them: they are never to be +worked furiously, but with tranquillity and constancy. We are to follow +the plough from sunrise to sunset, but not to pull in race-boats at the +twilight: we shall get no fruit of that kind of work, only disease of +the heart.</p> + +<p>How many pangs would be spared to thousands, if this great truth and law +were but once sincerely, humbly understood,—that if a great thing can +be done at all, it can be done easily; that, when it is needed to be +done, there is perhaps only one man in the world who can do it; but <i>he</i> +can do it without any trouble—without more trouble, that is, than it +costs small people to do small things; nay, perhaps, with less. And yet +what truth lies more openly on the surface of all human phenomena? Is +not the evidence of Ease on the very front of all the greatest works in +existence? Do they not say plainly to us, not, "there has been a great +<i>effort</i> here," but, "there has been a great <i>power</i> here"? It is not +the weariness of mortality, but the strength of divinity, which we have +to recognise in all mighty things; and that is just what we now <i>never</i> +recognise, but think that we are to do great things, by help of iron +bars and perspiration:—alas! we shall do nothing that way but lose some +pounds of our own weight.</p> + +<p>Yet, let me not be misunderstood, nor this great truth be supposed +anywise resolvable into the favorite dogma of young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> men, that they need +not work if they have genius. The fact is, that a man of genius is +always far more ready to work than other people, and gets so much more +good from the work that he does, and is often so little conscious of the +inherent divinity in himself, that he is very apt to ascribe all his +capacity to his work, and to tell those who ask how he came to be what +he is: "If I <i>am</i> anything, which I much doubt, I made myself so merely +by labor." This was Newton's way of talking, and I suppose it would be +the general tone of men whose genius had been devoted to the physical +sciences. Genius in the Arts must commonly be more self-conscious, but +in whatever field, it will always be distinguished by its perpetual, +steady, well-directed, happy, and faithful labor in accumulating and +disciplining its powers, as well as by its gigantic, incommunicable +facility in exercising them. Therefore, literally, it is no man's +business whether he has genius or not: work he must, whatever he is, but +quietly and steadily; and the natural and unforced results of such work +will be always the things that God meant him to do, and will be his +best. No agonies nor heart-rendings will enable him to do any better. If +he be a great man, they will be great things; if a small man, small +things; but always, if thus peacefully done, good and right; always, if +restlessly and ambitiously done, false, hollow, and despicable.</p> + +<p>Then the third thing needed was, I said, that a man should be a good +judge of his work; and this chiefly that he may not be dependent upon +popular opinion for the manner of doing it, but also that he may have +the just encouragement of the sense of progress, and an honest +consciousness of victory: how else can he become</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That awful independent on to-morrow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I am persuaded that the real nourishment and help of such a feeling as +this is nearly unknown to half the workmen of the present day. For +whatever appearance of self-complacency there may be in their outward +bearing, it is visible enough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> by their feverish jealousy of each +other, how little confidence they have in the sterling value of their +several doings. Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up; and +there is too visible distress and hopelessness in men's aspects to admit +of the supposition that they have any stable support of faith in +themselves.</p> + +<p>I have stated these principles generally, because there is no branch of +labor to which they do not apply: But there is one in which our +ignorance or forgetfulness of them has caused an incalculable amount of +suffering: and I would endeavor now to reconsider them with especial +reference to it,—the branch of the Arts.</p> + +<p>In general, the men who are employed in the Arts have freely chosen +their profession, and suppose themselves to have special faculty for it; +yet, as a body, they are not happy men. For which this seems to me the +reason, that they are expected, and themselves expect, to make their +bread <i>by being clever</i>—not by steady or quiet work; and are, +therefore, for the most part, trying to be clever, and so living in an +utterly false state of mind and action.</p> + +<p>This is the case, to the same extent, in no other profession or +employment. A lawyer may indeed suspect that, unless he has more wit +than those around him, he is not likely to advance in his profession; +but he will not be always thinking how he is to display his wit. He will +generally understand, early in his career, that wit must be left to take +care of itself, and that it is hard knowledge of law and vigorous +examination and collation of the facts of every case entrusted to him, +which his clients will mainly demand; this it is which he has to be paid +for; and this is healthy and measurable labor, payable by the hour. If +he happen to have keen natural perception and quick wit, these will come +into play in their due time and place, but he will not think of them as +his chief power; and if he have them not, he may still hope that +industry and conscientiousness may enable him to rise in his profession +without them. Again in the case of clergymen: that they are sorely +tempted to display their eloquence or wit, none who know their own +hearts will deny, but then they <i>know</i> this to <i>be</i> a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> temptation: they +never would suppose that cleverness was all that was to be expected from +them, or would sit down deliberately to write a clever sermon: even the +dullest or vainest of them would throw some veil over their vanity, and +pretend to some profitableness of purpose in what they did. They would +not openly ask of their hearers—Did you think my sermon ingenious, or +my language poetical? They would early understand that they were not +paid for being ingenious, nor called to be so, but to preach truth; that +if they happened to possess wit, eloquence, or originality, these would +appear and be of service in due time, but were not to be continually +sought after or exhibited: and if it should happen that they had them +not, they might still be serviceable pastors without them.</p> + +<p>Not so with the unhappy artist. No one expects any honest or useful work +of him; but every one expects him to be ingenious. Originality, +dexterity, invention, imagination, every thing is asked of him except +what alone is to be had for asking—honesty and sound work, and the due +discharge of his function as a painter. What function? asks the reader +in some surprise. He may well ask; for I suppose few painters have any +idea what their function is, or even that they have any at all.</p> + +<p>And yet surely it is not so difficult to discover. The faculties, which +when a man finds in himself, he resolves to be a painter, are, I +suppose, intenseness of observation and facility of imitation. The man +is created an observer and an imitator; and his function is to convey +knowledge to his fellow-men, of such things as cannot be taught +otherwise than ocularly. For a long time this function remained a +religious one: it was to impress upon the popular mind the reality of +the objects of faith, and the truth of the histories of Scripture, by +giving visible form to both. That function has now passed away, and none +has as yet taken its place. The painter has no profession, no purpose. +He is an idler on the earth, chasing the shadows of his own fancies.</p> + +<p>But he was never meant to be this. The sudden and universal Naturalism, +or inclination to copy ordinary natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> objects, which manifested +itself among the painters of Europe, at the moment when the invention of +printing superseded their legendary labors, was no false instinct. It +was misunderstood and misapplied, but it came at the right time, and has +maintained itself through all kinds of abuse; presenting in the recent +schools of landscape, perhaps only the first fruits of its power. That +instinct was urging every painter in Europe at the same moment to his +true duty—<i>the faithful representation of all objects of historical +interest, or of natural beauty existent at the period</i>; representations +such as might at once aid the advance of the sciences, and keep faithful +record of every monument of past ages which was likely to be swept away +in the approaching eras of revolutionary change.</p> + +<p>The instinct came, as I said, exactly at the right moment; and let the +reader consider what amount and kind of general knowledge might by this +time have been possessed by the nations of Europe, had their painters +understood and obeyed it. Suppose that, after disciplining themselves so +as to be able to draw, with unerring precision, each the particular kind +of subject in which he most delighted, they had separated into two great +armies of historians and naturalists;—that the first had painted with +absolute faithfulness every edifice, every city, every battle-field, +every scene of the slightest historical interest, precisely and +completely rendering their aspect at the time; and that their +companions, according to their several powers, had painted with like +fidelity the plants and animals, the natural scenery, and the +atmospheric phenomena of every country on the earth—suppose that a +faithful and complete record were now in our museums of every building +destroyed by war, or time, or innovation, during these last 200 +years—suppose that each recess of every mountain chain of Europe had +been penetrated, and its rocks drawn with such accuracy that the +geologist's diagram was no longer necessary—suppose that every tree of +the forest had been drawn in its noblest aspect, every beast of the +field in its savage life—that all these gatherings were already in our +national galleries, and that the painters of the present day were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> +laboring, happily and earnestly, to multiply them, and put such means of +knowledge more and more within reach of the common people—would not +that be a more honorable life for them, than gaining precarious bread by +"bright effects?" They think not, perhaps. They think it easy, and +therefore contemptible, to be truthful; they have been taught so all +their lives. But it is not so, whoever taught it them. It is most +difficult, and worthy of the greatest men's greatest effort, to render, +as it should be rendered, the simplest of the natural features of the +earth; but also be it remembered, no man is confined to the simplest; +each may look out work for himself where he chooses, and it will be +strange if he cannot find something hard enough for him. The excuse is, +however, one of the lips only; for every painter knows that when he +draws back from the attempt to render nature as she is, it is oftener in +cowardice than in disdain.</p> + +<p>I must leave the reader to pursue this subject for himself; I have not +space to suggest to him the tenth part of the advantages which would +follow, both to the painter from such an understanding of his mission, +and to the whole people, in the results of his labor. Consider how the +man himself would be elevated: how content he would become, how earnest, +how full of all accurate and noble knowledge, how free from +envy—knowing creation to be infinite, feeling at once the value of what +he did, and yet the nothingness. Consider the advantage to the people; +the immeasurably larger interest given to art itself; the easy, +pleasurable, and perfect knowledge conveyed by it, in every subject; the +far greater number of men who might be healthily and profitably occupied +with it as a means of livelihood; the useful direction of myriads of +inferior talents, now left fading away in misery. Conceive all this, and +then look around at our exhibitions, and behold the "cattle pieces," and +"sea pieces," and "fruit pieces," and "family pieces;" the eternal brown +cows in ditches, and white sails in squalls, and sliced lemons in +saucers, and foolish faces in simpers;—and try to feel what we are, and +what we might have been.</p> + +<p>Take a single instance in one branch of archæology. Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> those who are +interested in the history of religion consider what a treasure we should +now have possessed, if, instead of painting pots, and vegetables, and +drunken peasantry, the most accurate painters of the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries had been set to copy, line for line, the religious +and domestic sculpture on the German, Flemish, and French cathedrals and +castles; and if every building destroyed in the French or in any other +subsequent revolution, had thus been drawn in all its parts with the +same precision with which Gerard Douw or Mieris paint bas-reliefs of +Cupids. Consider, even now, what incalculable treasure is still left in +ancient bas-reliefs, full of every kind of legendary interest, of subtle +expression, of priceless evidence as to the character, feelings habits, +histories, of past generations, in neglected and shattered churches and +domestic buildings, rapidly disappearing over the whole of +Europe—treasure which, once lost, the labor of all men living cannot +bring back again; and then look at the myriads of men, with skill +enough, if they had but the commonest schooling, to record all this +faithfully, who are making their bread by drawing dances of naked women +from academy models, or idealities of chivalry fitted out with Wardour +Street armor, or eternal scenes from Gil Blas, Don Quixote, and the +Vicar of Wakefield, or mountain sceneries with young idiots of Londoners +wearing Highland bonnets and brandishing rifles in the foregrounds. Do +but think of these things in the breadth of their inexpressible +imbecility, and then go and stand before that broken bas-relief in the +southern gate of Lincoln Cathedral, and see if there is no fibre of the +heart in you that will break too.</p> + +<p>But is there to be no place left, it will be indignantly asked, for +imagination and invention, for poetical power, or love of ideal beauty? +Yes; the highest, the noblest place—that which these only can attain +when they are all used in the cause, and with the aid of truth. Wherever +imagination and sentiment are, they will either show themselves without +forcing, or, if capable of artificial development, the kind of training +which such a school of art would give them would be the best they could +receive. The infinite absurdity and failure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> of our present training +consists mainly in this, that we do not rank imagination and invention +high enough, and suppose that they <i>can</i> be taught. Throughout every +sentence that I ever have written, the reader will find the same rank +attributed to these powers,—the rank of a purely divine gift, not to be +attained, increased, or in any wise modified by teaching, only in +various ways capable of being concealed or quenched. Understand this +thoroughly; know once for all, that a poet on canvas is exactly the same +species of creature as a poet in song, and nearly every error in our +methods of teaching will be done away with. For who among us now thinks +of bringing men up to be poets?—of producing poets by any kind of +general recipe or method of cultivation? Suppose even that we see in +youth that which we hope may, in its development, become a power of this +kind, should we instantly, supposing that we wanted to make a poet of +him, and nothing else, forbid him all quiet, steady, rational labor? +Should we force him to perpetual spinning of new crudities out of his +boyish brain, and set before him, as the only objects of his study, the +laws of versification which criticism has supposed itself to discover in +the works of previous writers? Whatever gifts the boy had, would much be +likely to come of them so treated? unless, indeed, they were so great as +to break through all such snares of falsehood and vanity, and build +their own foundation in spite of us; whereas if, as in cases numbering +millions against units, the natural gifts were too weak to do this, +could any thing come of such training but utter inanity and spuriousness +of the whole man? But if we had sense, should we not rather restrain and +bridle the first flame of invention in early youth, heaping material on +it as one would on the first sparks and tongues of a fire which we +desired to feed into greatness? Should we not educate the whole +intellect into general strength, and all the affections into warmth and +honesty, and look to heaven for the rest? This, I say, we should have +sense enough to do, in order to produce a poet in words: but, it being +required to produce a poet on canvas, what is our way of setting to +work? We begin, in all probability, by telling the youth of fifteen or +sixteen, that Nature<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> is full of faults, and that he is to improve her; +but that Raphael is perfection, and that the more he copies Raphael the +better; that after much copying of Raphael, he is to try what he can do +himself in a Raphaelesque, but yet original, manner: that is to say, he +is to try to do something very clever, all out of his own head, but yet +this clever something is to be properly subjected to Raphaelesque rules, +is to have a principal light occupying one-seventh of its space, and a +principle shadow occupying one-third of the same; that no two people's +heads in the picture are to be turned the same way, and that all the +personages represented are to possess ideal beauty of the highest order, +which ideal beauty consists partly in a Greek outline of nose, partly in +proportions expressible in decimal fractions between the lips and chin; +but partly also in that degree of improvement which the youth of sixteen +is to bestow upon God's work in general. This I say is the kind of +teaching which through various channels, Royal Academy lecturings, press +criticisms, public enthusiasm, and not least by solid weight of gold, we +give to our young men. And we wonder we have no painters!</p> + +<p>But we do worse than this. Within the last few years some sense of the +real tendency of such teaching has appeared in some of our younger +painters. It only <i>could</i> appear in the younger ones, our older men +having become familiarised with the false system, or else having passed +through it and forgotten it, not well knowing the degree of harm they +had sustained. This sense appeared, among our +youths,—increased,—matured into resolute action. Necessarily, to exist +at all, it needed the support both of strong instincts and of +considerable self-confidence, otherwise it must at once have been borne +down by the weight of general authority and received canon law. Strong +instincts are apt to make men strange, and rude; self-confidence, +however well founded, to give much of what they do or say the appearance +of impertinence. Look at the self-confidence of Wordsworth, stiffening +every other sentence of his prefaces into defiance; there is no more of +it than was needed to enable him to do his work, yet it is not a little +ungraceful here and there. Suppose this stubbornness and self-trust in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +a youth, laboring in an art of which the executive part is confessedly +to be best learnt from masters, and we shall hardly wonder that much of +his work has a certain awkwardness and stiffness in it, or that he +should be regarded with disfavor by many, even the most temperate, of +the judges trained in the system he was breaking through, and with utter +contempt and reprobation by the envious and the dull. Consider, farther, +that the particular system to be overthrown was, in the present case, +one of which the main characteristic was the pursuit of beauty at the +expense of manliness and truth; and it will seem likely, <i>à priori</i>, +that the men intended successfully to resist the influence of such a +system should be endowed with little natural sense of beauty, and thus +rendered dead to the temptation it presented. Summing up these +conditions, there is surely little cause for surprise that pictures +painted, in a temper of resistance, by exceedingly young men, of +stubborn instincts and positive self-trust, and with little natural +perception of beauty, should not be calculated, at the first glance, to +win us from works enriched by plagiarism, polished by convention, +invested with all the attractiveness of artificial grace, and +recommended to our respect by established authority.</p> + +<p>We should, however, on the other hand, have anticipated, that in +proportion to the strength of character required for the effort, and to +the absence of distracting sentiments, whether respect for precedent, or +affection for ideal beauty, would be the energy exhibited in the pursuit +of the special objects which the youths proposed to themselves, and +their success in attaining them.</p> + +<p>All this has actually been the case, but in a degree which it would have +been impossible to anticipate. That two youths, of the respective ages +of eighteen and twenty, should have conceived for themselves a totally +independent and sincere method of study, and enthusiastically persevered +in it against every kind of dissuasion and opposition, is strange +enough; that in the third or fourth year of their efforts they should +have produced works in many parts not inferior to the best of Albert +Durer, this is perhaps not less strange. But the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> loudness and +universality of the howl which the common critics of the press have +raised against them, the utter absence of all generous help or +encouragement from those who can both measure their toil and appreciate +their success, and the shrill, shallow laughter of those who can do +neither the one nor the other,—these are strangest of all—unimaginable +unless they had been experienced.</p> + +<p>And as if these were not enough, private malice is at work against them, +in its own small, slimy way. The very day after I had written my second +letter to the Times in the defence of the Pre-Raphaelites, I received an +anonymous letter respecting one of them, from some person apparently +hardly capable of spelling, and about as vile a specimen of petty +malignity as ever blotted paper. I think it well that the public should +know this, and so get some insight into the sources of the spirit which +is at work against these men—how first roused it is difficult to say, +for one would hardly have thought that mere eccentricity in young +artists could have excited an hostility so determined and so +cruel;—hostility which hesitated at no assertion, however impudent. +That of the "absence of perspective" was one of the most curious pieces +of the hue and cry which began with the Times, and died away in feeble +maundering in the Art Union; I contradicted it in the Times—I here +contradict it directly for the second time. There was not a single error +in perspective in three out of the four pictures in question. But if +otherwise, would it have been anything remarkable in them? I doubt, if +with the exception of the pictures of David Roberts, there were one +architectural drawing in perspective on the walls of the Academy; I +never met but with two men in my life who knew enough of perspective to +draw a Gothic arch in a retiring plane, so that its lateral dimensions +and curvatures might be calculated to scale from the drawing. Our +architects certainly do not, and it was but the other day that, talking +to one of the most distinguished among them, the author of several most +valuable works, I found he actually did not know how to draw a circle in +perspective. And in this state of general science our writers for the +press take it upon them to tell us, that the forest trees<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> in Mr. Hunt's +<i>Sylvia</i>, and the bunches of lilies in Mr. Collins's <i>Convent Thoughts</i>, +are out of perspective.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p> + +<p>It might not, I think, in such circumstances, have been ungraceful or +unwise in the Academicians themselves to have defended their young +pupils, at least by the contradiction of statements directly false +respecting them,<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> and the direction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> of the mind and sight of the +public to such real merit as they possess. If Sir Charles Eastlake, +Mulready, Edwin and Charles Landseer, Cope, and Dyce would each of them +simply state their own private opinion respecting their paintings, sign +it and publish it, I believe the act would be of more service to English +art than any thing the Academy has done since it was founded. But as I +cannot hope for this, I can only ask the public to give their pictures +careful examination, and look at them at once with the indulgence and +the respect which I have endeavored to show they deserve.</p> + +<p>Yet let me not be misunderstood. I have adduced them only as examples of +the kind of study which I would desire to see substituted for that of +our modern schools, and of singular success in certain characters, +finish of detail, and brilliancy of color. What faculties, higher than +imitative, may be in these men, I do not yet venture to say; but I do +say that if they exist, such faculties will manifest themselves in due +time all the more forcibly because they have received training so +severe.</p> + +<p>For it is always to be remembered that no one mind is like another, +either in its powers or perceptions; and while the main principles of +training must be the same for all, the result in each will be as various +as the kinds of truth which each will apprehend; therefore, also, the +modes of effort, even in men whose inner principles and final aims are +exactly the same. Suppose, for instance, two men, equally honest, +equally industrious, equally impressed with a humble desire to render +some part of what they saw in nature faithfully; and, otherwise trained +in convictions such as I have above endeavored to induce. But one of +them is quiet in temperament, has a feeble memory, no invention, and +excessively keen sight. The other is impatient in temperament, has a +memory which nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> escapes, an invention which never rests, and is +comparatively near-sighted.</p> + +<p>Set them both free in the same field in a mountain valley. One sees +everything, small and large, with almost the same clearness; mountains +and grasshoppers alike; the leaves on the branches, the veins in the +pebbles, the bubbles in the stream: but he can remember nothing, and +invent nothing. Patiently he sets himself to his mighty task; abandoning +at once all thoughts of seizing transient effects, or giving general +impressions of that which his eyes present to him in microscopical +dissection, he chooses some small portion out of the infinite scene, and +calculates with courage the number of weeks which must elapse before he +can do justice to the intensity of his perceptions, or the fulness of +matter in his subject.</p> + +<p>Meantime, the other has been watching the change of the clouds, and the +march of the light along the mountain sides; he beholds the entire scene +in broad, soft masses of true gradation, and the very feebleness of his +sight is in some sort an advantage to him, in making him more sensible +of the aërial mystery of distance, and hiding from him the multitudes of +circumstances which it would have been impossible for him to represent. +But there is not one change in the casting of the jagged shadows along +the hollows of the hills, but it is fixed on his mind for ever; not a +flake of spray has broken from the sea of cloud about their bases, but +he has watched it as it melts away, and could recall it to its lost +place in heaven by the slightest effort of his thoughts. Not only so, +but thousands and thousands of such images, of older scenes, remain +congregated in his mind, each mingling in new associations with those +now visibly passing before him, and these again confused with other +images of his own ceaseless, sleepless imagination, flashing by in +sudden troops. Fancy how his paper will be covered with stray symbols +and blots, and undecipherable shorthand:—as for his sitting down to +"draw from Nature," there was not one of the things which he wished to +represent that stayed for so much as five seconds together: but none of +them escaped, for all that: they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> sealed up in that strange +storehouse of his; he may take one of them out, perhaps, this day twenty +years, and paint it in his dark room, far away. Now, observe, you may +tell both of these men, when they are young, that they are to be honest, +that they have an important function, and that they are not to care what +Raphael did. This you may wholesomely impress on them both. But fancy +the exquisite absurdity of expecting either of them to possess any of +the qualities of the other.</p> + +<p>I have supposed the feebleness of sight in the last, and of invention in +the first painter, that the contrast between them might be more +striking; but, with very slight modification, both the characters are +real. Grant to the first considerable inventive power, with exquisite +sense of color; and give to the second, in addition to all his other +faculties, the eye of an eagle; and the first is John Everett Millais, +the second Joseph Mallard William Turner.</p> + +<p>They are among the few men who have defied all false teaching, and have, +therefore, in great measure, done justice to the gifts with which they +were entrusted. They stand at opposite poles, marking culminating points +of art in both directions; between them, or in various relations to +them, we may class five or six more living artists who, in like manner, +have done justice to their powers. I trust that I may be pardoned for +naming them, in order that the reader may know how the strong innate +genius in each has been invariably accompanied with the same humility, +earnestness, and industry in study.</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to point out the earnestness or humility in the +works of William Hunt; but it may be so to suggest the high value they +possess as records of English rural life, and <i>still</i> life. Who is there +who for a moment could contend with him in the unaffected, yet humorous +truth with which he has painted our peasant children? Who is there who +does not sympathize with him in the simple love with which he dwells on +the brightness and bloom of our summer fruit and flowers? And yet there +is something to be regretted concerning him: why should he be allowed +continually to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> paint the same bunches of hot-house grapes, and supply +to the Water Color Society a succession of pineapples with the +regularity of a Covent Garden fruiterer? He has of late discovered that +primrose banks are lovely; but there are other things grow wild besides +primroses: what undreamt-of loveliness might he not bring back to us, if +he would lose himself for a summer in Highland foregrounds; if he would +paint the heather as it grows, and the foxglove and the harebell as they +nestle in the clefts of the rocks, and the mosses and bright lichens of +the rocks themselves. And then, cross to the Jura, and bring back a +piece of Jura pasture in spring; with the gentians in their earliest +blue, and the soldanelle beside the fading snow! And return again, and +paint a gray wall of Alpine crag, with budding roses crowning it like a +wreath of rubies. That is what he was meant to do in this world; not to +paint bouquets in china vases.</p> + +<p>I have in various other places expressed my sincere respect for the +works of Samuel Prout: his shortness of sight has necessarily prevented +their possessing delicacy of finish or fulness of minor detail; but I +think that those of no other living artist furnish an example so +striking of innate and special instinct, sent to do a particular work at +the exact and only period when it was possible. At the instant when +peace had been established all over Europe, but when neither national +character nor national architecture had as yet been seriously changed by +promiscuous intercourse or modern "improvement;" when, however, nearly +every ancient and beautiful building had been long left in a state of +comparative neglect, so that its aspect of partial ruinousness, and of +separation from recent active life, gave to every edifice a peculiar +interest—half sorrowful, half sublime;—at that moment Prout was +trained among the rough rocks and simple cottages of Cornwall, until his +eye was accustomed to follow with delight the rents and breaks, and +irregularities which, to another man, would have been offensive; and +then, gifted with infinite readiness in composition, but also with +infinite affection for the kind of subjects he had to portray, he was +sent to preserve, in an almost innumerable series of drawings,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> <i>every +one made on the spot</i>, the aspect borne, at the beginning of the +nineteenth century, by cities which, in a few years more, rekindled +wars, or unexpected prosperities, were to ravage, or renovate, into +nothingness.</p> + +<p>It seems strange to pass from Prout to John Lewis; but there is this +fellowship between them, that both seem to have been intended to +appreciate the characters of foreign countries more than of their +own—nay, to have been born in England chiefly that the excitement of +strangeness might enhance to them the interest of the scenes they had to +represent. I believe John Lewis to have done more entire justice to all +his powers (and they are magnificent ones) than any other man amongst +us. His mission was evidently to portray the comparatively animal life +of the southern and eastern families of mankind. For this he was +prepared in a somewhat singular way—by being led to study, and endowed +with altogether peculiar apprehension of, the most sublime characters of +animals themselves. Rubens, Rembrandt, Snyders, Tintoret, and Titian, +have all, in various ways, drawn wild beasts magnificently; but they +have in some sort humanized or demonized them, making them either +ravenous fiends or educated beasts, that would draw cars, and had +respect for hermits. The sullen isolation of the brutal nature; the +dignity and quietness of the mighty limbs; the shaggy mountainous power, +mingled with grace, as of a flowing stream; the stealthy restraint of +strength and wrath in every soundless motion of the gigantic frame; all +this seems never to have been seen, much less drawn, until Lewis drew +and himself engraved a series of animal subjects, now many years ago. +Since then, he has devoted himself to the portraiture of those European +and Asiatic races, among whom the refinements of civilization exist +without its laws or its energies, and in whom the fierceness, indolence, +and subtlety of animal nature are associated with brilliant imagination +and strong affections. To this task he has brought not only intense +perception of the kind of character, but powers of artistical +composition like those of the great Venetians, displaying, at the same +time, a refinement of drawing almost miraculous, and appreciable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> only, +as the minutiæ of nature itself are appreciable, by the help of the +microscope. The value, therefore, of his works, as records of the aspect +of the scenery and inhabitants of the south of Spain and of the East, in +the earlier part of the nineteenth century, is quite above all estimate.</p> + +<p>I hardly know how to speak of Mulready: in delicacy and completion of +drawing, and splendor of color, he takes place beside John Lewis and the +pre-Raphaelites; but he has, throughout his career, displayed no +definiteness in choice of subject. He must be named among the painters +who have studied with industry, and have made themselves great by doing +so; but having obtained a consummate method of execution, he has thrown +it away on subjects either altogether uninteresting, or above his +powers, or unfit for pictorial representation. "The Cherry Woman," +exhibited in 1850, may be named as an example of the first kind; the +"Burchell and Sophia" of the second (the character of Sir William +Thornhill being utterly missed); the "Seven Ages" of the third; for this +subject cannot be painted. In the written passage, the thoughts are +progressive and connected; in the picture they must be co-existent, and +yet separate; nor can all the characters of the ages be rendered in +painting at all. One may represent the soldier at the cannon's mouth, +but one cannot paint the "bubble reputation" which he seeks. Mulready, +therefore, while he has always produced exquisite pieces of painting, +has failed in doing anything which can be of true or extensive use. He +has, indeed, understood how to discipline his genius, but never how to +direct it.</p> + +<p>Edwin Landseer is the last painter but one whom I shall name: I need not +point out to any one acquainted with his earlier works, the labor, or +watchfulness of nature which they involve, nor need I do more than +allude to the peculiar faculties of his mind. It will at once be granted +that the highest merits of his pictures are throughout found in those +parts of them which are least like what had before been accomplished; +and that it was not by the study of Raphael that he attained his eminent +success, but by a healthy love of Scotch terriers.</p> + +<p>None of these painters, however, it will be answered, afford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> examples +of the rise of the highest imaginative power out of close study of +matters of fact. Be it remembered, however, that the imaginative power, +in its magnificence, is not to be found every day. Lewis has it in no +mean degree; but we cannot hope to find it at its highest more than once +in an age. We <i>have</i> had it once, and must be content.</p> + +<p>Towards the close of the last century, among the various drawings +executed, according to the quiet manner of the time, in greyish blue, +with brown foregrounds, some began to be noticed as exhibiting rather +more than ordinary diligence and delicacy, signed W. Turner.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> There +was nothing, however, in them at all indicative of genius, or even of +more than ordinary talent, unless in some of the subjects a large +perception of space, and excessive clearness and decision in the +arrangement of masses. Gradually and cautiously the blues became mingled +with delicate green, and then with gold; the browns in the foreground +became first more positive, and then were slightly mingled with other +local colors; while the touch, which had at first been heavy and broken, +like that of the ordinary drawing masters of the time, grew more and +more refined and expressive, until it lost itself in a method of +execution often too delicate for the eye to follow, rendering, with a +precision before unexampled, both the texture and the form of every +object. The style may be considered as perfectly formed about the year +1800, and it remained unchanged for twenty years.</p> + +<p>During that period the painter had attempted, and with more or less +success had rendered, every order of landscape subject, but always on +the same principle, subduing the colors of nature into a harmony of +which the key-notes are greyish green and brown; pure blues and delicate +golden yellows being admitted in small quantity, as the lowest and +highest limits of shade and light: and bright local colors in extremely +small quantity in figures or other minor accessories.</p> + +<p>Pictures executed on such a system are not, properly speaking,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> works in +<i>color</i> at all; they are studies of light and shade, in which both the +shade and the distance are rendered in the general hue which best +expresses their attributes of coolness and transparency; and the lights +and the foreground are executed in that which best expresses their +warmth and solidity. This advantage may just as well be taken as not, in +studies of light and shadow to be executed with the hand: but the use of +two, three, or four colors, always in the same relations and places, +does not in the least constitute the work a study of color, any more +than the brown engravings of the Liber Studiorum; nor would the idea of +color be in general more present to the artist's mind, when he was at +work on one of these drawings, than when he was using pure brown in the +mezzotint engraving. But the idea of space, warmth, and freshness being +not successfully expressible in a single tint, and perfectly expressible +by the admission of three or four, he allows himself this advantage when +it is possible, without in the least embarrassing himself with the +actual color of the objects to be represented. A stone in the fore +ground might in nature have been cold grey, but it will be drawn +nevertheless of a rich brown, because it is in the foreground; a hill in +the distance might in nature be purple with heath, or golden with furze; +but it will be drawn nevertheless of a cool grey, because it is in the +distance.</p> + +<p>This at least was the general theory,—carried out with great severity +in many, both of the drawings and pictures executed by him during the +period: in others more or less modified by the cautious introduction of +color, as the painter felt his liberty increasing; for the system was +evidently never considered as final, or as anything more than a means of +progress: the conventional, easily manageable color, was visibly +adopted, only that his mind might be at perfect liberty to address +itself to the acquirement of the first and most necessary knowledge in +all art—that of form. But as form, in landscape, implies vast bulk and +space, the use of the tints which enabled him best to express them, was +actually auxiliary to the mere drawing; and, therefore, not only +permissible, but even necessary, while more brilliant or varied tints +were never indulged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> in, except when they might be introduced without +the slightest danger of diverting his mind for an instant from his +principal object. And, therefore, it will be generally found in the +works of this period, that exactly in proportion to the importance and +general toil of the composition, is the severity of the tint; and that +the play of color begins to show itself first in slight and small +drawings, where he felt that he could easily secure all that he wanted +in form.</p> + +<p>Thus the "Crossing the Brook," and such other elaborate and large +compositions, are actually painted in nothing but grey, brown, and blue, +with a point or two of severe local color in the figures; but in the +minor drawings, tender passages of complicated color occur not +unfrequently in easy places; and even before the year 1800 he begins to +introduce it with evident joyfulness and longing in his rude and simple +studies, just as a child, if it could be supposed to govern itself by a +fully developed intellect, would cautiously, but with infinite pleasure, +add now and then a tiny dish of fruit or other dangerous luxury to the +simple order of its daily fare. Thus, in the foregrounds of his most +severe drawings, we not unfrequently find him indulging in the luxury of +a peacock; and it is impossible to express the joyfulness with which he +seems to design its graceful form, and deepen with soft pencilling the +bloom of its blue, after he has worked through the stern detail of his +almost colorless drawing. A rainbow is another of his most frequently +permitted indulgences; and we find him very early allowing the edges of +his evening clouds to be touched with soft rose-color or gold; while, +whenever the hues of nature in anywise fall into his system, and can be +caught without a dangerous departure from it, he instantly throws his +whole soul into the faithful rendering of them. Thus the usual brown +tones of his foreground become warmed into sudden vigor, and are varied +and enhanced with indescribable delight, when he finds himself by the +shore of a moorland stream, where they truly express the stain of its +golden rocks, and the darkness of its clear, Cairngorm-like pools, and +the usual serenity of his aërial blue is enriched into the softness and +depth of the sapphire, when it can deepen the distant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> slumber of some +Highland lake, or temper the gloomy shadows of the evening upon its +hills.</p> + +<p>The system of his color being thus simplified, he could address all the +strength of his mind to the accumulation of facts of form; his choice of +subject, and his methods of treatment, are therefore as various as his +color is simple; and it is not a little difficult to give the reader who +is unacquainted with his works, an idea either of their infinitude of +aims, on the one hand, or of the kind of feeling which prevades them +all, on the other. No subject was too low or too high for him; we find +him one day hard at work on a cock and hen, with their family of +chickens in a farm-yard; and bringing all the refinement of his +execution into play to express the texture of the plumage; next day, he +is drawing the Dragon of Colchis. One hour he is much interested in a +gust of wind blowing away an old woman's cap; the next he is painting +the fifth plague of Egypt. Every landscape painter before him had +acquired distinction by confining his efforts to one class of subject. +Hobbima painted oaks; Ruysdael, waterfalls and copses; Cuyp, river or +meadow scenes in quiet afternoons; Salvator and Poussin, such kind of +mountain scenery as people could conceive, who lived in towns in the +seventeenth century. But I am well persuaded that if all the works of +Turner, up to the year 1820, were divided into classes (as he has +himself divided them in the Liber Studiorum), no preponderance could be +assigned to one class over another. There is architecture, including a +large number of formal "gentlemen's seats," I suppose drawings +commissioned by the owners; then lowland pastoral scenery of every kind, +including nearly all farming operations,—ploughing, harrowing, hedging +and ditching, felling trees, sheep-washing, and I know not what else; +then all kinds of town life—court-yards of inns, starting of mail +coaches, interiors of shops, house-buildings, fairs, elections, &c.; +then all kinds of inner domestic life—interiors of rooms, studies of +costumes, of still life, and heraldry, including multitudes of +symbolical vignettes; then marine scenery of every kind, full of local +incident; every kind of boat and method of fishing for particular fish, +being specifically drawn, round the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> whole coast of England;—pilchard +fishing at St. Ives, whiting fishing at Margate, herring at Loch Fyne; +and all kinds of shipping, including studies of every separate part of +the vessels, and many marine battle-pieces, two in particular of +Trafalgar, both of high importance,—one of the Victory after the +battle, now in Greenwich Hospital; another of the Death of Nelson, in +his own gallery; then all kinds of mountain scenery, some idealised into +compositions, others of definite localities; together with classical +compositions, Romes and Carthages and such others, by the myriad, with +mythological, historical, or allegorical figures,—nymphs, monsters, and +spectres; heroes and divinities.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p> + +<p>What general feeling, it may be asked incredulously, can possibly +pervade all this? This, the greatest of all feelings—an utter +forgetfulness of self. Throughout the whole period with which we are at +present concerned, Turner appears as a man of sympathy absolutely +infinite—a sympathy so all-embracing, that I know nothing but that of +Shakespeare comparable with it. A soldier's wife resting by the roadside +is not beneath it; Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, watching the dead +bodies of her sons, not above it. Nothing can possibly be so mean as +that it will not interest his whole mind, and carry away his whole +heart; nothing so great or solemn but that he can raise himself into +harmony with it; and it is impossible to prophesy of him at any moment, +whether, the next, he will be in laughter or in tears.</p> + +<p>This is the root of the man's greatness; and it follows as a matter of +course that this sympathy must give him a subtle power of expression, +even of the characters of mere material things, such as no other painter +ever possessed. The man who can best feel the difference between +rudeness and tenderness in humanity, perceives also more difference +between the branches of an oak and a willow than any one else would; and +therefore, necessarily the most striking character of the drawings +themselves is the speciality of whatever they represent—the thorough +stiffness of what is stiff, and grace of what is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> graceful, and vastness +of what is vast; but through and beyond all this, the condition of the +mind of the painter himself is easily enough discoverable by comparison +of a large number of the drawings. It is singularly serene and peaceful: +in itself quite passionless, though entering with ease into the external +passion which it contemplates. By the effort of its will it sympathises +with tumult or distress, even in their extremes, but there is no tumult, +no sorrow in itself, only a chastened and exquisitely peaceful +cheerfulness, deeply meditative; touched without loss of its own perfect +balance, by sadness on the one side, and stooping to playfulness upon +the other. I shall never cease to regret the destruction, by fire, now +several years ago, of a drawing which always seemed to me to be the +perfect image of the painter's mind at this period,—the drawing of +Brignal Church near Rokeby, of which a feeble idea may still be gathered +from the engraving (in the Yorkshire series). The spectator stands on +the "Brignal banks," looking down into the glen at twilight; the sky is +still full of soft rays, though the sun is gone; and the Greta glances +brightly in the valley, singing its evening-song; two white clouds, +following each other, move without wind through the hollows of the +ravine, and others lie couched on the far away moorlands; every leaf of +the woods is still in the delicate air; a boy's kite, incapable of +rising, has become entangled in their branches, he is climbing to +recover it; and just behind it in the picture, almost indicated by it, +the lowly church is seen in its secluded field between the rocks and the +stream; and around it the low churchyard wall, and the few white stones +which mark the resting places of those who can climb the rocks no more, +nor hear the river sing as it passes.</p> + +<p>There are many other existing drawings which indicate the same character +of mind, though I think none so touching or so beautiful; yet they are +not, as I said above, more numerous than those which express his +sympathy with sublimer or more active scenes; but they are almost always +marked by a tenderness of execution, and have a look of being beloved in +every part of them, which shows them to be the truest expression of his +own feelings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>One other characteristic of his mind at this period remains to be +noticed—its reverence for talent in others. Not the reverence which +acts upon the practices of men as if they were the laws of nature, but +that which is ready to appreciate the power, and receive the assistance, +of every mind which has been previously employed in the same direction, +so far as its teaching seems to be consistent with the great text-book +of nature itself. Turner thus studied almost every preceding landscape +painter, chiefly Claude, Poussin, Vandevelde, Loutherbourg, and Wilson. +It was probably by the Sir George Beaumonts and other feeble +conventionalists of the period, that he was persuaded to devote his +attention to the works of these men; and his having done so will be +thought, a few scores of years hence, evidence of perhaps the greatest +modesty ever shown by a man of original power. Modesty at once admirable +and unfortunate, for the study of the works of Vandevelde and Claude was +productive of unmixed mischief to him; he spoiled many of his marine +pictures, as for instance Lord Ellesmere's, by imitation of the former; +and from the latter learned a false ideal, which confirmed by the +notions of Greek art prevalent in London in the beginning of this +century, has manifested itself in many vulgarities in his composition +pictures, vulgarities which may perhaps be best expressed by the general +term "Twickenham Classicism," as consisting principally in conceptions +of ancient or of rural life such as have influenced the erection of most +of our suburban villas. From Nicolo Poussin and Loutherbourg he seems to +have derived advantage; perhaps also from Wilson; and much in his +subsequent travels from far higher men, especially Tintoret and Paul +Veronese. I have myself heard him speaking with singular delight of the +putting in of the beech leaves in the upper right-hand corner of +Titian's Peter Martyr. I cannot in any of his works trace the slightest +influence of Salvator; and I am not surprised at it, for though Salvator +was a man of far higher powers than either Vandevelde or Claude, he was +a wilful and gross caricaturist. Turner would condescend to be helped by +feeble men, but could not be corrupted by false men. Besides, he had +never himself seen classical life, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> Claude was represented to him as +competent authority for it. But he <i>had</i> seen mountains and torrents, +and knew therefore that Salvator could not paint them.</p> + +<p>One of the most characteristic drawings of this period fortunately bears +a date, 1818, and brings us within two years of another dated drawing, +no less characteristic of what I shall henceforward call Turner's Second +period. It is in the possession of Mr. Hawkesworth Fawkes of Farnley, +one of Turner's earliest and truest friends; and bears the inscription, +unusually conspicuous, heaving itself up and down over the eminences of +the foreground—"<span class="smcap">Passage of Mont Cenis. J. M. W. Turner</span>, January 15th, +1820."</p> + +<p>The scene is on the summit of the pass close to the hospice, or what +seems to have been a hospice at that time,—I do not remember such at +present,—a small square-built house, built as if partly for a fortress, +with a detached flight of stone steps in front of it, and a kind of +drawbridge to the door. This building, about 400 or 500 yards off, is +seen in a dim, ashy grey against the light, which by help of a violent +blast of mountain wind has broken through the depth of clouds which +hangs upon the crags. There is no sky, properly so called, nothing but +this roof of drifting cloud; but neither is there any weight of +darkness—the high air is too thin for it,—all savage, howling, and +luminous with cold, the massy bases of the granite hills jutting out +here and there grimly through the snow wreaths. There is a +desolate-looking refuge on the left, with its number 16, marked on it in +long ghastly figures, and the wind is drifting the snow off the roof and +through its window in a frantic whirl; the near ground is all wan with +half-thawed, half-trampled snow; a diligence in front, whose horses, +unable to face the wind, have turned right round with fright, its +passengers struggling to escape, jammed in the window; a little farther +on is another carriage off the road, some figures pushing at its wheels, +and its driver at the horses' heads, pulling and lashing with all his +strength, his lifted arm stretched out against the light of the +distance, though too far off for the whip to be seen.</p> + +<p>Now I am perfectly certain that any one thoroughly accustomed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> to the +earlier works of the painter, and shown this picture for the first time, +would be struck by two altogether new characters in it.</p> + +<p>The first, a seeming enjoyment of the excitement of the scene, totally +different from the contemplative philosophy with which it would formerly +have been regarded. Every incident of motion and of energy is seized +upon with indescribable delight, and every line of the composition +animated with a force and fury which are now no longer the mere +expression of a contemplated external truth, but have origin in some +inherent feeling in the painter's mind.</p> + +<p>The second, that although the subject is one in itself almost incapable +of color, and although, in order to increase the wildness of the +impression, all brilliant local color has been refused even where it +might easily have been introduced, as in the figures; yet in the low +minor key which has been chosen, the melodies of color have been +elaborated to the utmost possible pitch, so as to become a leading, +instead of a subordinate, element in the composition; the subdued warm +hues of the granite promontories, the dull stone color of the walls of +the buildings, clearly opposed, even in shade, to the grey of the snow +wreaths heaped against them, and the faint greens and ghastly blues of +the glacier ice, being all expressed with delicacies of transition +utterly unexampled in any previous drawings.</p> + +<p>These, accordingly, are the chief characteristics of the works of +Turner's second period, as distinguished from the first,—a new energy +inherent in the mind of the painter, diminishing the repose and exalting +the force and fire of his conceptions, and the presence of Color, as at +least an essential, and often a principal, element of design.</p> + +<p>Not that it is impossible, or even unusual, to find drawings of serene +subject, and perfectly quiet feeling, among the compositions of this +period; but the repose is in them, just as the energy and tumult were in +the earlier period, an external quality, which the painter images by an +effort of the will: it is no longer a character inherent in himself. The +"Ulleswater," in the England series, is one of those which are in most +perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> peace: in the "Cowes," the silence is only broken by the dash +of the boat's oars, and in the "Alnwick" by a stag drinking; but in at +least nine drawings out of ten, either sky, water, or figures are in +rapid motion, and the grandest drawings are almost always those which +have even violent action in one or other, or in all: e. g. high force of +Tees, Coventry, Llanthony, Salisbury, Llanberis, and such others.</p> + +<p>The color is, however, a more absolute distinction; and we must return +to Mr. Fawkes's collection in order to see how the change in it was +effected. That such a change would take place at one time or other was +of course to be securely anticipated, the conventional system of the +first period being, as above stated, merely a means of Study. But the +immediate cause was the journey of the year 1820. As might be guessed +from the legend on the drawing above described, "Passage of Mont Cenis, +January 15th, 1820," that drawing represents what happened on the day in +question to the painter himself. He passed the Alps then in the winter +of 1820; and either in the previous or subsequent summer, but on the +same journey, he made a series of sketches on the Rhine, in body color, +now in Mr. Fawkes's collection. Every one of those sketches is the +almost instantaneous record of an <i>effect</i> of color or atmosphere, taken +strictly from nature, the drawing and the details of every subject being +comparatively subordinate, and the color nearly as principal as the +light and shade had been before,—certainly the leading feature, though +the light and shade are always exquisitely harmonized with it. And +naturally, as the color becomes the leading object, those times of day +are chosen in which it is most lovely; and whereas before, at least five +out of six of Turner's drawings represented ordinary daylight, we now +find his attention directed constantly to the evening: and, for the +first time, we have those rosy lights upon the hills, those gorgeous +falls of sun through flaming heavens, those solemn twilights, with the +blue moon rising as the western sky grows dim, which have ever since +been the themes of his mightiest thoughts.</p> + +<p>I have no doubt, that the <i>immediate</i> reason of this change was the +impression made upon him by the colors of the continental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> skies. When +he first travelled on the Continent (1800), he was comparatively a young +student; not yet able to draw form as he wanted, he was forced to give +all his thoughts and strength to this primary object. But now he was +free to receive other impressions; the time was come for perfecting his +art, and the first sunset which he saw on the Rhine taught him that all +previous landscape art was vain and valueless, that in comparison with +natural color, the things that had been called paintings were mere ink +and charcoal, and that all precedent and all authority must be cast away +at once, and trodden under foot. He cast them away: the memories of +Vandevelde and Claude were at once weeded out of the great mind they had +encumbered; they and all the rubbish of the schools together with them; +the waves of the Rhine swept them away for ever; and a new dawn rose +over the rocks of the Siebengebirge.</p> + +<p>There was another motive at work, which rendered the change still more +complete. His fellow artists were already conscious enough of his +superior power in drawing, and their best hope was, that he might not be +able to color. They had begun to express this hope loudly enough for it +to reach his ears. The engraver of one of his most important marine +pictures told me, not long ago, that one day about the period in +question, Turner came into his room to examine the progress of the +plate, not having seen his own picture for several months. It was one of +his dark early pictures, but in the foreground was a little piece of +luxury, a pearly fish wrought into hues like those of an opal. He stood +before the picture for some moments; then laughed, and pointed joyously +to the fish;—"They say that Turner can't color!" and turned away.</p> + +<p>Under the force of these various impulses the change was total. <i>Every +subject thenceforth was primarily conceived in color</i>; and no engraving +ever gave the slightest idea of any drawing of this period.</p> + +<p>The artists who had any perception of the truth were in despair; the +Beaumontites, classicalists, and "owl species" in general, in as much +indignation as their dulness was capable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> of. They had deliberately +closed their eyes to all nature, and had gone on inquiring, "Where do +you put your brown tree?" A vast revelation was made to them at once, +enough to have dazzled any one; but to <i>them</i>, light unendurable as +incomprehensible. They "did to the moon complain," in one vociferous, +unanimous, continuous "Tu whoo." Shrieking rose from all dark places at +the same instant, just the same kind of shrieking that is now raised +against the Pre-Raphaelites. Those glorious old Arabian Nights, how true +they are! Mocking and whispering, and abuse loud and low by turns, from +all the black stones beside the road, when one living soul is toiling up +the hill to get the golden water. Mocking and whispering, that he may +look back, and become a black stone like themselves.</p> + +<p>Turner looked not back, but he went on in such a temper as a strong man +must be in, when he is forced to walk with his fingers in his ears. He +retired into himself; he could look no longer for help, or counsel, or +sympathy from any one; and the spirit of defiance in which he was forced +to labor led him sometimes into violences, from which the slightest +expression of sympathy would have saved him. The new energy that was +upon him, and the utter isolation into which he was driven, were both +alike dangerous, and many drawings of the time show the evil effects of +both; some of them being hasty, wild, or experimental, and others little +more than magnificent expressions of defiance of public opinion.</p> + +<p>But all have this noble virtue—they are in everything his own: there +are no more reminiscences of dead masters, no more trials of skill in +the manner of Claude or Poussin; every faculty of his soul is fixed upon +nature only, as he saw her, or as he remembered her.</p> + +<p>I have spoken above of his gigantic memory: it is especially necessary +to notice this, in order that we may understand the kind of grasp which +a man of real imagination takes of all things that are once brought +within his reach—grasp thenceforth not to be relaxed for ever.</p> + +<p>On looking over any catalogues of his works, or of particular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> series of +them, we shall notice the recurrence of the same subject two, three, or +even many times. In any other artist this would be nothing remarkable. +Probably most modern landscape painters multiply a favorite subject +twenty, thirty, or sixty fold, putting the shadows and the clouds in +different places, and "inventing," as they are pleased to call it, a new +"effect" every time. But if we examine the successions of Turner's +subjects, we shall find them either the records of a succession of +impressions actually perceived by him at some favorite locality, or else +repetitions of one impression received in early youth, and again and +again realised as his increasing powers enabled him to do better justice +to it. In either case we shall find them records of <i>seen facts</i>; +<i>never</i> compositions in his room to fill up a favorite outline.</p> + +<p>For instance, every traveller, at least every traveller of thirty years' +standing, must love Calais, the place where he first felt himself in a +strange world. Turner evidently loved it excessively. I have never +catalogued his studies of Calais, but I remember, at this moment, five: +there is first the "Pas de Calais," a very large oil painting, which is +what he saw in broad daylight as he crossed over, when he got near the +French side. It is a careful study of French fishing boats running for +the shore before the wind, with the picturesque old city in the +distance. Then there is the "Calais Harbor" in the Liber Studiorum: that +is what he saw just as he was going into the harbor,—a heavy brig +warping out, and very likely to get in his way, or run against the pier, +and bad weather coming on. Then there is the "Calais Pier," a large +painting, engraved some years ago by Mr. Lupton:<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> that is what he +saw when he had landed, and ran back directly to the pier to see what +had become of the brig. The weather had got still worse, the fishwomen +were being blown about in a distressful manner on the pier head, and +some more fishing boats were running in with all speed. Then there is +the "Fortrouge," Calais: that is what he saw after he had been home to +Dessein's, and dined, and went out again in the evening to walk on the +sands, the tide being down. He had never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> seen such a waste of sands +before, and it made an impression on him. The shrimp girls were all +scattered over them too, and moved about in white spots on the wild +shore; and the storm had lulled a little, and there was a sunset—such a +sunset,—and the bars of Fortrouge seen against it, skeleton-wise.</p> + +<p>He did not paint that directly; thought over it,—painted it a long +while afterwards.</p> + +<p>Then there is the vignette in the illustrations to Scott. That is what +he saw as he was going home, meditatively; and the revolving lighthouse +came blazing out upon him suddenly, and disturbed him. He did not like +that so much; made a vignette of it, however, when he was asked to do a +bit of Calais, twenty or thirty years afterwards, having already done +all the rest.</p> + +<p>Turner never told me all this, but any one may see it if he will compare +the pictures. They might, possibly, not be impressions of a single day, +but of two days or three; though in all human probability they were seen +just as I have stated them;<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> but they <i>are</i> records of successive +impressions, as plainly written as ever traveller's diary. All of them +pure veracities. Therefore immortal.</p> + +<p>I could multiply these series almost indefinitely from the rest of his +works. What is curious, some of them have a kind of private mark running +through all the subjects. Thus I know three drawings of Scarborough, and +all of them have a starfish in the foreground: I do not remember any +others of his marine subjects which have a starfish.</p> + +<p>The other kind of repetition—the recurrence to one early impression—is +however still more remarkable. In the collection of F. H. Bale, Esq., +there is a small drawing of Llanthony Abbey. It is in his boyish manner, +its date probably about 1795; evidently a sketch from nature, finished +at home. It had been a showery day; the hills were partially concealed +by the rain, and gleams of sunshine breaking out at intervals. A man was +fishing in the mountain stream. The young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Turner sought a place of some +shelter under the bushes; made his sketch, took great pains when he got +home to imitate the rain, as he best could; added his child's luxury of +a rainbow; put in the very bush under which he had taken shelter, and +the fisherman, a somewhat ill-jointed and long-legged fisherman, in the +courtly short breeches which were the fashion of the time.</p> + +<p>Some thirty years afterwards, with all his powers in their strongest +training, and after the total change in his feelings and principles +which I have endeavored to describe, he undertook the series of "England +and Wales," and in that series introduced the subject of Llanthony +Abbey. And behold, he went back to his boy's sketch, and boy's thought. +He kept the very bushes in their places, but brought the fisherman to +the other side of the river, and put him, in somewhat less courtly +dress, under their shelter, instead of himself. And then he set all his +gained strength and new knowledge at work on the well-remembered shower +of rain, that had fallen thirty years before, to do it better. The +resultant drawing<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> is one of the very noblest of his second period.</p> + +<p>Another of the drawings of the England series, Ulleswater, is the +repetition of one in Mr. Fawkes's collection, which, by the method of +its execution, I should conjecture to have been executed about the year +1808, or 1810: at all events, it is a very quiet drawing of the first +period. The lake is quite calm; the western hills in grey shadow, the +eastern massed in light. Helvellyn rising like a mist between them, all +being mirrored in the calm water. Some thin and slightly evanescent cows +are standing in the shallow water in front; a boat floats motionless +about a hundred yards from the shore: the foreground is of broken rocks, +with lovely pieces of copse on the right and left.</p> + +<p>This was evidently Turner's record of a quiet evening by the shore of +Ulleswater, but it was a feeble one. He could not at that time render +the sunset colors: he went back to it therefore in the England series, +and painted it again with his new power. The same hills are there, the +same shadows,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> the same cows,—they had stood in his mind, on the same +spot, for twenty years,—the same boat, the same rocks, only the copse +is cut away—it interfered with the masses of his color: some figures +are introduced bathing, and what was grey, and feeble gold in the first +drawing, becomes purple, and burning rose-color in the last.</p> + +<p>But perhaps one of the most curious examples is in the series of +subjects from Winchelsea. That in the Liber Studiorum, "Winchelsea, +Sussex," bears date 1812, and its figures consist of a soldier speaking +to a woman, who is resting on the bank beside the road. There is another +small subject, with Winchelsea in the distance, of which the engraving +bears date 1817. It has <i>two</i> women with bundles, and <i>two</i> soldiers +toiling along the embankment in the plain, and a baggage waggon in the +distance. Neither of these seems to have satisfied him, and at last he +did another for the England series, of which the engraving bears date +1830. There is now a regiment on the march; the baggage waggon is there, +having got no further on in the thirteen years, but one of the women is +tired, and has fainted on the bank; another is supporting her against +her bundle, and giving her drink; a third sympathetic woman is added, +and the two soldiers have stopped, and one is drinking from his canteen.</p> + +<p>Nor is it merely of entire scenes, or of particular incidents, that +Turner's memory is thus tenacious. The slightest passages of color or +arrangement that have pleased him—the fork of a bough, the casting of a +shadow, the fracture of a stone—will be taken up again and again, and +strangely worked into new relations with other thoughts. There is a +single sketch from nature in one of the portfolios at Farnley, of a +common wood-walk on the estate, which has furnished passages to no fewer +than three of the most elaborate compositions in the Liber Studiorum.</p> + +<p>I am thus tedious in dwelling on Turner's powers of memory, because I +wish it to be thoroughly seen how all his greatness, all his infinite +luxuriance of invention, depends on his taking possession of everything +that he sees,—on his grasping all, and losing hold of nothing,—on his +forgetting himself, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> forgetting nothing else. I wish it to be +understood how every great man paints what he sees or did see, his +greatness being indeed little else than his intense sense of fact. And +thus Pre-Raphaelitism and Raphaelitism, and Turnerism, are all one and +the same, so far as education can influence them. They are different in +their choice, different in their faculties, but all the same in this, +that Raphael himself, so far as he was great, and all who preceded or +followed him who ever were great, became so by painting the truths +around them as they appeared to each man's own mind, not as he had been +taught to see them, except by the God who made both him and them.</p> + +<p>There is, however, one more characteristic of Turner's second period, on +which I have still to dwell, especially with reference to what has been +above advanced respecting the fallacy of overtoil; namely, the +magnificent ease with which all is done when it is <i>successfully</i> done. +For there are one or two drawings of this time which are <i>not</i> done +easily. Turner had in these set himself to do a fine thing to exhibit +his powers; in the common phrase, to excel himself; so sure as he does +this, the work is a failure. The worst drawings that have ever come from +his hands are some of this second period, on which he has spent much +time and laborious thought; drawings filled with incident from one side +to the other, with skies stippled into morbid blue, and warm lights set +against them in violent contrast; one of Bamborough Castle, a large +water-color, may be named as an example. But the truly noble works are +those in which, without effort, he has expressed his thoughts as they +came, and forgotten himself; and in these the outpouring of invention is +not less miraculous than the swiftness and obedience of the mighty hand +that expresses it. Any one who examines the drawings may see the +evidence of this facility, in the strange freshness and sharpness of +every touch of color; but when the multitude of delicate touches, with +which all the aërial tones are worked, is taken into consideration, it +would still appear impossible that the drawing could have been completed +with <i>ease</i>, unless we had direct evidence in the matter: fortunately, +it is not wanting. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> is a drawing in Mr. Fawkes's collection of a +man-of-war taking in stores: it is of the usual size of those of the +England series, about sixteen inches by eleven: it does not appear one +of the most highly finished, but is still farther removed from +slightness. The hull of a first-rate occupies nearly one-half of the +picture on the right, her bows towards the spectator, seen in sharp +perspective from stem to stern, with all her portholes, guns, anchors, +and lower rigging elaborately detailed; there are two other ships of the +line in the middle distance, drawn with equal precision; a noble breezy +sea dancing against their broad bows, full of delicate drawing in its +waves; a store-ship beneath the hull of the larger vessel, and several +other boats, and a complicated cloudy sky. It might appear no small +exertion of mind to draw the detail of all this shipping down to the +smallest ropes, from memory, in the drawing-room of a mansion in the +middle of Yorkshire, even if considerable time had been given for the +effort. But Mr. Fawkes sat beside the painter from the first stroke to +the last. Turner took a piece of blank paper one morning after +breakfast, outlined his ships, finished the drawing in three hours, and +went out to shoot.</p> + +<p>Let this single fact be quietly meditated upon by our ordinary painters, +and they will see the truth of what was above asserted,—that if a great +thing can be done at all, it can be done easily; and let them not +torment themselves with twisting of compositions this way and that, and +repeating, and experimenting, and scene-shifting. If a man can compose +at all, he can compose at once, or rather he must compose in spite of +himself. And this is the reason of that silence which I have kept in +most of my works, on the subject of Composition. Many critics, +especially the architects, have found fault with me for not "teaching +people how to arrange masses;" for not "attributing sufficient +importance to composition." Alas! I attribute far more importance to it +than they do;—so much importance, that I should just as soon think of +sitting down to teach a man how to write a Divina Commedia, or King +Lear, as how to "compose," in the true sense, a single building or +picture. The marvellous stupidity of this age<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> of lecturers is, that +they do not see that what they call "principles of composition," are +mere principles of common sense in everything, as well as in pictures +and buildings;—A picture is to have a principal light? Yes; and so a +dinner is to have a principal dish, and an oration a principal point, +and an air of music a principal note, and every man a principal object. +A picture is to have harmony of relation among its parts? Yes; and so is +a speech well uttered, and an action well ordered, and a company well +chosen, and a ragout well mixed. Composition! As if a man were not +composing every moment of his life, well or ill, and would not do it +instinctively in his picture as well as elsewhere, if he could. +Composition of this lower or common kind is of exactly the same +importance in a picture that it is in any thing else,—no more. It is +well that a man should say what he has to say in good order and +sequence, but the main thing is to say it truly. And yet we go on +preaching to our pupils as if to have a principal light was every thing, +and so cover our academy walls with Shacabac feasts, wherein the courses +are indeed well ordered, but the dishes empty.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, only in invention that men over-work themselves, but +in execution also; and here I have a word to say to the Pre-Raphaelites +specially. They are working too hard. There is evidence in failing +portions of their pictures, showing that they have wrought so long upon +them that their very sight has failed for weariness, and that the hand +refused any more to obey the heart. And, besides this, there are certain +qualities of drawing which they miss from over-carefulness. For, let +them be assured, there is a great truth lurking in that common desire of +men to see things done in what they call a "masterly," or "bold," or +"broad," manner: a truth oppressed and abused, like almost every other +in this world, but an eternal one nevertheless; and whatever mischief +may have followed from men's looking for nothing else but this facility +of execution, and supposing that a picture was assuredly all right if +only it were done with broad dashes of the brush, still the truth +remains the same:—that because it is not intended that men shall +torment or weary themselves with any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> earthly labor, it is appointed +that the noblest results should only be attainable by a certain ease and +decision of manipulation. I only wish people understood this much of +sculpture, as well as of painting, and could see that the finely +finished statue is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a far more +vulgar work than that which shows rough signs of the right hand laid to +the workman's hammer: but at all events, in painting it is felt by all +men, and justly felt. The freedom of the lines of nature can only be +represented by a similar freedom in the hand that follows them; there +are curves in the flow of the hair, and in the form of the features, and +in the muscular outline of the body, which can in no wise be caught but +by a sympathetic freedom in the stroke of the pencil. I do not care what +example is taken, be it the most subtle and careful work of Leonardo +himself, there will be found a play and power and ease in the outlines, +which no <i>slow</i> effort could ever imitate. And if the Pre-Raphaelites do +not understand how this kind of power, in its highest perfection, may be +united with the most severe rendering of all other orders of truth, and +especially of those with which they themselves have most sympathy, let +them look at the drawings of John Lewis.</p> + +<p>These then are the principal lessons which we have to learn from Turner, +in his second or central period of labor. There is one more, however, to +be received; and that is a warning; for towards the close of it, what +with doing small conventional vignettes for publishers, making showy +drawings from sketches taken by other people of places he had never +seen, and touching up the bad engravings from his works submitted to him +almost every day,—engravings utterly destitute of animation, and which +had to be raised into a specious brilliancy by scratching them over with +white, spotty lights, he gradually got inured to many conventionalities, +and even falsities; and, having trusted for ten or twelve years almost +entirely to his memory and invention, living I believe mostly in London, +and receiving a new sensation only from the burning of the Houses of +Parliament, he painted many pictures between 1830 and 1840 altogether +unworthy of him. But he was not thus to close his career.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the summer either of 1840 or 1841, he undertook another journey into +Switzerland. It was then at least forty years since he had first seen +the Alps; (the source of the Arveron, in Mr. Fawkes's collection, which +could not have been painted till he had seen the thing itself, bears +date 1800,) and the direction of his journey in 1840 marks his fond +memory of that earliest one; for, if we look over the Swiss studies and +drawings executed in his first period, we shall be struck with his +fondness for the pass of the St. Gothard; the most elaborate drawing in +the Farnley collection is one of the Lake of Lucerne from Fluelen; and, +counting the Liber Studiorum subjects, there are, to my knowledge, six +compositions taken at the same period from the pass of St. Gothard, and, +probably, several others are in existence. The valleys of Sallenche, and +Chamouni, and Lake of Geneva, are the only other Swiss scenes which seem +to have made very profound impressions on him.</p> + +<p>He returned in 1841 to Lucerne; walked up Mont Pilate on foot, crossed +the St. Gothard, and returned by Lausanne and Geneva. He made a large +number of colored sketches on this journey, and realised several of them +on his return. The drawings thus produced are different from all that +had preceded them, and are the first which belong definitely to what I +shall henceforth call his Third period.</p> + +<p>The perfect repose of his youth had returned to his mind, while the +faculties of imagination and execution appeared in renewed strength; all +conventionality being done away with by the force of the impression +which he had received from the Alps, after his long separation from +them. The drawings are marked by a peculiar largeness and simplicity of +thought: most of them by deep serenity, passing into melancholy; all by +a richness of color, such as he had never before conceived. They, and +the works done in following years, bear the same relation to those of +the rest of his life that the colors of sunset do to those of the day; +and will be recognised, in a few years more, as the noblest landscapes +ever yet conceived by human intellect.</p> + +<p>Such has been the career of the greatest painter of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> century. Many +a century may pass away before there rises such another; but what +greatness any among us may be capable of, will, at least, be best +attained by following in his path; by beginning in all quietness and +hopefulness to use whatever powers we may possess to represent the +things around us as we see and feel them; trusting to the close of life +to give the perfect crown to the course of its labors, and knowing +assuredly that the determination of the degree in which watchfulness is +to be exalted into invention, rests with a higher will than our own. +And, if not greatness, at least a certain good, is thus to be achieved; +for though I have above spoken of the mission of the more humble artist, +as if it were merely to be subservient to that of the antiquarian or the +man of science, there is an ulterior aspect in which it is not +subservient, but superior. Every archæologist, every natural +philosopher, knows that there is a peculiar rigidity of mind brought on +by long devotion to logical and analytical inquiries. Weak men, giving +themselves to such studies, are utterly hardened by them, and become +incapable of understanding anything nobler, or even of feeling the value +of the results to which they lead. But even the best men are in a sort +injured by them, and pay a definite price, as in most other matters, for +definite advantages. They gain a peculiar strength, but lose in +tenderness, elasticity, and impressibility. The man who has gone, hammer +in hand, over the surface of a romantic country, feels no longer, in the +mountain ranges he has so laboriously explored, the sublimity or mystery +with which they were veiled when he first beheld them, and with which +they are adorned in the mind of the passing traveller. In his more +informed conception, they arrange themselves like a dissected model: +where another man would be awe-struck by the magnificence of the +precipice, he sees nothing but the emergence of a fossiliferous rock, +familiarised already to his imagination as extending in a shallow +stratum, over a perhaps uninteresting district; where the unlearned +spectator would be touched with strong emotion by the aspect of the +snowy summits which rise in the distance, he sees only the culminating +points of a metamorphic formation, with an uncomfortable web of +fan-like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> fissures radiating, in his imagination, through their +centres<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>. That in the grasp he has obtained of the inner relations +of all these things to the universe, and to man, that in the views which +have been opened to him of natural energies such as no human mind would +have ventured to conceive, and of past states of being, each in some new +way bearing witness to the unity of purpose and everlastingly consistent +providence of the Maker of all things, he has received reward well +worthy the sacrifice, I would not for an instant deny; but the sense of +the loss is not less painful to him if his mind be rightly constituted; +and it would be with infinite gratitude that he would regard the man, +who, retaining in his delineation of natural scenery a fidelity to the +facts of science so rigid as to make his work at once acceptable and +credible to the most sternly critical intellect, should yet invest its +features again with the sweet veil of their daily aspect; should make +them dazzling with the splendor of wandering light, and involve them in +the unsearchableness of stormy obscurity; should restore to the divided +anatomy its visible vitality of operation, clothe naked crags with soft +forests, enrich the mountain ruins with bright pastures, and lead the +thoughts from the monotonous recurrence of the phenomena of the physical +world, to the sweet interests and sorrows of human life and death.</p> + + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> It was not a little curious, that in the very number of +the Art Union which repeated this direct falsehood about the +Pre-Raphaelite rejection of "linear perspective" (by-the-bye, the next +time J. B. takes upon him to speak of any one connected with the +Universities, he may as well first ascertain the difference between a +Graduate and an Under-Graduate), the second plate given should have been +of a picture of Bonington's,—a professional landscape painter, +observe,—for the want of <i>aërial</i> perspective in which the Art Union +itself was obliged to apologise, and in which the artist has committed +nearly as many blunders in <i>linear</i> perspective as there are lines in +the picture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> These false statements may be reduced to three principal +heads, and directly contradicted in succession. +</p><p> +The first, the current fallacy of society as well as of the press, was, +that the Pre-Raphaelites imitated the <i>errors</i> of early painters. +</p><p> +A falsehood of this kind could not have obtained credence anywhere but +in England, few English people, comparatively, having ever seen a +picture of early Italian Masters. If they had, they would have known +that the Pre-Raphaelite pictures are just as superior to the early +Italian in skill of manipulation, power of drawing, and knowledge of +effect, as inferior to them in grace of design; and that in a word, +there is not a shadow of resemblance between the two styles. The +Pre-Raphaelites imitate no pictures: they paint from nature only. But +they have opposed themselves as a body to that kind of teaching above +described, which only began after Raphael's time: and they have opposed +themselves as sternly to the entire feeling of the Renaissance schools; +a feeling compounded of indolence, infidelity, sensuality, and shallow +pride. Therefore they have called themselves Pre-Raphaelites. If they +adhere to their principles, and paint nature as it is around them, with +the help of modern science, with the earnestness of the men of the +thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they will, as I said, found a new +and noble school in England. If their sympathies with the early artists +lead them into mediævalism or Romanism, they will of course come to +nothing. But I believe there is no danger of this, at least for the +strongest among them. There may be some weak ones, whom the Tractarian +heresies may touch; but if so, they will drop off like decayed branches +from a strong stem. I hope all things from the school. +</p><p> +The second falsehood was, that the Pre-Raphaelites did not draw well. +This was asserted, and could have been asserted only by persons who had +never looked at the pictures. +</p><p> +The third falsehood was, that they had no system of light and shade. To +which it may be simply replied that their system of light and shade is +exactly the same as the Sun's; which is, I believe, likely to outlast +that of the Renaissance, however brilliant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> He did not use his full signature, J. M. W., until about +the year 1800.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> I shall give a <i>catalogue raisonnée</i> of all this in the +third volume of "Modern Painters."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> The plate was, however, never published.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> And the more probably because Turner was never fond of +staying long at any place, and was least of all likely to make a pause +of two or three days at the beginning of his journey.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> Vide Modern Painters, Part II. Sect. III. Chap. IV. § +14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> This state of mind appears to have been the only one +which Wordsworth had been able to discern in men of science; and in +disdain of which, he wrote that short-sighted passage in the Excursion, +Book III. l. 165-190, which is, I think, the only one in the whole range +of his works which his true friends would have desired to see blotted +out. What else has been found fault with as feeble or superfluous, is +not so in the intense distinctive relief which it gives to his +character. But these lines are written in mere ignorance of the matter +they treat; in mere want of sympathy with the men they describe; for, +observe, though the passage is put into the mouth of the Solitary, it is +fully confirmed, and even rendered more scornful, by the speech which +follows.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> +<h2>ARATRA PENTELICI</h2> + +<h3>SIX LECTURES</h3> + +<h4>ON THE ELEMENTS OF</h4> + +<h3>SCULPTURE</h3> + +<h4>GIVEN BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN MICHAELMAS TERM, 1870</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>I must pray the readers of the following Lectures to remember that the +duty at present laid on me at Oxford is of an exceptionally complex +character. Directly, it is to awaken the interest of my pupils in a +study which they have hitherto found unattractive, and imagined to be +useless; but more imperatively, it is to define the principles by which +the study itself should be guided; and to vindicate their security +against the doubts with which frequent discussion has lately encumbered +a subject which all think themselves competent to discuss. The +possibility of such vindication is, of course, implied in the original +consent of the universities to the establishment of Art Professorships. +Nothing can be made an element of education of which it is impossible to +determine whether it is ill done or well; and the clear assertion that +there is a canon law in formative Art is, at this time, a more important +function of each University than the instruction of its younger members +in any branch of practical skill. It matters comparatively little +whether few or many of our students learn to draw; but it matters much +that all who learn should be taught with accuracy. And the number who +may be justifiably advised to give any part of the time they spend at +college to the study of painting or sculpture ought to depend, and +finally <i>must</i> depend, on their being certified that painting and +sculpture, no less than language or than reasoning, have grammar and +method,—that they permit a recognizable distinction between scholarship +and ignorance, and enforce a constant distinction between Right and +Wrong.</p> + +<p>This opening course of Lectures on Sculpture is therefore restricted to +the statement, not only of first principles, but of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> those which were +illustrated by the practice of one school, and by that practice in its +simplest branch, the analysis of which could be certified by easily +accessible examples, and aided by the indisputable evidence of +photography.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> + +<p>The exclusion of the terminal Lecture of the course from the series now +published, is in order to mark more definitely this limitation of my +subject; but in other respects the Lectures have been amplified in +arranging them for the press, and the portions of them trusted at the +time to extempore delivery, (not through indolence, but because +explanations of detail are always most intelligible when most familiar,) +have been in substance to the best of my power set down, and in what I +said too imperfectly, completed.</p> + +<p>In one essential particular I have felt it necessary to write what I +would not have spoken. I had intended to make no reference, in my +University Lectures, to existing schools of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> Art, except in cases where +it might be necessary to point out some undervalued excellence. The +objects specified in the eleventh paragraph of my inaugural Lecture, +might, I hoped, have been accomplished without reference to any works +deserving of blame; but the Exhibition of the Royal Academy in the +present year showed me a necessity of departing from my original +intention. The task of impartial criticism<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> is now, unhappily, no +longer to rescue modest skill from neglect; but to withstand the errors +of insolent genius, and abate the influence of plausible mediocrity.</p> + +<p>The Exhibition of 1871 was very notable in this important particular, +that it embraced some representation of the modern schools of nearly +every country in Europe; and I am well assured that looking back upon it +after the excitement of that singular interest has passed away, every +thoughtful judge of Art will confirm my assertion, that it contained not +a single picture of accomplished merit; while it contained many that +were disgraceful to Art, and some that were disgraceful to humanity.</p> + +<p>It becomes, under such circumstances, my inevitable duty to speak of the +existing conditions of Art with plainness enough to guard the youths +whose judgments I am entrusted to form, from being misled, either by +their own naturally vivid interest in what represents, however +unworthily, the scenes and persons of their own day, or by the cunningly +devised, and, without doubt, powerful allurements of Art which has long +since confessed itself to have no other object than to allure. I have, +therefore, added to the second of these Lectures such illustration of +the motives and course of modern industry as naturally arose out of its +subject, and shall continue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> in future to make similar applications; +rarely, indeed, permitting myself, in the Lectures actually read before +the University, to introduce subjects of instant, and therefore too +exciting, interest; but completing the addresses which I prepare for +publication in these, and in any other particulars which may render them +more widely serviceable.</p> + +<p>The present course of Lectures will be followed, if I am able to fulfil +the design of them, by one of a like elementary character on +Architecture; and that by a third series on Christian Sculpture: but, in +the meantime, my effort is to direct the attention of the resident +students to Natural History, and to the higher branches of ideal +Landscape: and it will be, I trust, accepted as sufficient reason for +the delay which has occurred in preparing the following sheets for the +press, that I have not only been interrupted by a dangerous illness, but +engaged, in what remained to me of the summer, in an endeavour to +deduce, from the overwhelming complexity of modern classification in the +Natural Sciences, some forms capable of easier reference by Art +students, to whom the anatomy of brutal and floral nature is often no +less important than that of the human body.</p> + +<p>The preparation of examples for manual practice, and the arrangement of +standards for reference, both in Painting and Sculpture, had to be +carried on meanwhile, as I was able. For what has already been done, the +reader is referred to the <i>Catalogue of the Educational Series</i>, +published at the end of the Spring Term; of what remains to be done I +will make no anticipatory statement, being content to have ascribed to +me rather the fault of narrowness in design, than of extravagance in +expectation.</p> + + +<p class="right">Denmark Hill,<br /> + +<i>25th November, 1871.</i></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Photography cannot exhibit the character of large and +finished sculpture; but its audacity of shadow is in perfect harmony +with the more roughly picturesque treatment necessary in coins. For the +rendering of all such frank relief, and for the better explanation of +forms disturbed by the lustre of metal or polished stone, the method +employed in the plates of this volume will be found, I believe, +satisfactory. Casts are first taken from the coins, in white plaster; +these are photographed, and the photograph printed by the heliotype +process of Messrs. Edwards and Kidd. Plate XII. is exceptional, being a +pure mezzotint engraving of the old school, excellently carried through +by my assistant, Mr. Allen, who was taught, as a personal favour to +myself, by my friend, and Turner's fellow-worker, Thomas Lupton. Plate +IV. was intended to be a photograph from the superb vase in the British +Museum, No. 564 in Mr. Newton's Catalogue; but its variety of colour +defied photography, and after the sheets had gone to press I was +compelled to reduce Le Normand's plate of it, which is unsatisfactory, +but answers my immediate purpose. +</p><p> +The enlarged photographs for use in the Lecture Room were made for me +with most successful skill by Sergeant Spackman, of South Kensington; +and the help throughout rendered to me by Mr. Burgess is acknowledged in +the course of the Lectures; though with thanks which must remain +inadequate lest they should become tedious; for Mr. Burgess drew the +subjects of Plates III., X., and XIII.; drew and engraved every woodcut +in the book; and printed all the plates with his own hand.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> A pamphlet by the Earl of Southesk, "<i>Britain's Art +Paradise</i>," (Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh) contains an entirely +admirable criticism of the most faultful pictures of the 1871 +Exhibition. It is to be regretted that Lord Southesk speaks only to +condemn; but indeed, in my own three days' review of the rooms, I found +nothing deserving of notice otherwise, except Mr. Hook's always pleasant +sketches from fisher life, and Mr. Pettie's graceful and powerful, +though too slightly painted, study from <i>Henry VI</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ARATRA PENTELICI.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE I.</h2> + +<h3>OF THE DIVISION OF ARTS.</h3> + +<h4><i>November, 1870.</i></h4> + + +<p>1. If, as is commonly believed, the subject of study which it is my +special function to bring before you had no relation to the great +interests of mankind, I should have less courage in asking for your +attention to-day, than when I first addressed you; though, even then, I +did not do so without painful diffidence. For at this moment, even +supposing that in other places it were possible for men to pursue their +ordinary avocations undisturbed by indignation or pity; here, at least, +in the midst of the deliberative and religious influences of England, +only one subject, I am well assured, can seriously occupy your +thoughts—the necessity, namely, of determining how it has come to pass, +that in these recent days, iniquity the most reckless and monstrous can +be committed unanimously, by men more generous than ever yet in the +world's history were deceived into deeds of cruelty; and that prolonged +agony of body and spirit, such as we should shrink from inflicting +wilfully on a single criminal, has become the appointed and accepted +portion of unnumbered multitudes of innocent persons, inhabiting the +districts of the world which, of all others, as it seemed, were best +instructed in the laws of civilization, and most richly invested with +the honour, and indulged in the felicity, of peace.</p> + +<p>Believe me, however, the subject of Art—instead of being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> foreign to +these deep questions of social duty and peril,—is so vitally connected +with them, that it would be impossible for me now to pursue the line of +thought in which I began these lectures, because so ghastly an emphasis +would be given to every sentence by the force of passing events. It is +well, then, that in the plan I have laid down for your study, we shall +now be led into the examination of technical details, or abstract +conditions of sentiment; so that the hours you spend with me may be +times of repose from heavier thoughts. But it chances strangely that, in +this course of minutely detailed study, I have first to set before you +the most essential piece of human workmanship, the plough, at the very +moment when—(you may see the announcement in the journals either of +yesterday or the day before)—the swords of your soldiers have been sent +for <i>to be sharpened</i>, and not at all to be beaten into ploughshares. I +permit myself, therefore, to remind you of the watchword of all my +earnest writings—"Soldiers of the Ploughshare, instead of Soldiers of +the Sword"—and I know it my duty to assert to you that the work we +enter upon to-day is no trivial one, but full of solemn hope; the hope, +namely, that among you there may be found men wise enough to lead the +national passions towards the arts of peace, instead of the arts of war.</p> + +<p>I say the work "we enter upon," because the first four lectures I gave +in the spring were wholly prefatory; and the following three only +defined for you methods of practice. To-day we begin the systematic +analysis and progressive study of our subject.</p> + +<p>2. In general, the three great, or fine, Arts of Painting, Sculpture, +and Architecture, are thought of as distinct from the lower and more +mechanical formative arts, such as carpentry or pottery. But we cannot, +either verbally, or with any practical advantage, admit such +classification. How are we to distinguish painting on canvas from +painting on china?—or painting on china from painting on glass?—or +painting on glass from infusion of colour into any vitreous substance, +such as enamel?—or the infusion of colour into glass and enamel from +the infusion of colour into wool or silk, and weaving of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> pictures in +tapestry, or patterns in dress? You will find that although, in +ultimately accurate use of the word, painting must be held to mean only +the laying of a pigment on a surface with a soft instrument; yet, in +broad comparison of the functions of Art, we must conceive of one and +the same great artistic faculty, as governing <i>every mode of disposing +colours in a permanent relation on, or in, a solid substance</i>; whether +it be by tinting canvas, or dyeing stuffs; inlaying metals with fused +flint, or coating walls with coloured stone.</p> + +<p>3. Similarly the word "Sculpture,"—though in ultimate accuracy it is to +be limited to the development of form in hard substances by cutting away +portions of their mass—in broad definition, must be held to signify +<i>the reduction of any shapeless mass of solid matter into an intended +shape</i>, whatever the consistence of the substance, or nature of the +instrument employed; whether we carve a granite mountain, or a piece of +box-wood, and whether we use, for our forming instrument axe, or hammer, +or chisel, or our own hands, or water to soften, or fire to +fuse;—whenever and however we bring a shapeless thing into shape, we do +so under the laws of the one great Art of Sculpture.</p> + +<p>4. Having thus broadly defined painting and sculpture, we shall see that +there is, in the third place, a class of work separated from both, in a +specific manner, and including a great group of arts which neither, of +necessity, <i>tint</i>, nor for the sake of form merely, <i>shape</i>, the +substances they deal with; but construct or arrange them with a view to +the resistance of some external force. We construct, for instance, a +table with a flat top, and some support of prop, or leg, proportioned in +strength to such weights as the table is intended to carry. We construct +a ship out of planks, or plates of iron, with reference to certain +forces of impact to be sustained, and of inertia to be overcome; or we +construct a wall or roof with distinct reference to forces of pressure +and oscillation, to be sustained or guarded against; and therefore, in +every case, with especial consideration of the strength of our +materials, and the nature of that strength, elastic, tenacious, brittle, +and the like.</p> + +<p>Now although this group of arts nearly always involves the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> putting of +two or more separate pieces together, we must not define it by that +accident. The blade of an oar is not less formed with reference to +external force than if it were made of many pieces; and the frame of a +boat, whether hollowed out of a tree-trunk, or constructed of planks +nailed together, is essentially the same piece of art; to be judged by +its buoyancy and capacity of progression. Still, from the most wonderful +piece of all architecture, the human skeleton, to this simple one,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> +the ploughshare, on which it depends for its subsistence, <i>the putting +of two or more pieces together</i> is curiously necessary to the +perfectness of every fine instrument; and the peculiar mechanical work +of Dædalus,—inlaying,—becomes all the more delightful to us in +external aspect, because, as in the jawbone of a Saurian, or the wood of +a bow, it is essential to the finest capacities of tension and +resistance.</p> + +<p>5. And observe how unbroken the ascent from this, the simplest +architecture, to the loftiest. The placing of the timbers in a ship's +stem, and the laying of the stones in a bridge buttress, are similar in +art to the construction of the ploughshare, differing in no essential +point, either in that they deal with other materials, or because, of the +three things produced, one has to divide earth by advancing through it, +another to divide water by advancing through it, and the third to divide +water which advances against it. And again, the buttress of a bridge +differs only from that of a cathedral in having less weight to sustain, +and more to resist. We can find no term in the gradation, from the +ploughshare to the cathedral buttress, at which we can set a logical +distinction.</p> + +<p>6. Thus then we have simply three divisions of Art—one, that of giving +colours to substance; another, that of giving form to it without +question of resistance to force; and the third, that of giving form or +position which will make it capable of such resistance. All the fine +arts are embraced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> under these three divisions. Do not think that it is +only a logical or scientific affectation to mass them together in this +manner; it is, on the contrary, of the first practical importance to +understand that the painter's faculty, or masterhood over colour, being +as subtle as a musician's over sound, must be looked to for the +government of every operation in which colour is employed; and that, in +the same manner, the appliance of any art whatsoever to minor objects +cannot be right, unless under the direction of a true master of that +art. Under the present system, you keep your Academician occupied only +in producing tinted pieces of canvas to be shown in frames, and smooth +pieces of marble to be placed in niches; while you expect your builder +or constructor to design coloured patterns in stone and brick, and your +china-ware merchant to keep a separate body of workwomen who can paint +china, but nothing else. By this division of labour, you ruin all the +arts at once. The work of the Academician becomes mean and effeminate, +because he is not used to treat colour on a grand scale and in rough +materials; and your manufactures become base because no well educated +person sets hand to them. And therefore it is necessary to understand, +not merely as a logical statement, but as a practical necessity, that +wherever beautiful colour is to be arranged, you need a Master of +Painting; and wherever noble form is to be given, a Master of Sculpture; +and wherever complex mechanical force is to be resisted, a Master of +Architecture.</p> + +<p>7. But over this triple division there must rule another yet more +important. Any of these three arts may be either imitative of natural +objects or limited to useful appliance. You may either paint a picture +that represents a scene, or your street door, to keep it from rotting; +you may mould a statue, or a plate; build the resemblance of a cluster +of lotus stalks, or only a square pier. Generally speaking, Painting and +Sculpture will be imitative, and Architecture merely useful; but there +is a great deal of Sculpture—as this crystal ball<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> for instance, +which is not imitative, and a great deal of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> Architecture which, to some +extent is so, as the so called foils of Gothic apertures; and for many +other reasons you will find it necessary to keep distinction clear in +your minds between the arts—of whatever kind—which are imitative, and +produce a resemblance or image of something which is not present; and +those which are limited to the production of some useful reality, as the +blade of a knife, or the wall of a house. You will perceive also, as we +advance, that sculpture and painting are indeed in this respect only one +art; and that we shall have constantly to speak and think of them as +simply <i>graphic</i>, whether with chisel or colour, their principal +function being to make us, in the words of Aristotle, "θεωρητικοι του περι τα σωματα καλλους" (Polit. 8, 3.), "having +capacity and habit of contemplation of the beauty that is in material +things;" while Architecture, and its co-relative arts, are to be +practised under quite other conditions of sentiment.</p> + +<p>8. Now it is obvious that so far as the fine arts consist either in +imitation or mechanical construction, the right judgment of them must +depend on our knowledge of the things they imitate, and forces they +resist: and my function of teaching here would (for instance) so far +resolve itself, either into demonstration that this painting of a +peach,<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> does resemble a peach, or explanation of the way in which +this ploughshare (for instance) is shaped so as to throw the earth aside +with least force of thrust. And in both of these methods of study, +though of course your own diligence must be your chief master, to a +certain extent your Professor of Art can always guide you securely, and +can show you, either that the image does truly resemble what it attempts +to resemble, or that the structure is rightly prepared for the service +it has to perform. But there is yet another virtue of fine art which is, +perhaps, exactly that about which you will expect your Professor to +teach you most, and which, on the contrary, is exactly that about which +you must teach yourselves all that it is essential to learn.</p> + +<p>9. I have here in my hand one of the simplest possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> examples of the +union of the graphic and constructive powers,—one of my breakfast +plates. Since all the finely architectural arts, we said, began in the +shaping of the cup and the platter, we will begin, ourselves, with the +platter.</p> + +<p>Why has it been made round? For two structural reasons: first, that the +greatest holding surface may be gathered into the smallest space; and +secondly, that in being pushed past other things on the table, it may +come into least contact with them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 381px;"> +<img src="images/fig1.jpg" width="381" height="450" alt="Fig. 1." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 1.</span> +</div> + +<p>Next, why has it a rim? For two other structural reasons; first, that it +is convenient to put salt or mustard upon; but secondly and chiefly, +that the plate may be easily laid hold of. The rim is the simplest form +of continuous handle.</p> + +<p>Farther, to keep it from soiling the cloth, it will be wise to put this +ridge beneath, round the bottom; for as the rim is the simplest possible +form of continuous handle, so this is the simplest form of continuous +leg. And we get the section given beneath the figure for the essential +one of a rightly made platter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>10. Thus far our art has been strictly utilitarian having respect to +conditions of collision, of carriage, and of support. But now, on the +surface of our piece of pottery, here are various bands and spots of +colour which are presumably set there to make it pleasanter to the eye. +Six of the spots, seen closely, you discover are intended to represent +flowers. These then have as distinctly a graphic purpose as the other +properties of the plate have an architectural one, and the first +critical question we have to ask about them is, whether they are like +roses or not. I will anticipate what I have to say in subsequent +lectures so far as to assure you that, if they are to be like roses at +all, the liker they can be, the better. Do not suppose, as many people +will tell you, that because this is a common manufactured article, your +roses on it are the better for being ill-painted, or half-painted. If +they had been painted by the same hand that did this peach, the plate +would have been all the better for it; but, as it chanced, there was no +hand such as William Hunt's to paint them, and their graphic power is +not distinguished. In any case, however, that graphic power must have +been subordinate to their effect as pink spots, while the band of +green-blue round the plate's edge, and the spots of gold, pretend to no +graphic power at all, but are meaningless spaces of colour or metal. +Still less have they any mechanical office: they add nowise to the +serviceableness of the plate; and their agreeableness, if they possess +any, depends, therefore, neither on any imitative, nor any structural, +character; but on some inherent pleasantness in themselves, either of +mere colours to the eye (as of taste to the tongue), or in the placing +of those colours in relations which obey some mental principle of order, +or physical principle of harmony.</p> + +<p>11. These abstract relations and inherent pleasantnesses, whether in +space, number, or time, and whether of colours or sounds, form what we +may properly term the musical or harmonic element in every art; and the +study of them is an entirely separate science. It is the branch of +art-philosophy to which the word "æsthetics" should be strictly limited, +being the inquiry into the nature of things that in themselves are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> +pleasant to the human senses or instincts, though they represent +nothing, and serve for nothing, their only service <i>being</i> their +pleasantness. Thus it is the province of æsthetics to tell you, (if you +did not know it before,) that the taste and colour of a peach are +pleasant, and to ascertain, if it be ascertainable, (and you have any +curiosity to know,) why they are so.</p> + +<p>12. The information would, I presume, to most of you, be gratuitous. If +it were not, and you chanced to be in a sick state of body in which you +disliked peaches, it would be, for the time, to you false information, +and, so far as it was true of other people, to you useless. Nearly the +whole study of æsthetics is in like manner either gratuitous or useless. +Either you like the right things without being recommended to do so, or +if you dislike them, your mind cannot be changed by lectures on the laws +of taste. You recollect the story of Thackeray, provoked, as he was +helping himself to strawberries, by a young coxcomb's telling him that +"he never took fruit or sweets." "That" replied, or is said to have +replied, Thackeray, "is because you are a sot, and a glutton." And the +whole science of æsthetics is, in the depth of it, expressed by one +passage of Goethe's in the end of the 2nd part of Faust;—the notable +one that follows the song of the Lemures, when the angels enter to +dispute with the fiends for the soul of Faust. They enter +singing—"Pardon to sinners and life to the dust." Mephistopheles hears +them first, and exclaims to his troop, "Discord I hear, and filthy +jingling"—"Mistöne höre ich; garstiges Geklimper." This, you see, is +the extreme of bad taste in music. Presently the angelic host begin +strewing roses, which discomfits the diabolic crowd altogether. +Mephistopheles in vain calls to them—"What do you duck and shrink +for—is that proper hellish behaviour? Stand fast, and let them +strew"—"Was duckt und zuckt ihr; ist das Hellen-brauch? So haltet +stand, und lasst sie streuen." There you have, also, the extreme of bad +taste in sight and smell. And in the whole passage is a brief embodiment +for you of the ultimate fact that all æsthetics depend on the health of +soul and body, and the proper exercise of both, not only through years, +but generations. Only by harmony of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> both collateral and successive +lives can the great doctrine of the Muses be received which enables men +"χαιρειν ορθως," "to have pleasures rightly;" and there is no +other definition of the beautiful, nor of any subject of delight to the +æsthetic faculty, than that it is what one noble spirit has created, +seen and felt by another of similar or equal nobility. So much as there +is in you of ox, or of swine, perceives no beauty, and creates none: +what is human in you, in exact proportion to the perfectness of its +humanity, can create it, and receive.</p> + +<p>13. Returning now to the very elementary form in which the appeal to our +æsthetic virtue is made in our breakfast-plate, you notice that there +are two distinct kinds of pleasantness attempted. One by hues of colour; +the other by proportions of space. I have called these the musical +elements of the arts relating to sight; and there are indeed two +complete sciences, one of the combinations of colour, and the other of +the combinations of line and form, which might each of them separately +engage us in as intricate study as that of the science of music. But of +the two, the science of colour is, in the Greek sense, the more musical, +being one of the divisions of the Apolline power; and it is so +practically educational, that if we are not using the faculty for colour +to discipline nations, they will infallibly use it themselves as a means +of corruption. Both music and colour are naturally influences of peace; +but in the war trumpet, and the war shield, in the battle song and +battle standard, they have concentrated by beautiful imagination the +cruel passions of men; and there is nothing in all the Divina Commedia +of history more grotesque, yet more frightful, than the fact that, from +the almost fabulous period when the insanity and impiety of war wrote +themselves in the symbols of the shields of the Seven against Thebes, +colours have been the sign and stimulus of the most furious and fatal +passions that have rent the nations: blue against green, in the decline +of the Roman Empire; black against white, in that of Florence; red +against white, in the wars of the Royal houses in England; and at this +moment, red against white, in the contest of anarchy and loyalty, in all +the world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> + +<p>14. On the other hand, the directly ethical influence of colour in the +sky, the trees, flowers, and coloured creatures round us, and in our own +various arts massed under the one name of painting, is so essential and +constant that we cease to recognize it, because we are never long enough +altogether deprived of it to feel our need; and the mental diseases +induced by the influence of corrupt colour are as little suspected, or +traced to their true source, as the bodily weaknesses resulting from +atmospheric miasmata.</p> + +<p>15. The second musical science which belongs peculiarly to sculpture +(and to painting, so far as it represents form), consists in the +disposition of beautiful masses. That is to say, beautiful surfaces +limited by beautiful lines. Beautiful <i>surfaces</i>, observe; and remember +what is noted in my fourth lecture of the difference between a space and +a mass. If you have at any time examined carefully, or practised from, +the drawings of shells placed in your copying series, you cannot but +have felt the difference in the grace between the aspects of the same +line, when enclosing a rounded or unrounded space. The exact science of +sculpture is that of the relations between outline and the solid form it +limits; and it does not matter whether that relation be indicated by +drawing or carving, so long as the expression of solid form is the +mental purpose; it is the science always of the beauty of relation in +three dimensions. To take the simplest possible line of continuous +limit—the circle: the flat disc enclosed by it may indeed be made an +element of decoration, though a very meagre one but its relative mass, +the ball, being gradated in three dimensions, is always delightful. +Here<a name="FNanchor_110_110" id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> is at once the simplest, and in mere patient mechanism, the +most skilful, piece of sculpture I can possibly show you,—a piece of +the purest rock-crystal, chiselled, (I believe, by mere toil of hand,) +into a perfect sphere. Imitating nothing, constructing nothing; +sculpture for sculpture's sake, of purest natural substance into +simplest primary form.</p> + +<p>16. Again. Out of the nacre of any mussel or oyster-shell you might cut, +at your pleasure, any quantity of small flat circular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> discs of the +prettiest colour and lustre. To some extent, such tinsel or foil of +shell <i>is</i> used pleasantly for decoration. But the mussel or oyster +becoming itself an unwilling modeller, agglutinates its juice into three +dimensions, and the fact of the surface being now geometrically +gradated, together with the savage instinct of attributing value to what +is difficult to obtain, make the little boss so precious in men's sight +that wise eagerness of search for the kingdom of heaven can be likened +to their eagerness of search for <i>it</i>; and the gates of Paradise can be +no otherwise rendered so fair to their poor intelligence, as by telling +them that every several gate was of "one pearl."</p> + +<p>17. But take note here. We have just seen that the sum of the perceptive +faculty is expressed in those words of Aristotle's "to take pleasure +rightly" or straightly—χαιρειν ορθως. Now, it is not +possible to do the direct opposite of that,—to take pleasure +iniquitously or obliquely—χαιρειν αδικως or +σκολιως—more than you do in enjoying a thing because your neighbour +cannot get it. You may enjoy a thing legitimately because it is rare, +and cannot be seen often, (as you do a fine aurora, or a sunset, or an +unusually lovely flower); that is Nature's way of stimulating your +attention. But if you enjoy it because your neighbour cannot have +it—and, remember, all value attached to pearls more than glass beads, +is merely and purely for that cause,—then you rejoice through the worst +of idolatries, covetousness; and neither arithmetic, nor writing, nor +any other so-called essential of education, is now so vitally necessary +to the population of Europe, as such acquaintance with the principles of +intrinsic value, as may result in the iconoclasm of jewellery; and in +the clear understanding that we are not in that instinct, civilized, but +yet remain wholly savage, so far as we care for display of this selfish +kind.</p> + +<p>You think, perhaps, I am quitting my subject, and proceeding, as it is +too often with appearance of justice alleged against me, into irrelevant +matter. Pardon me; the end, not only of these lectures, but of my whole +professorship, would be accomplished,—and far more than that,—if only +the English nation could be made to understand that the beauty which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> +indeed to be a joy for ever, must be a joy for all; and that though the +idolatry may not have been wholly divine which sculptured gods, the +idolatry is wholly diabolic, which, for vulgar display, sculptures +diamonds.</p> + +<p>18. To go back to the point under discussion. A pearl, or a glass bead, +may owe its pleasantness in some degree to its lustre as well as to its +roundness. But a mere and simple ball of unpolished stone is enough for +sculpturesque value. You may have noticed that the quatrefoil used in +the Ducal Palace of Venice owes its complete loveliness in distant +effect to the finishing of its cusps. The extremity of the cusp is a +mere ball of Istrian marble; and consider how subtle the faculty of +sight must be, since it recognizes at any distance, and is gratified by, +the mystery of the termination of cusp obtained by the gradated light on +the ball.</p> + +<p>In that Venetian tracery this simplest element of sculptured form is +used sparingly, as the most precious that can be employed to finish the +façade. But alike in our own, and the French, central Gothic, the +ball-flower is lavished on every line—and in your St. Mary's spire, and +the Salisbury spire, and the towers of Notre Dame of Paris, the rich +pleasantness of decoration,—indeed, their so-called "decorated +style,"—consists only in being daintily beset with stone balls. It is +true the balls are modified into dim likeness of flowers; but do you +trace the resemblance to the rose in their distant, which is their +intended effect?</p> + +<p>19. But farther, let the ball have motion; then the form it generates +will be that of a cylinder. You have, perhaps, thought that pure Early +English Architecture depended for its charm on visibility of +construction. It depends for its charm altogether on the abstract +harmony of groups of cylinders,<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> arbitrarily bent into mouldings, +and arbitrarily associated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> as shafts, having no <i>real</i> relation to +construction whatsoever, and a theoretical relation so subtle that none +of us had seen it, till Professor Willis worked it out for us.</p> + +<p>20. And now, proceeding to analysis of higher sculpture, you may have +observed the importance I have attached to the porch of San Zenone, at +Verona, by making it, among your standards, the first of the group which +is to illustrate the system of sculpture and architecture founded on +faith in a future life. That porch, fortunately represented in the +photograph, from which Plate I. has been engraved, under a clear and +pleasant light, furnishes you with examples of sculpture of every kind +from the flattest incised bas-relief to solid statues, both in marble +and bronze. And the two points I have been pressing upon you are +conclusively exhibited here, namely,—(1). That sculpture is essentially +the production of a pleasant bossiness or roundness of surface; (2) that +the pleasantness of that bossy condition to the eye is irrespective of +imitation on one side, and of structure on the other.</p> + +<p>21. (1.) Sculpture is essentially the production of a pleasant bossiness +or roundness of surface.</p> + +<p>If you look from some distance at these two engravings of Greek coins, +(place the book open so that you can see the opposite plate three or +four yards off,) you will find the relief on each of them simplifies +itself into a pearl-like portion of a sphere, with exquisitely gradated +light on its surface. When you look at them nearer, you will see that +each smaller portion into which they are divided—cheek, or brow, or +leaf, or tress of hair—resolves itself also into a rounded or +undulated surface, pleasant by gradation of light. Every several surface +is delightful in itself, as a shell, or a tuft of rounded moss, or the +bossy masses of distant forest would be. That these intricately +modulated masses present some resemblance to a girl's face, such as the +Syracusans imagined that of the water-goddess Arethusa, is entirely a +secondary matter; the primary condition is that the masses shall be +beautifully rounded, and disposed with due discretion and order.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 324px;"> +<img src="images/plate1.jpg" width="324" height="470" alt="Plate I.—Porch of San Zenone. Verona." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate I.—Porch of San Zenone. Verona.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>22. (2.) It is difficult for you, at first, to feel this order and +beauty of surface, apart from the imitation. But you can see there is a +pretty disposition of, and relation between, the projections of a +fir-cone, though the studded spiral imitates nothing. Order exactly the +same in kind, only much more complex; and an abstract beauty of surface +rendered definite by increase and decline of light—(for every curve of +surface has its own luminous law, and the light and shade on a parabolic +solid differs, specifically, from that on an elliptical or spherical +one)—it is the essential business of the sculptor to obtain; as it is +the essential business of a painter to get good colour, whether he +imitates anything or not. At a distance from the picture, or carving, +where the things represented become absolutely unintelligible, we must +yet be able to say, at a glance, "That is good painting, or good +carving."</p> + +<p>And you will be surprised to find, when you try the experiment, how much +the eye must instinctively judge in this manner. Take the front of San +Zenone for instance, Plate I. You will find it impossible without a +lens, to distinguish in the bronze gates, and in great part of the wall, +anything that their bosses represent. You cannot tell whether the +sculpture is of men, animals, or trees; only you feel it to be composed +of pleasant projecting masses; you acknowledge that both gates and wall +are, somehow, delightfully roughened; and only afterwards, by slow +degrees, can you make out what this roughness means; nay, though here +(Plate III.) I magnify<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> one of the bronze plates of the gate to a +scale, which gives you the same advantage as if you saw it quite close, +in the reality,—you may still be obliged to me for the information, +that <i>this</i> boss represents the Madonna asleep in her little bed, and +this smaller boss, the Infant Christ in His; and this at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> the top, a +cloud with an angel coming out of it, and these jagged bosses, two of +the Three Kings, with their crowns on, looking up to the star, (which is +intelligible enough I admit); but what this straggling, three-legged +boss beneath signifies, I suppose neither you nor I can tell, unless it +be the shepherd's dog, who has come suddenly upon the Kings with their +crowns on, and is greatly startled at them.</p> + +<p>23. Farther, and much more definitely, the pleasantness of the surface +decoration is independent of structure; that is to say, of any +architectural requirement of stability. The greater part of the +sculpture here is exclusively ornamentation of a flat wall, or of door +panelling; only a small portion of the church front is thus treated, and +the sculpture has no more to do with the form of the building than a +piece of a lace veil would have, suspended beside its gates on a festal +day; the proportions of shaft and arch might be altered in a hundred +different ways, without diminishing their stability; and the pillars +would stand more safely on the ground than on the backs of these carved +animals.</p> + +<p>24. I wish you especially to notice these points, because the false +theory that ornamentation should be merely decorated structure is so +pretty and plausible, that it is likely to take away your attention from +the far more important abstract conditions of design. Structure should +never be contradicted, and in the best buildings it is pleasantly +exhibited and enforced; in this very porch the joints of every stone are +visible, and you will find me in the Fifth Lecture insisting on this +clearness of its anatomy as a merit; yet so independent is the +mechanical structure of the true design, that when I begin my Lectures +on Architecture, the first building I shall give you as a standard will +be one in which the structure is wholly concealed. It will be the +Baptistry of Florence, which is, in reality, as much a buttressed chapel +with a vaulted roof, as the Chapter House of York—but round it, in +order to conceal that buttressed structure, (not to decorate, observe, +but to <i>conceal</i>) a flat external wall is raised; simplifying the whole +to a mere hexagonal box, like a wooden piece of Tunbridge ware, on the +surface of which the eye and intellect are to be interested by the +relations of dimension and curve between pieces of encrusting marble of +different colours, which have no more to do with the real make of the +building than the diaper of a Harlequin's jacket has to do with his +bones.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 286px;"> +<img src="images/plate2.jpg" width="286" height="500" alt="Plate II.—The Arethusa of Syracuse." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate II.—The Arethusa of Syracuse.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/plate3.jpg" width="500" height="373" alt="Plate III.—The Warning to the Kings. + +San Zenone. Verona." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate III.—The Warning to the Kings. + +San Zenone. Verona.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>25. The sense of abstract proportion, on which the enjoyment of such a +piece of art entirely depends, is one of the æsthetic faculties which +nothing can develop but time and education. It belongs only to +highly-trained nations; and, among them, to their most strictly refined +classes, though the germs of it are found, as part of their innate +power, in every people capable of art. It has for the most part vanished +at present from the English mind, in consequence of our eager desire for +excitement, and for the kind of splendour that exhibits wealth, careless +of dignity; so that, I suppose, there are very few now even of our +best-trained Londoners who know the difference between the design of +Whitehall and that of any modern club-house in Pall-mall. The order and +harmony which, in his enthusiastic account of the Theatre of Epidaurus, +Pausanias insists on before beauty, can only be recognized by stern +order and harmony in our daily lives; and the perception of them is as +little to be compelled, or taught suddenly, as the laws of still finer +choice in the conception of dramatic incident which regulate poetic +sculpture.</p> + +<p>26. And now, at last, I think, we can sketch out the subject before us +in a clear light. We have a structural art, divine, and human, of which +the investigation comes under the general term, Anatomy; whether the +junctions or joints be in mountains, or in branches of trees, or in +buildings, or in bones of animals. We have next a musical art, falling +into two distinct divisions—one using colours, the other masses, for +its elements of composition; lastly, we have an imitative art, concerned +with the representation of the outward appearances of things. And, for +many reasons, I think it best to begin with imitative Sculpture; that +being defined as <i>the art which, by the musical disposition of masses, +imitates anything of which the imitation is justly pleasant to us; and +does so in accordance with structural laws having due reference to the +materials employed</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>So that you see our task will involve the immediate inquiry what the +things are of which the imitation is justly pleasant to us: what, in few +words,—if we are to be occupied in the making of graven images—we +ought to like to make images <i>of</i>. Secondly, after having determined its +subject, what degree of imitation or likeness we ought to desire in our +graven image; and lastly, under what limitations demanded by structure +and material, such likeness may be obtained.</p> + +<p>These inquiries I shall endeavour to pursue with you to some practical +conclusion, in my next four lectures, and in the sixth, I will briefly +sketch the actual facts that have taken place in the development of +sculpture by the two greatest schools of it that hitherto have existed +in the world.</p> + +<p>27. The tenor of our next lecture then must be an inquiry into the real +nature of Idolatry; that is to say, the invention and service of Idols: +and, in the interval, may I commend to your own thoughts this question, +not wholly irrelevant, yet which I cannot pursue; namely, whether the +God to whom we have so habitually prayed for deliverance "from battle, +murder, and sudden death," <i>is</i> indeed, seeing that the present state of +Christendom is the result of a thousand years' praying to that effect, +"as the gods of the heathen who were but idols;" or whether—(and +observe, one or other of these things <i>must</i> be true)—whether our +prayers to Him have been, by this much, worse than Idolatry;—that +heathen prayer was true prayer to false gods; and our prayers have been +false prayers to the True One.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> I had a real ploughshare on my lecture table; but it +would interrupt the drift of the statements in the text too long if I +attempted here to illustrate by figures the relation of the coulter to +the share, and of the hard to the soft pieces of metal in the share +itself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> A sphere of rock crystal, cut in Japan, enough imaginable +by the reader, without a figure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> One of William Hunt's peaches; not, I am afraid, +imaginable altogether, but still less representable by figure.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> The crystal ball above mentioned.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> All grandest effects in mouldings may be, and for the +most part have been, obtained by rolls and cavettos of circular +(segmental) section. More refined sections, as that of the fluting of a +Doric shaft, are only of use near the eye and in beautiful stone; and +the pursuit of them was one of the many errors of later Gothic. The +statement in the text that the mouldings, even of best time, "have no +real relation to construction," is scarcely strong enough: they in fact +contend with, and deny the construction, their principal purpose seeming +to be the concealment of the joints of the voussoirs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Some of the most precious work done for me by my +assistant Mr. Burgess, during the course of these lectures, consisted in +making enlarged drawings from portions of photographs. Plate III. is +engraved from a drawing of his, enlarged from the original photograph of +which Plate I. is a reduction.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LECTURE II.</h2> + +<h3>IDOLATRY.</h3> + +<h4><i>November, 1870.</i></h4> + + +<p>28. Beginning with the simple conception of sculpture as the art of +fiction in solid substance, we are now to consider what its subjects +should be. What—having the gift of imagery—should we by preference +endeavour to image? A question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> which is, indeed, subordinate to the +deeper one—why we should wish to image anything at all.</p> + +<p>29. Some years ago, having been always desirous that the education of +women should begin in learning how to cook, I got leave, one day, for a +little girl of eleven years old to exchange, much to her satisfaction, +her schoolroom for the kitchen. But as ill fortune would have it, there +was some pastry toward, and she was left unadvisedly in command of some +delicately rolled paste; whereof she made no pies, but an unlimited +quantity of cats and mice.</p> + +<p>Now you may read the works of the gravest critics of art from end to +end; but you will find, at last, they can give you no other true account +of the spirit of sculpture than that it is an irresistible human +instinct for the making of cats and mice, and other imitable living +creatures, in such permanent form that one may play with the images at +leisure.</p> + +<p>Play with them, or love them, or fear them, or worship them. The cat may +become the goddess Pasht, and the mouse, in the hand of the sculptured +king, enforce his enduring words "ες εμε τις ορεων ευσεβης εστω;" but the great mimetic instinct underlies all such purpose; and +is zooplastic,—life-shaping,—alike in the reverent and the impious.</p> + +<p>30. Is, I say, and has been, hitherto; none of us dare say that it will +be. I shall have to show you hereafter that the greater part of the +technic energy of men, as yet, has indicated a kind of childhood; and +that the race becomes, if not more wise, at least more manly,<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> with +every gained century. I can fancy that all this sculpturing and painting +of ours may be looked back upon, in some distant time, as a kind of +doll-making, and that the words of Sir Isaac Newton may be smiled at no +more: only it will not be for stars that we desert our stone dolls, but +for men. When the day comes, as come it must, in which we no more deface +and defile God's image in living clay, I am not sure that we shall any +of us care so much for the images made of Him, in burnt clay.</p> + +<p>31. But, hitherto, the energy of growth in any people may be almost +directly measured by their passion for imitative art;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> namely, for +sculpture, or for the drama, which is living and speaking sculpture, or, +as in Greece, for both; and in national as in actual childhood, it is +not merely the <i>making</i>, but the <i>making-believe</i>; not merely the acting +for the sake of the scene, but acting for the sake of acting, that is +delightful. And, of the two mimetic arts, the drama, being more +passionate, and involving conditions of greater excitement and luxury, +is usually in its excellence the sign of culminating strength in the +people; while fine sculpture, requiring always submission to severe law, +is an unfailing proof of their being in early and active progress. +<i>There is no instance of fine sculpture being produced by a nation +either torpid, weak, or in decadence.</i> Their drama may gain in grace and +wit; but their sculpture, in days of decline, is <i>always</i> base.</p> + +<p>32. If my little lady in the kitchen had been put in command of colours, +as well as of dough, and if the paste would have taken the colours, we +may be sure her mice would have been painted brown, and her cats +tortoise-shell; and this, partly indeed for the added delight and +prettiness of colour itself, but more for the sake of absolute +realization to her eyes and mind. Now all the early sculpture of the +most accomplished nations has been thus coloured, rudely or finely; and, +therefore, you see at once how necessary it is that we should keep the +term "graphic" for imitative art generally; since no separation can at +first be made between carving and painting, with reference to the mental +powers exerted in, or addressed by, them. In the earliest known art of +the world, a reindeer hunt may be scratched in outline on the flat side +of a clean-picked bone, and a reindeer's head carved out of the end of +it; both these are flint-knife work, and, strictly speaking, sculpture: +but the scratched outline is the beginning of drawing, and the carved +head of sculpture proper. When the spaces enclosed by the scratched +outline are filled with colour, the colouring soon becomes a principal +means of effect; so that, in the engraving of an Egyptian-colour +bas-relief (S. 101), Rosellini has been content to miss the outlining +incisions altogether, and represent it as a painting only. Its proper +definition is, "painting accented by sculpture;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> on the other hand, in +solid coloured statues,—Dresden china figures, for example,—we have +pretty sculpture accented by painting; the mental purpose in both kinds +of art being to obtain the utmost degree of realization possible, and +the ocular impression being the same, whether the delineation is +obtained by engraving or painting. For, as I pointed out to you in my +fifth lecture, everything is seen by the eye as patches of colour, and +of colour only; a fact which the Greeks knew well; so that when it +becomes a question in the dialogue of Minos, "τινι οντι τη οπσει +ὁραται τα ὁωμενα," the answer is "αισθησει ταυτη τη δια των +οφθαλμων δηλοιση ἡμιν τα χρωματα."—"What kind of power is the +sight with which we see things? It is that sense which, through the +eyes, can reveal <i>colours</i> to us."</p> + +<p>33. And now observe that while the graphic arts begin in the mere +mimetic effort, they proceed, as they obtain more perfect realization, +to act under the influence of a stronger and higher instinct. They begin +by scratching the reindeer, the most interesting object of sight. But +presently, as the human creature rises in scale of intellect, it +proceeds to scratch, not the most interesting object of sight only, but +the most interesting object of imagination; not the reindeer, but the +Maker and Giver of the reindeer. And the second great condition for the +advance of the art of sculpture is that the race should possess, in +addition to the mimetic instinct, the realistic or idolizing instinct; +the desire to see as substantial the powers that are unseen, and bring +near those that are far off, and to possess and cherish those that are +strange. To make in some way tangible and visible the nature of the +gods—to illustrate and explain it by symbols; to bring the immortals +out of the recesses of the clouds, and make them Penates; to bring back +the dead from darkness, and make them Lares.</p> + +<p>34. Our conception of this tremendous and universal human passion has +been altogether narrowed by the current idea that Pagan religious art +consisted only, or chiefly, in giving personality to the gods. The +personality was never doubted; it was visibility, interpretation, and +possession that the hearts of men sought. Possession, first of all—the +getting hold of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> some hewn log of wild olive-wood that would fall on its +knees if it was pulled from its pedestal—and, afterwards, slowly +clearing manifestation; the exactly right expression is used in Lucian's +dream,—Φειδιας εδειξε τον 916()#;ια; "Showed<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> Zeus;" manifested +him, nay, in a certain sense, brought forth, or created, as you have it, +in Anacreon's ode to the Rose, of the birth of Athena herself—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">πολεμοκλονον τ' Αθηνην<br /></span> +<span class="i0">κορυφης εδεικνυε Ζευς.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But I will translate the passage from Lucian to you at length—it is in +every way profitable.</p> + +<p>35. "There came to me, in the healing<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> night, a divine dream, so +clear that it missed nothing of the truth itself; yes, and still after +all this time, the shapes of what I saw remain in my sight, and the +sound of what I heard dwells in my ears"—note the lovely sense of +εναυλος—the sound being as of a stream passing always by in +the same channel,—"so distinct was everything to me. Two women laid +hold of my hands and pulled me, each towards herself, so violently, that +I had like to have been pulled asunder; and they cried out against one +another,—the one, that she was resolved to have me to herself, being +indeed her own, and the other that it was vain for her to claim what +belonged to others;—and the one who first claimed me for her own was +like a hard worker, and had strength as a man's; and her hair was dusty, +and her hand full of horny places, and her dress fastened tight about +her, and the folds of it loaded with white marble-dust, so that she +looked just as my uncle used to look when he was filing stones: but the +other was pleasant in features, and delicate in form, and orderly in her +dress; and so in the end, they left it to me to decide, after hearing +what they had to say, with which of them I would go; and first the hard +featured and masculine one spoke:—</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/plate4.jpg" width="650" height="316" alt="IV THE NATIVITY OF ATHENA." title="" /> +<span class="caption">IV<br /> THE NATIVITY OF ATHENA.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p>36. "'Dear child, I am the Art of Image-sculpture, which yesterday you +began to learn; and I am as one of your own people, and of your house, +for your grandfather,' (and she named my mother's father) 'was a +stone-cutter; and both your uncles had good name through me: and if you +will keep yourself well clear of the sillinesses and fluent follies that +come from this creature,' (and she pointed to the other woman) 'and will +follow me, and live with me, first of all, you shall be brought up as a +man should be, and have strong shoulders; and, besides that, you shall +be kept well quit of all restless desires, and you shall never be +obliged to go away into any foreign places, leaving your own country and +the people of your house; <i>neither shall all men praise you for your +talk</i>.<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a> And you must not despise this rude serviceableness of my +body, neither this meanness of my dusty dress; for, pushing on in their +strength from such things as these, that great Phidias revealed Zeus, +and Polyclitus wrought out Hera, and Myron was praised, and Praxiteles +marvelled at: therefore are these men worshipped with the gods.'"</p> + +<p>37. There is a beautiful ambiguity in the use of the preposition with +the genitive in this last sentence. "Pushing on from these things" means +indeed, justly, that the sculptors rose from a mean state to a noble +one; but not as <i>leaving</i> the mean state;—not as, from a hard life, +attaining to a soft one,—but as being helped and strengthened by the +rough life to do what was greatest. Again, "worshipped with the gods" +does not mean that they are thought of as in any sense equal to, or like +to, the gods, but as being on the side of the gods against what is base +and ungodly; and that the kind of worth which is in them is therefore +indeed worshipful, as having its source with the gods. Finally, observe +that every one of the expressions, used of the four sculptors, is +definitely the best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> that Lucian could have chosen. Phidias carved like +one who had seen Zeus, and had only to <i>reveal</i> him; Polyclitus, in +labour of intellect, completed his sculpture by just law, and <i>wrought</i> +out Hera; Myron was of all most <i>praised</i>, because he did best what +pleased the vulgar; and Praxiteles, the most <i>wondered at</i> or admired, +because he bestowed utmost exquisiteness of beauty.</p> + +<p>38. I am sorry not to go on with the dream; the more refined lady, as +you may remember, is liberal or gentlemanly Education, and prevails at +last; so that Lucian becomes an author instead of a sculptor, I think to +his own regret, though to our present benefit. One more passage of his I +must refer you to, as illustrative of the point before us; the +description of the temple of the Syrian Hieropolis, where he explains +the absence of the images of the sun and moon. "In the temple itself," +he says, "on the left hand as one goes in, there is set first the throne +of the sun; but no form of him is thereon, for of these two powers +alone, the sun and the moon, they show no carved images. And I also +learned why this is their law, for they say that it is permissible, +indeed, to make of the other gods, graven images, since the forms of +them are not visible to all men. But Helios and Selenaia are everywhere +clear-bright, and all men behold them; what need is there therefore for +sculptured work of these, who appear in the air?"</p> + +<p>39. This, then, is the second instinct necessary to sculpture; the +desire for the manifestation, description, and companionship of unknown +powers; and for possession of a bodily substance—the "bronze +Strasbourg," which you can embrace, and hang immortelles on the head +of—instead of an abstract idea. But if you get nothing more in the +depth of the national mind than these two feelings, the mimetic and +idolizing instincts, there may be still no progress possible for the +arts except in delicacy of manipulation and accumulative caprice of +design. You must have not only the idolizing instinct, but an +ηθος which chooses the right thing to idolize! Else, you will get +states of art like those in China or India, non-progressive, and in +great part diseased and frightful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> being wrought under the influence of +foolish terror, or foolish admiration. So that a third condition, +completing and confirming both the others, must exist in order to the +development of the creative power.</p> + +<p>40. This third condition is that the heart of the nation shall be set on +the discovery of just or equal law, and shall be from day to day +developing that law more perfectly. The Greek school of sculpture is +formed during, and in consequence of, the national effort to discover +the nature of justice; the Tuscan, during, and in consequence of, the +national effort to discover the nature of justification. I assert to you +at present briefly, what will, I hope, be the subject of prolonged +illustration hereafter.</p> + +<p>41. Now when a nation with mimetic instinct and imaginative longing is +also thus occupied earnestly in the discovery of Ethic law, that effort +gradually brings precision and truth into all its manual acts; and the +physical progress of sculpture as in the Greek, so in the Tuscan, +school, consists in gradually <i>limiting</i> what was before indefinite, in +<i>verifying</i> what was inaccurate, and in <i>humanizing</i> what was monstrous. +I might perhaps content you by showing these external phenomena, and by +dwelling simply on the increasing desire of naturalness, which compels, +in every successive decade of years, literally, in the sculptured +images, the mimicked bones to come together, bone to his bone; and the +flesh to come up upon them, until from a flattened and pinched handful +of clay, respecting which you may gravely question whether it was +intended for a human form at all;—by slow degrees, and added touch to +touch, in increasing consciousness of the bodily truth,—at last the +Aphrodite of Melos stands before you, a perfect woman. But all that +search for physical accuracy is merely the external operation, in the +arts, of the seeking for truth in the inner soul; it is impossible +without that higher effort, and the demonstration of it would be worse +than useless to you, unless I made you aware at the same time of its +spiritual cause.</p> + +<p>42. Observe farther; the increasing truth in representation is +co-relative with increasing beauty in the thing to be represented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> The +pursuit of justice which regulates the imitative effort, regulates also +the development of the race into dignity of person, as of mind; and +their culminating art-skill attains the grasp of entire truth at the +moment when the truth becomes most lovely. And then, ideal sculpture may +go on safely into portraiture. But I shall not touch on the subject of +portrait sculpture to-day; it introduces many questions of detail, and +must be a matter for subsequent consideration.</p> + +<p>43. These then are the three great passions which are concerned in true +sculpture. I cannot find better, or, at least, more easily remembered, +names for them than "the Instincts of Mimicry, Idolatry, and +Discipline;" meaning, by the last, the desire of equity and wholesome +restraint, in all acts and works of life. Now of these, there is no +question but that the love of Mimicry is natural and right, and the love +of Discipline is natural and right. But it looks a grave question +whether the yearning for Idolatry, (the desire of companionship with +images,) is right. Whether, indeed, if such an instinct be essential to +good sculpture, the art founded on it can possibly be "fine" art.</p> + +<p>44. I must now beg for your close attention, because I have to point out +distinctions in modes of conception which will appear trivial to you, +unless accurately understood; but of an importance in the history of art +which cannot be overrated.</p> + +<p>When the populace of Paris adorned the statue of Strasbourg with +immortelles, none, even the simplest of the pious decorators, would +suppose that the city of Strasbourg itself, or any spirit or ghost of +the city, was actually there, sitting in the Place de la Concorde. The +figure was delightful to them as a visible nucleus for their fond +thoughts about Strasbourg; but never for a moment supposed to <i>be</i> +Strasbourg.</p> + +<p>Similarly, they might have taken delight in a statue purporting to +represent a river instead of a city,—the Rhine, or Garonne, +suppose,—and have been touched with strong emotion in looking at it, if +the real river were dear to them, and yet never think for an instant +that the statue <i>was</i> the river.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> + +<p>And yet again, similarly, but much more distinctly, they might take +delight in the beautiful image of a god, because it gathered and +perpetuated their thoughts about that god; and yet never suppose, nor be +capable of being deceived by any arguments into supposing, that the +statue <i>was</i> the god.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, if a meteoric stone fell from the sky in the sight of +a savage, and he picked it up hot, he would most probably lay it aside +in some, to him, sacred place, and believe <i>the stone itself</i> to be a +kind of god, and offer prayer and sacrifice to it.</p> + +<p>In like manner, any other strange or terrifying object, such, for +instance, as a powerfully noxious animal or plant, he would be apt to +regard in the same way; and very possibly also construct for himself +frightful idols of some kind, calculated to produce upon him a vague +impression of their being alive; whose imaginary anger he might +deprecate or avert with sacrifice, although incapable of conceiving in +them any one attribute of exalted intellectual or moral nature.</p> + +<p>45. If you will now refer to § 52-59 of my Introductory Lectures, you +will find this distinction between a resolute conception, recognized for +such, and an involuntary apprehension of spiritual existence, already +insisted on at some length. And you will see more and more clearly as we +proceed, that the deliberate and intellectually commanded conception is +not idolatrous in any evil sense whatever, but is one of the grandest +and wholesomest functions of the human soul; and that the essence of +evil idolatry begins only in the idea or belief of a real presence of +any kind, in a thing in which there is no such presence.</p> + +<p>46. I need not say that the harm of the idolatry must depend on the +certainty of the negative. If there be a real presence in a pillar of +cloud, in an unconsuming flame, or in a still small voice, it is no sin +to bow down before these.</p> + +<p>But, as matter of historical fact, the idea of such presence has +generally been both ignoble and false, and confined to nations of +inferior race, who are often condemned to remain for ages in conditions +of vile terror, destitute of thought. Nearly all Indian architecture and +Chinese design arise out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> of such a state: so also, though in a less +gross degree, Ninevite and Phœnician art, early Irish, and +Scandinavian; the latter, however, with vital elements of high intellect +mingled in it from the first.</p> + +<p>But the greatest races are never grossly subject to such terror, even in +their childhood, and the course of their minds is broadly divisible into +three distinct stages.</p> + +<p>47. (I.) In their infancy they begin to imitate the real animals about +them, as my little girl made the cats and mice, but with an undercurrent +of partial superstition—a sense that there must be more in the +creatures than they can see; also they catch up vividly any of the +fancies of the baser nations round them, and repeat these more or less +apishly, yet rapidly naturalizing and beautifying them. They then +connect all kinds of shapes together, compounding meanings out of the +old chimeras, and inventing new ones with the speed of a running +wild-fire; but always getting more of man into their images, and +admitting less of monster or brute; their own characters, meanwhile, +expanding and purging themselves, and shaking off the feverish fancy, as +springing flowers shake the earth off their stalks.</p> + +<p>48. (II.) In the second stage, being now themselves perfect men and +women, they reach the conception of true and great gods as existent in +the universe; and absolutely cease to think of them as in any wise +present in statues or images; but they have now learned to make these +statues beautifully human, and to surround them with attributes that may +concentrate their thoughts of the gods. This is, in Greece, accurately +the Pindaric time, just a little preceding the Phidian; the Phidian is +already dimmed with a faint shadow of infidelity; still, the Olympic +Zeus may be taken as a sufficiently central type of a statue which was +no more supposed to <i>be</i> Zeus, than the gold or elephants' tusks it was +made of; but in which the most splendid powers of human art were +exhausted in representing a believed and honoured God to the happy and +holy imagination of a sincerely religious people.</p> + +<p>49. (III.) The third stage of national existence follows, in which, the +imagination having now done its utmost, and being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> partly restrained by +the sanctities of tradition, which permit no farther change in the +conceptions previously created, begins to be superseded by logical +deduction and scientific investigation. At the same moment, the elder +artists having done all that is possible in realizing the national +conceptions of the Gods, the younger ones, forbidden to change the +scheme of existing representations, and incapable of doing anything +better in that kind, betake themselves to refine and decorate the old +ideas with more attractive skill. Their aims are thus more and more +limited to manual dexterity, and their fancy paralyzed. Also, in the +course of centuries, the methods of every art continually improving, and +being made subjects of popular inquiry, praise is now to be got, for +eminence in these, from the whole mob of the nation; whereas +intellectual design can never be discerned but by the few. So that in +this third æra, we find every kind of imitative and vulgar dexterity +more and more cultivated; while design and imagination are every day +less cared for, and less possible.</p> + +<p>50. Meanwhile, as I have just said, the leading minds in literature and +science become continually more logical and investigative; and, once +that they are established in the habit of testing facts accurately, a +very few years are enough to convince all the strongest thinkers that +the old imaginative religion is untenable, and cannot any longer be +honestly taught in its fixed traditional form, except by ignorant +persons. And at this point the fate of the people absolutely depends on +the degree of moral strength into which their hearts have been already +trained. If it be a strong, industrious, chaste, and honest race, the +taking its old gods, or at least the old forms of them, away from it, +will indeed make it deeply sorrowful and amazed; but will in no whit +shake its will, nor alter its practice. Exceptional persons, naturally +disposed to become drunkards, harlots, and cheats, but who had been +previously restrained from indulging these dispositions by their fear of +God, will, of course, break out into open vice, when that fear is +removed. But the heads of the families of the people, instructed in the +pure habits and perfect delights of an honest life, and to whom the +thought of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> Father in heaven had been a comfort, not a restraint, will +assuredly not seek relief from the discomfort of their orphanage by +becoming uncharitable and vile. Also the high leaders of their thought +gather their whole strength together in the gloom; and at the first +entrance of this valley of the Shadow of Death, look their new enemy +full in the eyeless face of him, and subdue him, and his terror, under +their feet. "Metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum,... strepitumque +Acherontis avari." This is the condition of national soul expressed by +the art, and the words, of Holbein, Durer, Shakspeare, Pope, and Goethe.</p> + +<p>51. But if the people, at the moment when the trial of darkness +approaches, be not confirmed in moral character, but are only +maintaining a superficial virtue by the aid of a spectral religion; the +moment the staff of their faith is broken, the character of the race +falls like a climbing plant cut from its hold: then all the earthliest +vices attack it as it lies in the dust; every form of sensual and insane +sin is developed, and half a century is sometimes enough to close, in +hopeless shame, the career of the nation in literature, art, and war.</p> + +<p>52. Notably, within the last hundred years, all religion has perished +from the practically active national mind of France and England. No +statesman in the senate of either country would dare to use a sentence +out of their acceptedly divine Revelation, as having now a literal +authority over them for their guidance, or even a suggestive wisdom for +their contemplation. England, especially, has cast her Bible full in the +face of her former God; and proclaimed, with open challenge to Him, her +resolved worship of His declared enemy, Mammon. All the arts, therefore, +founded on religion, and sculpture chiefly, are here in England effete +and corrupt, to a degree which arts never were hitherto in the history +of mankind: and it is possible to show you the condition of sculpture +living, and sculpture dead, in accurate opposition, by simply comparing +the nascent Pisan school in Italy with the existing school in England.</p> + +<p>53. You were perhaps surprised at my placing in your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> educational +series, as a type of original Italian sculpture, the pulpit by Niccola +Pisano in the Duomo of Siena. I would rather, had it been possible, have +given the pulpit by Giovanni Pisano in the Duomo of Pisa; but that +pulpit is dispersed in fragments through the upper galleries of the +Duomo, and the cloister of the Campo Santo; and the casts of its +fragments now put together at Kensington are too coarse to be of use to +you. You may partly judge, however, of the method of their execution by +the eagle's head, which I have sketched from the marble in the Campo +Santo (Edu., No. 113), and the lioness with her cubs, (Edu., No. 103, +more carefully studied at Siena); and I will get you other illustrations +in due time. Meanwhile, I want you to compare the main purpose of the +Cathedral of Pisa, and its associated Bell Tower, Baptistery, and Holy +Field, with the main purpose of the principal building lately raised for +the people of London. In these days, we indeed desire no cathedrals; but +we have constructed an enormous and costly edifice, which, in claiming +educational influence over the whole London populace, and middle class, +is verily the Metropolitan cathedral of this century,—the Crystal +Palace.</p> + +<p>54. It was proclaimed, at its erection, an example of a newly discovered +style of architecture, greater than any hitherto known,—our best +popular writers, in their enthusiasm, describing it as an edifice of +Fairyland. You are nevertheless to observe that this novel production of +fairy enchantment is destitute of every kind of sculpture, except the +bosses produced by the heads of nails and rivets; while the Duomo of +Pisa, in the wreathen work of its doors, in the foliage of its capitals, +inlaid colour designs of its façade, embossed panels of its baptistery +font, and figure sculpture of its two pulpits, contained the germ of a +school of sculpture which was to maintain, through a subsequent period +of four hundred years, the greatest power yet reached by the arts of the +world in description of Form, and expression of Thought.</p> + +<p>55. Now it is easy to show you the essential cause of the vast +discrepancy in the character of these two buildings.</p> + +<p>In the vault of the apse of the Duomo of Pisa, was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> colossal image of +Christ, in coloured mosaic, bearing to the temple, as nearly as +possible, the relation which the statue of Athena bore to the Parthenon; +and in the same manner, concentrating the imagination of the Pisan on +the attributes of the God in whom he believed.</p> + +<p>In precisely the same position with respect to the nave of the building, +but of larger size, as proportioned to the three or four times greater +scale of the whole, a colossal piece of sculpture was placed by English +designers, at the extremity of the Crystal Palace, in preparation for +their solemnities in honour of the birthday of Christ, in December, 1867 +or 1868.</p> + +<p>That piece of sculpture was the face of the clown in a pantomime, some +twelve feet high from brow to chin, which face, being moved by the +mechanism which is our pride, every half minute opened its mouth from +ear to ear, showed its teeth, and revolved its eyes, the force of these +periodical seasons of expression being increased and explained by the +illuminated inscription underneath "Here we are again."</p> + +<p>56. When it is assumed, and with too good reason, that the mind of the +English populace is to be addressed, in the principal Sacred Festival of +its year, by sculpture such as this, I need scarcely point out to you +that the hope is absolutely futile of advancing their intelligence by +collecting within this building, (itself devoid absolutely of every kind +of art, and so vilely constructed that those who traverse it are +continually in danger of falling over the cross-bars that bind it +together) examples of sculpture filched indiscriminately from the past +work, bad and good, of Turks, Greeks, Romans, Moors, and Christians, +miscoloured, misplaced, and misinterpreted;<a name="FNanchor_117_117" id="FNanchor_117_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a> here thrust into +unseemly corners, and there mortised together into mere confusion of +heterogeneous obstacle; pronouncing itself hourly more intolerable in +weariness, until any kind of relief is sought from it in steam +wheelbarrows or cheap toy-shops;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> and most of all in beer and meat, the +corks and the bones being dropped through the chinks in the damp deal +flooring of the English Fairy Palace.</p> + +<p>57. But you will probably think me unjust in assuming that a building +prepared only for the amusement of the people can typically represent +the architecture or sculpture of modern England. You may urge, that I +ought rather to describe the qualities of the refined sculpture which is +executed in large quantities for private persons belonging to the upper +classes, and for sepulchral and memorial purposes. But I could not now +criticise that sculpture with any power of conviction to you, because I +have not yet stated to you the principles of good sculpture in general. +I will, however, in some points, tell you the facts by anticipation.</p> + +<p>58. We have much excellent portrait sculpture; but portrait sculpture, +which is nothing more, is always third-rate work, even when produced by +men of genius;—nor does it in the least require men of genius to +produce it. To paint a portrait, indeed, implies the very highest gifts +of painting; but any man, of ordinary patience and artistic feeling, can +carve a satisfactory bust.</p> + +<p>59. Of our powers in historical sculpture, I am, without question, just, +in taking for sufficient evidence the monuments we have erected to our +two greatest heroes by sea and land; namely, the Nelson Column, and the +statue of the Duke of Wellington opposite Apsley House. Nor will you, I +hope, think me severe,—certainly, whatever you may think me, I am using +only the most temperate language, in saying of both these monuments, +that they are absolutely devoid of high sculptural merit. But, consider +how much is involved in the fact thus dispassionately stated, respecting +the two monuments in the principal places of our capital, to our two +greatest heroes.</p> + +<p>60. Remember that we have before our eyes, as subjects of perpetual +study and thought, the art of all the world for three thousand years +past: especially, we have the best sculpture of Greece, for example of +bodily perfection; the best of Rome, for example of character in +portraiture; the best of Florence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> for example of romantic passion: we +have unlimited access to books and other sources of instruction; we have +the most perfect scientific illustrations of anatomy, both human and +comparative; and, we have bribes for the reward of success, large, in +the proportion of at least twenty to one, as compared with those offered +to the artists of any other period. And with all these advantages, and +the stimulus also of fame carried instantly by the press to the remotest +corners of Europe, the best efforts we can make, on the grandest of +occasions, result in work which it is impossible in any one particular +to praise.</p> + +<p>Now consider for yourselves what an intensity of the negation of the +faculty of sculpture this implies in the national mind! What measures +can be assigned to the gulf of incapacity, which can deliberately +swallow up in the gorge of it the teaching and example of three thousand +years, and produce as the result of that instruction, what it is +courteous to call "nothing?"</p> + +<p>61. That is the conclusion at which we arrive, on the evidence presented +by our historical sculpture. To complete the measure of ourselves, we +must endeavour to estimate the rank of the two opposite schools of +sculpture employed by us in the nominal service of religion, and in the +actual service of vice.</p> + +<p>I am aware of no statue of Christ, nor of any apostle of Christ, nor of +any scene related in the New Testament, produced by us within the last +three hundred years, which has possessed even superficial merit enough +to attract public attention.</p> + +<p>Whereas the steadily immoral effect of the formative art which we learn, +more or less apishly, from the French schools, and employ, but too +gladly, in manufacturing articles for the amusement of the luxurious +classes, must be ranked as one of the chief instruments used by joyful +fiends and angry fates, for the ruin of our civilization.</p> + +<p>If, after I have set before you the nature and principles of true +sculpture, in Athens, Pisa, and Florence, you reconsider these +facts,—(which you will then at once recognize as such),—you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> will find +that they absolutely justify my assertion that the state of sculpture in +modern England, as compared with that of the great Ancients, is +literally one of corrupt and dishonourable death, as opposed to bright +and fameful life.</p> + +<p>62. And now, will you bear with me, while I tell you finally why this is +so?</p> + +<p>The cause with which you are personally concerned is your own frivolity; +though essentially this is not your fault, but that of the system of +your early training. But the fact remains the same, that here, in +Oxford, you, a chosen body of English youth, in no wise care for the +history of your country, for its present dangers, or its present duties. +You still, like children of seven or eight years old, are interested +only in bats, balls, and oars: nay, including with you the students of +Germany and France, it is certain that the general body of modern +European youth have their minds occupied more seriously by the sculpture +and painting of the bowls of their tobacco-pipes, than by all the +divinest workmanship and passionate imagination of Greece, Rome, and +Mediæval Christendom.</p> + +<p>63. But the elementary causes, both of this frivolity in you, and of +worse than frivolity in older persons, are the two forms of deadly +Idolatry which are now all but universal in England.</p> + +<p>The first of these is the worship of the Eidolon, or Phantasm of Wealth; +worship of which you will find the nature partly examined in the 37th +paragraph of my <i>Munera Pulveris</i>; but which is briefly to be defined as +the servile apprehension of an active power in Money, and the submission +to it as the God of our life.</p> + +<p>64. The second elementary cause of the loss of our nobly imaginative +faculty, is the worship of the Letter, instead of the Spirit, in what we +chiefly accept as the ordinance and teaching of Deity; and the +apprehension of a healing sacredness in the act of reading the Book +whose primal commands we refuse to obey.</p> + +<p>No feather idol of Polynesia was ever a sign of a more shameful +idolatry, than the modern notion in the minds of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> certainly the majority +of English religious persons, that the Word of God, by which the heavens +were of old, and the earth, standing out of the water and in the +water,—the Word of God which came to the prophets, and comes still for +ever to all who will hear it, (and to many who will forbear); and which, +called Faithful and True, is to lead forth, in the judgment, the armies +of heaven,—that this "Word of God" may yet be bound at our pleasure in +morocco, and carried about in a young lady's pocket, with tasselled +ribands to mark the passages she most approves of.</p> + +<p>65. Gentlemen, there has hitherto been seen no instance, and England is +little likely to give the unexampled spectacle, of a country successful +in the noble arts, yet in which the youths were frivolous, the maidens +falsely religious, the men, slaves of money, and the matrons, of vanity. +Not from all the marble of the hills of Luni will such a people ever +shape one statue that may stand nobly against the sky; not from all the +treasures bequeathed to them by the great dead, will they gather, for +their own descendants, any inheritance but shame.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Glance forward at once to § 75, read it, and return to +this.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> There is a primary and vulgar sense of "exhibited" in +Lucian's mind; but the higher meaning is involved in it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> In the Greek, "ambrosial." Recollect always that +ambrosia, as food of gods, is the continual restorer of strength; that +all food is ambrosial when it nourishes, and that the night is called +"ambrosial" because it restores strength to the soul through its peace, +as, in the 23rd Psalm, the stillness of waters.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> I have italicised this final promise of blessedness, +given by the noble Spirit of Workmanship. Compare Carlyle's 5th +Latter-day pamphlet, throughout; but especially pp. 12-14, in the first +edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_117_117" id="Footnote_117_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> "Falsely represented," would be the better expression. In +the cast of the tomb of Queen Eleanor, for a single instance, the Gothic +foliage of which one essential virtue is its change over every shield, +is represented by a repetition of casts from one mould, of which the +design itself is entirely conjectural.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LECTURE III.</h2> + +<h3>IMAGINATION.</h3> + +<h4><i>November, 1870.</i></h4> + + +<p>66. The principal object of the preceding lecture (and I choose rather +to incur your blame for tediousness in repeating, than for obscurity in +defining it), was to enforce the distinction between the ignoble and +false phase of Idolatry, which consists in the attribution of a +spiritual power to a material thing; and the noble and truth-seeking +phase of it, to which I shall in these lectures<a name="FNanchor_118_118" id="FNanchor_118_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a> give the general +term of Imagination;—that is to say, the invention of material symbols +which may lead us to contemplate the character and nature of gods, +spirits, or abstract virtues and powers, without in the least implying +the actual presence of such Beings among us, or even their possession, +in reality, of the forms we attribute to them.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 285px;"> +<img src="images/fig2.jpg" width="285" height="450" alt="Fig. 2." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 2.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>67. For instance, in the ordinarily received Greek type of Athena, on +vases of the Phidian time (sufficiently represented in the opposite +woodcut), no Greek would have supposed the vase on which this was +painted to be itself Athena, nor to contain Athena inside of it, as the +Arabian fisherman's casket contained the genie; neither did he think +that this rude black painting, done at speed as the potter's fancy urged +his hand, represented anything like the form or aspect of the Goddess +herself. Nor would he have thought so, even had the image been ever so +beautifully wrought. The goddess might, indeed, visibly appear under the +form of an armed virgin, as she might under that of a hawk or a swallow, +when it pleased her to give such manifestation of her presence; but it +did not, therefore, follow that she was constantly invested with any of +these forms, or that the best which human skill could, even by her own +aid, picture of her, was, indeed, a likeness of her. The real use, at +all events, of this rude image, was only to signify to the eye and heart +the facts of the existence, in some manner, of a Spirit of wisdom, +perfect in gentleness, irresistible in anger; having also physical +dominion over the air which is the life and breadth of all creatures, +and clothed, to human eyes, with ægis of fiery cloud, and raiment of +falling dew.</p> + +<p>68. In the yet more abstract conception of the Spirit of agriculture, in +which the wings of the chariot represent the winds of spring, and its +crested dragons are originally a mere type of the seed with its twisted +root piercing the ground, and sharp-edged leaves rising above it; we are +in still less danger of mistaking the symbol for the presumed form of an +actual Person. But I must, with persistence, beg of you to observe that +in all the noble actions of imagination in this kind, the distinction +from idolatry consists, not in the denial of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> the being, or presence of +the Spirit, but only in the due recognition of our human incapacity to +conceive the one, or compel the other.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 391px;"> +<img src="images/fig3.jpg" width="391" height="450" alt="Fig. 3." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 3.</span> +</div> + +<p>69. Farther—and for this statement I claim your attention still more +earnestly. As no nation has ever attained real greatness during periods +in which it was subject to any condition of Idolatry, so no nation has +ever attained or persevered in greatness, except in reaching and +maintaining a passionate Imagination of a spiritual estate higher than +that of men; and of spiritual creatures nobler than men, having a quite +real and personal existence, however imperfectly apprehended by us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> + +<p>And all the arts of the present age deserving to be included under the +name of sculpture have been degraded by us, and all principles of just +policy have vanished from us,—and that totally,—for this double +reason; that we are on one side, given up to idolatries of the most +servile kind, as I showed you in the close of the last lecture,—while, +on the other hand, we have absolutely ceased from the exercise of +faithful imagination; and the only remnants of the desire of truth which +remain in us have been corrupted into a prurient itch to discover the +origin of life in the nature of the dust, and prove that the source of +the order of the universe is the accidental concurrence of its atoms.</p> + +<p>70. Under these two calamities of our time, the art of sculpture has +perished more totally than any other, because the object of that art is +exclusively the representation of form as the exponent of life. It is +essentially concerned only with the human form, which is the exponent of +the highest life we know; and with all subordinate forms only as they +exhibit conditions of vital power which have some certain relation to +humanity. It deals with the "particula undique desecta" of the animal +nature, and itself contemplates, and brings forward for its disciples' +contemplation, all the energies of creation which transform the +πηλος, or lower still, the βορβορος of the <i>trivia</i>, by +Athena's help, into forms of power;—(το μεν ὁλον αρχιτεκτων +αυτος ην. συνειργαζετο δε τοι και η 'Αθηνα εμπνεουσα τον πηλον και +εμπσυχα ροιουσα ειναι τα πλασματα;)<a name="FNanchor_119_119" id="FNanchor_119_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a>—but it has nothing whatever +to do with the representation of forms not living, however beautiful, +(as of clouds or waves); nor may it condescend to use its perfect skill, +except in expressing the noblest conditions of life.</p> + +<p>These laws of sculpture, being wholly contrary to the practice of our +day, I cannot expect you to accept on my assertion, nor do I wish you to +do so. By placing definitely good and bad sculpture before you, I do not +doubt but that I shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> gradually prove to you the nature of all +excelling and enduring qualities; but to-day I will only confirm my +assertions by laying before you the statement of the Greeks themselves +on the subject; given in their own noblest time, and assuredly +authoritative, in every point which it embraces, for all time to come.</p> + +<p>71. If any of you have looked at the explanation I have given of the +myth of Athena in my <i>Queen of the Air</i>, you cannot but have been +surprised that I took scarcely any note of the story of her birth. I did +not, because that story is connected intimately with the Apolline myths; +and is told of Athena, not essentially as the goddess of the air, but as +the goddess of Art-Wisdom.</p> + +<p>You have probably often smiled at the legend itself, or avoided thinking +of it, as revolting. It is indeed, one of the most painful and childish +of sacred myths; yet remember, ludicrous and ugly as it seems to us, +this story satisfied the fancy of the Athenian people in their highest +state; and if it did not satisfy—yet it was accepted by, all later +mythologists: you may also remember I told you to be prepared to find +that, given a certain degree of national intellect, the ruder the +symbol, the deeper would be its purpose. And this legend of the birth of +Athena is the central myth of all that the Greeks have left us +respecting the power of their arts; and in it they have expressed, as it +seemed good to them, the most important things they had to tell us on +these matters. We may read them wrongly; but we must read them here, if +anywhere.</p> + +<p>72. There are so many threads to be gathered up in the legend, that I +cannot hope to put it before you in total clearness, but I will take +main points. Athena is born in the island of Rhodes; and that island is +raised out of the sea by Apollo, after he had been left without +inheritance among the gods. Zeus<a name="FNanchor_120_120" id="FNanchor_120_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> would have cast the lot again, but +Apollo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> orders the golden-girdled Lachesis to stretch out her hands; and +not now by chance or lot, but by noble enchantment, the island rises out +of the sea.</p> + +<p>Physically, this represents the action of heat and light on chaos, +especially on the deep sea. It is the "Fiat lux" of Genesis, the first +process in the conquest of Fate by Harmony. The island is dedicated to +the Nymph Rhodos, by whom Apollo has the seven sons who teach +σοφωτατα νοηματα; because the rose is the most beautiful organism +existing in matter not vital, expressive of the direct action of light +on the earth, giving lovely form and colour at once; (compare the use of +it by Dante as the form of the sainted crowd in highest heaven) and +remember that, therefore, the rose is in the Greek mind, essentially a +Doric flower, expressing the worship of Light, as the Iris or Ion is an +Ionic one, expressing the worship of the Winds and Dew.</p> + +<p>73. To understand the agency of Hephæstus at the birth of Athena, we +must again return to the founding of the arts on agriculture by the +hand. Before you can cultivate land you must clear it; and the +characteristic weapon of Hephæstus,—which is as much his attribute as +the trident is of Poseidon, and the rhabdos of Hermes, is not, as you +would have expected, the hammer, but the clearing-axe—the doubled-edged +πελεκυς, the same that Calypso gives Ulysses with which to cut +down the trees for his home voyage; so that both the naval and +agricultural strength of the Athenians are expressed by this weapon, +with which they had to hew out their fortune. And you must keep in mind +this agriculturally laborious character of Hephæstus, even when he is +most distinctly the god of serviceable fire; thus Horace's perfect +epithet for him "avidus" expresses at once the devouring eagerness of +fire, and the zeal of progressive labour, for Horace gives it to him +when he is fighting against the giants. And this rude symbol of his +cleaving the forehead of Zeus with the axe, and giving birth to Athena +signifies, indeed, physically the thrilling power of heat in the +heavens, rending the clouds, and giving birth to the blue air; but far +more deeply it signifies the subduing of adverse Fate by true labour; +until, out of the chasm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> cleft by resolute and industrious fortitude, +springs the Spirit of Wisdom.</p> + +<p>74. Here (Fig. 4) is an early drawing of the myth, to which I shall have +to refer afterwards in illustration of the childishness of the Greek +mind at the time when its art-symbols were first fixed; but it is of +peculiar value, because the physical character of Vulcan, as fire, is +indicated by his wearing the ενδρομιδες of Hermes, while the +antagonism of Zeus, as the adverse chaos, either of cloud or of fate, is +shown by his striking at Hephæstus with his thunderbolt. But Plate IV. +gives you (as far as the light on the rounded vase will allow it to be +deciphered) a characteristic representation of the scene, as conceived +in later art.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/fig4.jpg" width="450" height="246" alt="Fig. 4." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 4.</span> +</div> + +<p>75. I told you in a former lecture of this course that the entire Greek +intellect was in a childish phase as compared to that of modern times. +Observe, however, childishness does not necessarily imply universal +inferiority: there may be a vigorous, acute, pure, and solemn childhood, +and there may be a weak, foul, and ridiculous condition of advanced +life; but the one is still essentially the childish, and the other the +adult phase of existence.</p> + +<p>76. You will find, then, that the Greeks were the first people that were +born into complete humanity. All nations before them had been, and all +around them still were, partly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> savage, bestial, clay-encumbered, +inhuman; still semi-goat, or semi-ant, or semi-stone, or semi-cloud. But +the power of a new spirit came upon the Greeks, and the stones were +filled with breath, and the clouds clothed with flesh; and then came the +great spiritual battle between the Centaurs and Lapithæ; and the living +creatures became "Children of Men." Taught, yet, by the Centaur—sown, +as they knew, in the fang—from the dappled skin of the brute, from the +leprous scale of the serpent, their flesh came again as the flesh of a +little child, and they were clean.</p> + +<p>Fix your mind on this as the very central character of the Greek +race—the being born pure and human out of the brutal misery of the +past, and looking abroad, for the first time, with their children's +eyes, wonderingly open, on the strange and divine world.</p> + +<p>77. Make some effort to remember, so far as may be possible to you, +either what you felt in yourselves when you were young, or what you have +observed in other children, of the action of thought and fancy. Children +are continually represented as living in an ideal world of their own. So +far as I have myself observed, the distinctive character of a child is +to live always in the tangible present, having little pleasure in +memory, and being utterly impatient and tormented by anticipation: weak +alike in reflection and forethought, but having an intense possession of +the actual present, down to the shortest moments and least objects of +it; possessing it, indeed, so intensely that the sweet childish days are +as long as twenty days will be; and setting all the faculties of heart +and imagination on little things, so as to be able to make anything out +of them he chooses. Confined to a little garden, he does not imagine +himself somewhere else, but makes a great garden out of that; possessed +of an acorn-cup, he will not despise it and throw it away, and covet a +golden one in its stead: it is the adult who does so. The child keeps +his acorn-cup as a treasure, and makes a golden one out of it in his +mind; so that the wondering grown-up person standing beside him is +always tempted to ask concerning his treasures, not, "What would you +have more than these?" but "What possibly can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> you see <i>in</i> these?" for, +to the bystander, there is a ludicrous and incomprehensible +inconsistency between the child's words and the reality. The little +thing tells him gravely, holding up the acorn-cup, that "this is a +queen's crown, or a fairy's boat," and, with beautiful effrontery, +expects him to believe the same. But observe—the acorn-cup must be +<i>there</i>, and in his own hand. "Give it me;" then I will make more of it +for myself. That is the child's one word, always.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 307px;"> +<img src="images/fig5.jpg" width="307" height="450" alt="Fig. 5." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 5.</span> +</div> + +<p>78. It is also the one word of the Greek—"Give it me." Give me <i>any</i> +thing definite here in my sight, then I will make more of it.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/plate5.jpg" width="650" height="426" alt="Plate V.—Tomb of the Doges Jacopo and Lorenzo Tiepolo." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate V.—Tomb of the Doges Jacopo and Lorenzo Tiepolo.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<p>I cannot easily express to you how strange it seems to me that I am +obliged, here in Oxford, to take the position of an apologist for Greek +art; that I find, in spite of all the devotion of the admirable scholars +who have so long maintained in our public schools the authority of Greek +literature, our younger students take no interest in the manual work of +the people upon whose thoughts the tone of their early intellectual life +has exclusively depended. But I am not surprised that the interest, if +awakened, should not at first take the form of admiration. The +inconsistency between an Homeric description of a piece of furniture or +armour, and the actual rudeness of any piece of art approximating within +even three or four centuries, to the Homeric period, is so great, that +we at first cannot recognize the art as elucidatory of, or in any way +related to, the poetic language.</p> + +<p>79. You will find, however, exactly the same kind of discrepancy between +early sculpture, and the languages of deed and thought, in the second +birth, and childhood, of the world, under Christianity. The same fair +thoughts and bright imaginations arise again; and similarly, the fancy +is content with the rudest symbols by which they can be formalized to +the eyes. You cannot understand that the rigid figure (2) with chequers +or spots on its breast, and sharp lines of drapery to its feet, could +represent, to the Greek, the healing majesty of heaven: but can you any +better understand how a symbol so haggard as this (Fig. 5) could +represent to the noblest hearts of the Christian ages the power and +ministration of angels? Yet it not only did so, but retained in the rude +undulatory and linear ornamentation of its dress, record of the thoughts +intended to be conveyed by the spotted ægis and falling chiton of +Athena, eighteen hundred years before. Greek and Venetian alike, in +their noble childhood, knew with the same terror the coiling wind and +congealed hail in heaven—saw with the same thankfulness the dew shed +softly on the earth, and on its flowers; and both recognized, ruling +these, and symbolized by them, the great helpful spirit of Wisdom, which +leads the children of men to all knowledge, all courage, and all art.</p> + +<p>80. Read the inscription written on the sarcophagus (Plate V.), at the +extremity of which this angel is sculptured. It stands in an open recess +in the rude brick wall of the west front of the church of St. John and +Paul at Venice, being the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> tomb of the two doges, father and son, Jacopo +and Lorenzo Tiepolo. This is the inscription:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Quos natura pares studiis, virtutibus, arte<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Edidit, illustres genitor natusque, sepulti<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hác sub rupe Duces. Venetum charissima proles<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Theupula collatis dedit hos celebranda triumphis.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Omnia presentis donavit predia templi<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dux Jacobus: valido fixit moderamine leges<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Urbis, et ingratam redimens certamine Jadram<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dalmatiosque dedit patrie, post, Marte subactas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Graiorum pelago maculavit sanguine classes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suscipit oblatos princeps Laurentius Istros,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et domuit rigidos, ingenti strage cadentes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bononie populos. Hinc subdita Cervia cessit.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fundavere vias pacis; fortique relictá<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Re, superos sacris petierunt mentibus ambo.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dominus Jachobus hobiit<a name="FNanchor_121_121" id="FNanchor_121_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> M.CCLI. Dominus Laurentius hobiit M.CCLXXVIII."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>You see, therefore, this tomb is an invaluable example of thirteenth +century sculpture in Venice. In Plate VI., you have an example of the +(coin) sculpture of the date accurately corresponding in Greece to the +thirteenth century in Venice, when the meaning of symbols was everything +and the workmanship comparatively nothing. The upper head is an Athena, +of Athenian work in the seventh or sixth century—(the coin itself may +have been struck later, but the archaic type was retained). The two +smaller impressions below are the front and obverse of a coin of the +same age from Corinth, the head of Athena on one side, and Pegasus, with +the archaic Koppa, on the other. The smaller head is bare, the hair +being looped up at the back and closely bound with an olive branch. You +are to note this general outline of the head, already given in a more +finished type in Plate II., as a most important elementary form in the +finest sculpture, not of Greece only, but of all Christendom. In the +upper head the hair is restrained still more closely by a round helmet, +for the most part smooth, but embossed with a single flower tendril, +having one bud, one flower, and above it, two olive leaves. You have +thus the most absolutely restricted symbol possible to human thought of +the power of Athena over the flowers and trees of the earth. An olive +leaf by itself could not have stood for the sign of a tree, but the two +can, when set in position of growth.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 296px;"> +<img src="images/plate6.jpg" width="296" height="500" alt="Plate VI.—Archaic Athena of Athens and Corinth." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate VI.—Archaic Athena of Athens and Corinth.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> + +<p>I would not give you the reverse of the coin on the same plate, because +you would have looked at it only, laughed at it, and not examined the +rest; but here it is, wonderfully engraved for you (Fig. 6): of it we +shall have more to say afterwards.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 375px;"> +<img src="images/fig6.jpg" width="375" height="350" alt="Fig. 6." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 6.</span> +</div> + +<p>81. And now as you look at these rude vestiges of the religion of +Greece, and at the vestiges, still ruder, on the Ducal tomb, of the +religion of Christendom, take warning against two opposite errors.</p> + +<p>There is a school of teachers who will tell you that nothing but Greek +art is deserving of study, and that all our work at this day should be +an imitation of it.</p> + +<p>Whenever you feel tempted to believe them, think of these portraits of +Athena and her owl, and be assured that Greek art is not in all respects +perfect, nor exclusively deserving of imitation.</p> + +<p>There is another school of teachers who will tell you that Greek art is +good for nothing; that the soul of the Greek was outcast, and that +Christianity entirely superseded its faith, and excelled its works.</p> + +<p>Whenever you feel tempted to believe <i>them</i>, think of this angel on the +tomb of Jacopo Tiepolo; and remember, that Christianity, after it had +been twelve hundred years existent as an imaginative power on the earth, +could do no better work than this, though with all the former power of +Greece to help it; nor was able to engrave its triumph in having stained +its fleets in the seas of Greece with the blood of her people, but +between barbarous imitations of the pillars which that people had +invented.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + +<p>82. Receiving these two warnings, receive also this lesson; In both +examples, childish though it be, this Heathen and Christian art is alike +sincere, and alike vividly imaginative: the actual work is that of +infancy; the thoughts, in their visionary simplicity, are also the +thoughts of infancy, but in their solemn virtue, they are the thoughts +of men.</p> + +<p>We, on the contrary, are now, in all that we do, absolutely without +sincerity;—absolutely, therefore, without imagination, and without +virtue. Our hands are dexterous with the vile and deadly dexterity of +machines; our minds filled with incoherent fragments of faith, which we +cling to in cowardice, without believing, and make pictures of in +vanity, without loving. False and base alike, whether we admire or +imitate, we cannot learn from the Heathen's art, but only pilfer it; we +cannot revive the Christian's art, but only galvanize it; we are, in the +sum of us, not human artists at all, but mechanisms of conceited clay, +masked in the furs and feathers of living creatures, and convulsed with +voltaic spasms, in mockery of animation.</p> + +<p>83. You think, perhaps, that I am using terms unjustifiable in violence. +They would, indeed, be unjustifiable, if, spoken from this chair, they +were violent at all. They are, unhappily, temperate and +accurate,—except in shortcoming of blame. For we are not only impotent +to restore, but strong to defile, the work of past ages. Of the +impotence, take but this one, utterly humiliatory, and, in the full +meaning of it, ghastly, example. We have lately been busy embanking, in +the capital of the country, the river which, of all its waters, the +imagination of our ancestors had made most sacred, and the bounty of +nature most useful. Of all architectural features of the metropolis, +that embankment will be, in future, the most conspicuous; and in its +position and purpose it was the most capable of noble adornment.</p> + +<p>For that adornment, nevertheless, the utmost which our modern poetical +imagination has been able to invent, is a row of gas-lamps. It has, +indeed, farther suggested itself to our minds as appropriate to +gas-lamps set beside a river, that the gas should come out of fishes' +tails; but we have not ingenuity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> enough to cast so much as a smelt or a +sprat for ourselves; so we borrow the shape of a Neapolitan marble, +which has been the refuse of the plate and candlestick shops in every +capital of Europe for the last fifty years. We cast <i>that</i> badly, and +give lustre to the ill-cast fish with lacquer in imitation of bronze. On +the base of their pedestals, towards the road, we put for +advertisement's sake, the initials of the casting firm; and, for farther +originality and Christianity's sake, the caduceus of Mercury; and to +adorn the front of the pedestals towards the river, being now wholly at +our wit's end, we can think of nothing better than to borrow the +door-knocker which—again for the last fifty years—has disturbed and +decorated two or three millions of London street-doors; and magnifying +the marvellous device of it, a lion's head with a ring in its mouth +(still borrowed from the Greek), we complete the embankment with a row +of heads and rings, on a scale which enables them to produce, at the +distance at which only they can be seen, the exact effect of a row of +sentry boxes.</p> + +<p>84. Farther. In the very centre of the city, and at the point where the +Embankment commands a view of Westminster Abbey on one side and of St. +Paul's on the other—that is to say, at precisely the most important and +stately moment of its whole course—it has to pass under one of the +arches of Waterloo Bridge, which, in the sweep of its curve, is as +vast—it alone—as the Rialto at Venice, and scarcely less seemly in +proportions. But over the Rialto, though of late and debased Venetian +work, there still reigns some power of human imagination: on the two +flanks of it are carved the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation; on +the keystone the descending Dove. It is not, indeed, the fault of living +designers that the Waterloo arch is nothing more than a gloomy and +hollow heap of wedged blocks of blind granite. But just beyond the damp +shadow of it, the new Embankment is reached by a flight of stairs, which +are, in point of fact, the principal approach to it, a-foot, from +central London; the descent from the very midst of the metropolis of +England to the banks of the chief river of England; and for this +approach, living designers <i>are</i> answerable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p> + +<p>85. The principal decoration of the descent is again a gas-lamp, but a +shattered one, with a brass crown on the top of it or, rather, +half-crown, and that turned the wrong way, the back of it to the river +and causeway, its flame supplied by a visible pipe far wandering along +the wall; the whole apparatus being supported by a rough cross-beam. +Fastened to the centre of the arch above is a large placard, stating +that the Royal Humane Society's drags are in constant readiness, and +that their office is at 4, Trafalgar Square. On each side of the arch +are temporary, but dismally old and battered boardings, across two +angles capable of unseemly use by the British public. Above one of these +is another placard, stating that this is the Victoria Embankment. The +steps themselves—some forty of them—descend under a tunnel, which the +shattered gas-lamp lights by night, and nothing by day. They are covered +with filthy dust, shaken off from infinitude of filthy feet; mixed up +with shreds of paper, orange-peel, foul straw, rags, and cigar ends, and +ashes; the whole agglutinated, more or less, by dry saliva into slippery +blotches and patches; or, when not so fastened, blown dismally by the +sooty wind hither and thither, or into the faces of those who ascend and +descend. The place is worth your visit, for you are not likely to find +elsewhere a spot which, either in costly and ponderous brutality of +building, or in the squalid and indecent accompaniment of it, is so far +separated from the peace and grace of nature, and so accurately +indicative of the methods of our national resistance to the Grace, +Mercy, and Peace of Heaven.</p> + +<p>86. I am obliged always to use the English word "Grace" in two senses, +but remember that the Greek χαρις includes them both (the +bestowing, that is to say of Beauty and Mercy); and especially it +includes these in the passage of Pindar's first ode, which gives us the +key to the right interpretation of the power of sculpture in Greece. You +remember that I told you, in my Sixth Introductory Lecture (§ 151), that +the mythic accounts of Greek sculpture begin in the legends of the +family of Tantalus; and especially in the most grotesque legend of them +all, the inlaying of the ivory shoulder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> of Pelops. At that story Pindar +pauses—not, indeed, without admiration, nor alleging any impossibility +in the circumstances themselves, but doubting the careless hunger of +Demeter—and gives his own reading of the event, instead of the ancient +one. He justifies this to himself, and to his hearers, by the plea that +myths have, in some sort, or degree, (που τι), led the mind of +mortals beyond the truth: and then he goes on:—</p> + +<p>"Grace, which creates everything that is kindly and soothing for +mortals, adding honour, has often made things at first untrustworthy, +become trustworthy through Love."</p> + +<p>87. I cannot, except in these lengthened terms, give you the complete +force of the passage; especially of the αριστον εμησατο ριοτον—"made it trustworthy by passionate desire that it should be +so"—which exactly describes the temper of religious persons at the +present day, who are kindly and sincere, in clinging to the forms of +faith which either have long been precious to themselves, or which they +feel to have been without question instrumental in advancing the dignity +of mankind. And it is part of the constitution of humanity—a part +which, above others, you are in danger of unwisely contemning under the +existing conditions of our knowledge, that the things thus sought for +belief with eager passion, do, indeed, become trustworthy to us; that, +to each of us, they verily become what we would have them; the force of +the μηνις and μνημη with which we seek after them, +does, indeed, make them powerful to us for actual good or evil; and it +is thus granted to us to create not only with our hands things that +exalt or degrade our sight, but with our hearts also, things that exalt +or degrade our souls; giving true substance to all that we hoped for; +evidence to things that we have not seen, but have desired to see; and +calling, in the sense of creating, things that are not, as though they +were.</p> + +<p>88. You remember that in distinguishing Imagination from Idolatry, I +referred you to the forms of passionate affection with which a noble +people commonly regards the rivers and springs of its native land. Some +conception of personality or of spiritual power in the stream, is almost +necessarily involved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> in such emotion; and prolonged χαρις in +the form of gratitude, the return of Love for benefits continually +bestowed, at last alike in all the highest and the simplest minds, when +they are honourable and pure, makes this untrue thing trustworthy; +αριστον εμησατο ριστον, until it becomes to them the safe basis +of some of the happiest impulses of their moral nature. Next to the +marbles of Verona, given you as a primal type of the sculpture of +Christianity, moved to its best energy in adorning the entrance of its +temples, I have not unwillingly placed, as your introduction to the best +sculpture of the religion of Greece, the forms under which it +represented the personality of the fountain Arethusa. But, without +restriction to those days of absolute devotion, let me simply point out +to you how this untrue thing, made true by Love, has intimate and +heavenly authority even over the minds of men of the most practical +sense, the most shrewd wit, and the most severe precision of moral +temper. The fair vision of Sabrina in <i>Comus</i>, the endearing and tender +promise, "Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium," and the joyful and proud +affection of the great Lombard's address to the lakes of his enchanted +land,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i13">Te, Lari maxume, teque<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>may surely be remembered by you with regretful piety, when you stand by +the blank stones which at once restrain and disgrace your native river, +as the final worship rendered to it by modern philosophy. But a little +incident which I saw last summer on its bridge at Wallingford, may put +the contrast of ancient and modern feeling before you still more +forcibly.</p> + +<p>89. Those of you who have read with attention (none of us can read with +too much attention), Molière's most perfect work, the <i>Misanthrope</i>, +must remember Celiméne's description of her lovers, and her excellent +reason for being unable to regard with any favour, "notre grand flandrin +de vicomte,—depuis que je l'ai vu, trois quarts d'heure durant, cracher +dans un puits pour faire des ronds." That sentence is worth noting, both +in contrast to the reverence paid by the ancients to wells and springs, +and as one of the most interesting traces of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> extension of the +loathsome habit among the upper classes of Europe and America, which now +renders all external grace, dignity, and decency, impossible in the +thoroughfares of their principal cities. In connection with that +sentence of Molière's you may advisably also remember this fact, which I +chanced to notice on the bridge of Wallingford. I was walking from end +to end of it, and back again, one Sunday afternoon of last May, trying +to conjecture what had made this especial bend and ford of the Thames so +important in all the Anglo-Saxon wars. It was one of the few sunny +afternoons of the bitter spring, and I was very thankful for its light, +and happy in watching beneath it the flow and the glittering of the +classical river, when I noticed a well-dressed boy, apparently just out +of some orderly Sunday-school, leaning far over the parapet; watching, +as I conjectured, some bird or insect on the bridge-buttress. I went up +to him to see what he was looking at; but just as I got close to him, he +started over to the opposite parapet, and put himself there into the +same position, his object being, as I then perceived, to spit from both +sides upon the heads of a pleasure party who were passing in a boat +below.</p> + +<p>90. The incident may seem to you too trivial to be noticed in this +place. To me, gentlemen, it was by no means trivial. It meant, in the +depth of it, such absence of all true χαρις, reverence, and +intellect, as it is very dreadful to trace in the mind of any human +creature, much more in that of a child educated with apparently every +advantage of circumstance in a beautiful English country town, within +ten miles of our University. Most of all, is it terrific when we regard +it as the exponent (and this, in truth, it is), of the temper which, as +distinguished from former methods, either of discipline or recreation, +the present tenor of our general teaching fosters in the mind of +youth;—teaching which asserts liberty to be a right, and obedience a +degradation; and which, regardless alike of the fairness of nature and +the grace of behaviour, leaves the insolent spirit and degraded senses +to find their only occupation in malice, and their only satisfaction in +shame.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p> + +<p>91. You will, I hope, proceed with me, not scornfully any more, to +trace, in the early art of a noble heathen nation, the feeling of what +was at least a better childishness than this of ours; and the efforts to +express, though with hands yet failing, and minds oppressed by ignorant +phantasy, the first truth by which they knew that they lived; the birth +of wisdom and of all her powers of help to man, as the reward of his +resolute labour.</p> + +<p>92. "Αφαιστου τεχναισι." Note that word of Pindar in the +Seventh Olympic. This axe-blow of Vulcan's was to the Greek mind truly +what Clytemnestra falsely asserts hers to have been "της δε δεξιας χερος εργον δικαιας τεκτονος"; physically, it meant the opening +of the blue through the rent clouds of heaven, by the action of local +terrestrial heat of Hephæstus as opposed to Apollo, who shines on the +surface of the upper clouds, but cannot pierce them; and, spiritually, +it meant the first birth of prudent thought out of rude labour, the +clearing-axe in the hand of the woodman being the practical elementary +sign of his difference from the wild animals of the wood. Then he goes +on, "From the high head of her Father, Athenaia rushing forth, cried +with her great and exceeding cry; and the Heaven trembled at her, and +the Earth Mother." The cry of Athena, I have before pointed out, +physically distinguishes her, as the spirit of the air, from silent +elemental powers; but in this grand passage of Pindar it is again the +mythic cry of which he thinks; that is to say, the giving articulate +words, by intelligence, to the silence of Fate. "Wisdom crieth aloud, +she uttereth her voice in the streets," and Heaven and Earth tremble at +her reproof.</p> + +<p>93. Uttereth her voice in "the streets." For all men, that is to say; +but to what work did the Greeks think that her voice was to call them? +What was to be the impulse communicated by her prevailing presence; what +the sign of the people's obedience to her?</p> + +<p>This was to be the sign—"But she, the goddess herself, gave to them to +prevail over the dwellers upon earth, <i>with best-labouring hands in +every art. And by their paths there were the likenesses of living and of +creeping things</i>; and the glory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> was deep. For to the cunning workman, +greater knowledge comes, undeceitful."</p> + +<p>94. An infinitely pregnant passage, this, of which to-day you are to +note mainly these three things: First, that Athena is the goddess of +Doing, not at all of sentimental inaction. She is begotten, as it were, +of the woodman's axe; her purpose is never in a word only, but in a word +and a blow. She guides the hands that labour best, in every art.</p> + +<p>95. Secondly. The victory given by Wisdom, the worker, to the hands that +labour best, is that the streets and ways, κελευθοι, shall be +filled by likenesses of living and creeping things?</p> + +<p>Things living, and creeping! Are the Reptile things not alive then? You +think Pindar wrote that carelessly? or that, if he had only known a +little modern anatomy, instead of "reptile" things, he would have said +"monochondylous" things? Be patient, and let us attend to the main +points first.</p> + +<p>Sculpture, it thus appears, is the only work of wisdom that the Greeks +care to speak of; they think it involves and crowns every other. +Image-making art; <i>this</i> is Athena's, as queenliest of the arts. +Literature, the order and the strength of word, of course belongs to +Apollo and the Muses; under Athena are the Substances and the Forms of +things.</p> + +<p>96, Thirdly. By this forming of Images there is to be gained a +"deep"—that is to say—a weighty, and prevailing, glory; not a floating +nor fugitive one. For to the cunning workman, greater knowledge comes, +"undeceitful."</p> + +<p>"916()#;αεντι" I am forced to use two English words to translate that +single Greek one. The "cunning" workman, thoughtful in experience, +touch, and vision of the thing to be done; no machine, witless, and of +necessary motion; yet not cunning only, but having perfect habitual +skill of hand also; the confirmed reward of truthful doing. Recollect, +in connection with this passage of Pindar, Homer's three verses about +getting the lines of ship-timber true, (<i>Il.</i> xv. 410)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Αλλ' ωστε σταθμη δορυ νηιον εξιθυνει<br /></span> +<span class="i0">τεχτονος εν παλαμησι δαημονος, ὁς ρα τε πασης<br /></span> +<span class="i0">εδ ειδη σοφης, υροθημοσυνησιν Αθηνης<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>and the beautiful epithet of Persephone, "δαειρα," as the Tryer +and Knower of good work; and remembering these, trust Pindar for the +truth of his saying, that to the cunning workman—(and let me solemnly +enforce the words by adding—that to him <i>only</i>,) knowledge comes +undeceitful.</p> + +<p>97. You may have noticed, perhaps, and with a smile, as one of the +paradoxes you often hear me blamed for too fondly stating, what I told +you in the close of my Third Introductory Lecture, that "so far from +art's being immoral, little else except art is moral." I have now +farther to tell you, that little else, except art, is wise; that all +knowledge, unaccompanied by a habit of useful action, is too likely to +become deceitful, and that every habit of useful action must resolve +itself into some elementary practice of manual labour. And I would, in +all sober and direct earnestness advise you, whatever may be the aim, +predilection, or necessity of your lives, to resolve upon this one thing +at least, that you will enable yourselves daily to do actually with your +hands, something that is useful to mankind. To do anything well with +your hands, useful or not;—to be, even in trifling, ραλαμησι δαημων +is already much;—when we come to examine the art of the middle +ages I shall be able to show you that the strongest of all influences of +right then brought to bear upon character was the necessity for +exquisite manual dexterity in the management of the spear and bridle; +and in your own experience most of you will be able to recognize the +wholesome effect, alike on body and mind, of striving, within proper +limits of time, to become either good batsmen, or good oarsmen. But the +bat and the racer's oar are children's toys. Resolve that you will be +men in usefulness, as well as in strength; and you will find that then +also, but not till then, you can become men in understanding; and that +every fine vision and subtle theorem will present itself to you +thenceforward undeceitfully, ὑροθημοσυνησιν Αθηνης.</p> + +<p>98. But there is more to be gathered yet from the words of Pindar. He is +thinking, in his brief, intense way, at once of Athena's work on the +soul, and of her literal power on the dust of the Earth. His "κελευθοι" is a wide word meaning all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> the paths of sea and land. +Consider, therefore, what Athena's own work <i>actually is</i>—in the +literal fact of it. The blue, clear air <i>is</i> the sculpturing power upon +the earth and sea. Where the surface of the earth is reached by that, +and its matter and substance inspired with, and filled by that, organic +form becomes possible. You must indeed have the sun, also, and moisture; +the kingdom of Apollo risen out of the sea: but the sculpturing of +living things, shape by shape, is Athena's, so that under the brooding +spirit of the air, what was without form, and void brings forth the +moving creature that hath life.</p> + +<p>99. That is her work then—the giving of Form; then the separately +Apolline work is the giving of Light; or, more strictly, Sight: giving +that faculty to the retina to which we owe not merely the idea of light, +but the existence of it; for light is to be defined only as the +sensation produced in the eye of an animal, under given conditions; +those same conditions being, to a stone, only warmth or chemical +influence, but not light. And that power of seeing, and the other +various personalities and authorities of the animal body, in pleasure +and pain, have never, hitherto, been, I do not say, explained, but in +any wise touched or approached by scientific discovery. Some of the +conditions of mere external animal form and of muscular vitality have +been shown; but for the most part that is true, even of external form, +which I wrote six years ago. "You may always stand by Form against +Force. To a painter, the essential character of anything is the form of +it, and the philosophers cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for +instance, that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy (or +whatever else they like to call it), in a tea-kettle, as in a +gier-eagle. Very good: that is so; and it is very interesting. It +requires just as much heat as will boil the kettle, to take the +gier-eagle up to his nest, and as much more to bring him down again on a +hare or a partridge. But we painters, acknowledging the equality and +similarity of the kettle and the bird in all scientific respects, +attach, for our part, our principal interest to the difference in their +forms. For us, the primarily cognisable facts, in the two things, are,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak; the one a lid on its +back, the other a pair of wings; not to speak of the distinction also of +volition, which the philosophers may properly call merely a form or mode +of force—but, then to an artist, the form or mode is the gist of the +business."</p> + +<p>100. As you will find that it is, not to the artist only, but to all of +us. The laws under which matter is collected and constructed are the +same throughout the universe: the substance so collected, whether for +the making of the eagle, or the worm, may be analyzed into gaseous +identity; a diffusive vital force, apparently so closely related to +mechanically measurable heat as to admit the conception of its being +itself mechanically measurable, and unchanging in total quantity, ebbs +and flows alike through the limbs of men, and the fibres of insects. +But, above all this, and ruling every grotesque or degraded accident of +this, are two laws of beauty in form, and of nobility in character, +which stand in the chaos of creation between the Living and the Dead, to +separate the things that have in them a sacred and helpful, from those +that have in them an accursed and destroying, nature; and the power of +Athena, first physically put forth in the sculpturing of these ζωα +and ερπατα, these living and reptile things, is put forth, finally, +in enabling the hearts of men to discern the one from the other; to know +the unquenchable fires of the Spirit from the unquenchable fires of +Death; and to choose, not unaided, between submission to the Love that +cannot end, or to the Worm that cannot die.</p> + +<p>101. The unconsciousness of their antagonism is the most notable +characteristic of the modern scientific mind; and I believe no credulity +or fallacy admitted by the weakness (or it may sometimes rather have +been the strength) of early imagination, indicates so strange a +depression beneath the due scale of human intellect, as the failure of +the sense of beauty in form, and loss of faith in heroism of conduct, +which have become the curses of recent science,<a name="FNanchor_122_122" id="FNanchor_122_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> art, and policy.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p> +<p>102. That depression of intellect has been alike exhibited in the mean +consternation confessedly felt on one side, and the mean triumph +apparently felt on the other, during the course of the dispute now +pending as to the origin of man. Dispute for the present, not to be +decided, and of which the decision is to persons in the modern temper of +mind, wholly without significance: and I earnestly desire that you, my +pupils, may have firmness enough to disengage your energies from +investigation so premature and so fruitless, and sense enough to +perceive that it does not matter how you have been made, so long as you +are satisfied with being what you are. If you are dissatisfied with +yourselves, it ought not to console, but humiliate you, to imagine that +you were once seraphs; and if you are pleased with yourselves, it is not +any ground of reasonable shame to you if, by no fault of your own, you +have passed through the elementary condition of apes.</p> + +<p>103. Remember, therefore, that it is of the very highest importance that +you should know what you <i>are</i>, and determine to be the best that you +may be; but it is of no importance whatever, except as it may contribute +to that end, to know what you have been. Whether your Creator shaped you +with fingers, or tools, as a sculptor would a lump of clay, or gradually +raised you to manhood through a series of inferior forms, is only of +moment to you in this respect—that in the one case you cannot expect +your children to be nobler creatures than you are yourselves—in the +other, every act and thought of your present life may be hastening the +advent of a race which will look back to you, their fathers (and you +ought at least to have attained the dignity of desiring that it may be +so), with incredulous disdain.</p> + +<p>104. But that you <i>are</i> yourselves capable of that disdain and dismay; +that you are ashamed of having been apes, if you ever were so; that you +acknowledge instinctively, a relation of better and worse, and a law +respecting what is noble and base, which makes it no question to you +that the man is worthier than the baboon—<i>this</i> is a fact of infinite +significance. This law of preference in your hearts is the true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> essence +of your being, and the consciousness of that law is a more positive +existence than any dependent on the coherence or forms of matter.</p> + +<p>105. Now, but a few words more of mythology, and I have done. Remember +that Athena holds the weaver's shuttle, not merely as an instrument of +<i>texture</i>, but as an instrument of <i>picture</i>; the ideas of clothing, and +of the warmth of life, being thus inseparably connected with those of +graphic beauty and the brightness of life. I have told you that no art +could be recovered among us without perfectness in dress, nor without +the elementary graphic art of women, in divers colours of needlework. +There has been no nation of any art-energy, but has strenuously occupied +and interested itself in this household picturing, from the web of +Penelope to the tapestry of Queen Matilda, and the meshes of Arras and +Gobelins.</p> + +<p>106. We should then naturally ask what kind of embroidery Athena put on +her own robe; "περλον ἑανον, ροικιλον ὁυ ρ αυτη ροιησατο και καμε χερσιν."</p> + +<p>The subject of that ροικιλια of hers, as you know, was the war +of the giants and gods. Now the real name of these giants, remember, is +that used by Hesiod, "πηλοχονοι," "mud-begotten," and the +meaning of the contest between these and Zeus, πηλογονων ελατηρ, is, again, the inspiration of life into the clay, by the +goddess of breath; and the actual confusion going on visibly before you, +daily, of the earth, heaping itself into cumbrous war with the powers +above it.</p> + +<p>107. Thus briefly, the entire material of Art, under Athena's hand, is +the contest of life with clay; and all my task in explaining to you the +early thought of both the Athenian and Tuscan schools will only be the +tracing of this battle of the giants into its full heroic form, when, +not in tapestry only—but in sculpture—and on the portal of the Temple +of Delphi itself, you have the "κλονος εν τειχεσι λαινοισι γιγαντων," and their defeat hailed by the passionate cry of delight +from the Athenian maids, beholding Pallas in her full power, "κλονος εν τειχεσι λαινοισι γιγαντω Παλλαδ' εμαν θεον," my own goddess. All our work, I repeat, +will be nothing but the inquiry into the development of this the +subject, and the pressing fully home the question of Plato<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> about that +embroidery—"And think you that there is verily war with each other +among the Gods? and dreadful enmities and battle, such as the poets have +told, and such as our painters set forth in graven scripture, to adorn +all our sacred rites and holy places; yes, and in the great Panathenaea +themselves, the Peplus, full of such wild picturing, is carried up into +the Acropolis—shall we say that these things are true, oh Euthuphron, +right-minded friend?"</p> + +<p>108. Yes, we say, and know, that these things are true; and true for +ever: battles of the gods, not among themselves, but against the +earth-giants. Battle prevailing age by age, in nobler life and lovelier +imagery; creation, which no theory of mechanism, no definition of force, +can explain, the adoption and completing of individual form by +individual animation, breathed out of the lips of the Father of Spirits. +And to recognize the presence in every knitted shape of dust, by which +it lives and moves and has its being—to recognize it, revere, and show +it forth, is to be our eternal Idolatry.</p> + +<p>"Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them."</p> + +<p>"Assuredly no," we answered once, in our pride; and through porch and +aisle, broke down the carved work thereof, with axes and hammers.</p> + +<p>Who would have thought the day so near when we should bow down to +worship, not the creatures, but their atoms,—not the forces that form, +but those that dissolve them? Trust me, gentlemen, the command which is +stringent against adoration of brutality, is stringent no less against +adoration of chaos, nor is faith in an image fallen from heaven to be +reformed by a faith only in the phenomenon of decadence. We have ceased +from the making of monsters to be appeased by sacrifice;—it is +well,—if indeed we have also ceased from making them in our thoughts. +We have learned to distrust the adorning of fair phantasms, to which we +once sought for succour;—it is well, if we learn to distrust also the +adorning of those to which we seek, for temptation; but the verity of +gains like these can only be known by our confession of the divine seal +of strength and beauty upon the tempered frame, and honour in the +fervent heart, by which, increasing visibly, may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> yet be manifested to +us the holy presence, and the approving love, of the Loving God, who +visits the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children, unto the third +and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and shows mercy unto +thousands in them that love Him, and keep His Commandments.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_118_118" id="Footnote_118_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> I shall be obliged in future lectures, as hitherto in my +other writings, to use the terms, Idolatry and Imagination in a more +comprehensive sense; but here I use them for convenience sake, +limitedly, to avoid the continual occurrence of the terms, noble and +ignoble, or false and true, with reference to modes of conception.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_119_119" id="Footnote_119_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> "And in sum, he himself (Prometheus) was the +master-maker, and Athena worked together with him, breathing into the +clay, and caused the moulded things to have soul (psyche) in +them."—<span class="smcap">Lucian, Prometheus.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_120_120" id="Footnote_120_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> His relations with the two great Titans, Themis and +Mnemosyne, belong to another group of myths. The father of Athena is the +lower and nearer physical Zeus, from whom Metis, the mother of Athena, +long withdraws and disguises herself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_121_121" id="Footnote_121_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> The Latin verses are of later date; the contemporary +plain prose retains the Venetian gutturals and aspirates.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_122_122" id="Footnote_122_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> The best modern illustrated scientific works show perfect +faculty of representing monkeys, lizards, and insects; absolute +incapability of representing either a man, a horse, or a lion.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LECTURE IV.</h2> + +<h3>LIKENESS.</h3> + +<h4><i>November, 1870.</i></h4> + + +<p>109. You were probably vexed, and tired, towards the close of my last +lecture, by the time it took us to arrive at the apparently simple +conclusion, that sculpture must only represent organic form, and the +strength of life in its contest with matter. But it is no small thing to +have that "λευσσω Παλλαδα" fixed in your minds, as the one +necessary sign by which you are to recognize right sculpture, and +believe me you will find it the best of all things, if you can take for +yourselves the saying from the lips of the Athenian maids, in its +entirety, and say also—λευσσω Παλλαδ' εμαν θεον. I proceed +to-day into the practical appliance of this apparently speculative, but +in reality imperative, law.</p> + +<p>110. You observe, I have hitherto spoken of the power of Athena, as over +painting no less than sculpture. But her rule over both arts is only so +far as they are zoographic;—representative, that is to say, of animal +life, or of such order and discipline among other elements, as may +invigorate and purify it. Now there is a speciality of the art of +painting beyond this, namely, the representation of phenomena of colour +and shadow, as such, without question of the nature of the things that +receive them. I am now accordingly obliged to speak of sculpture and +painting as distinct arts, but the laws which bind sculpture, bind no +less the painting of the higher schools which has, for its main purpose, +the showing beauty in human or animal form; and which is therefore +placed by the Greeks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> equally under the rule of Athena, as the Spirit, +first, of Life, and then of Wisdom in conduct.</p> + +<p>111. First, I say, you are to "see Pallas" in all such work, as the +Queen of Life; and the practical law which follows from this, is one of +enormous range and importance, namely, that nothing must be represented +by sculpture, external to any living form, which does not help to +enforce or illustrate the conception of life. Both dress and armour may +be made to do this, by great sculptors, and are continually so used by +the greatest. One of the essential distinctions between the Athenian and +Florentine schools is dependent on their treatment of drapery in this +respect; an Athenian always sets it to exhibit the action of the body, +by flowing with it, or over it, or from it, so as to illustrate both its +form and gesture; a Florentine, on the contrary, always uses his drapery +to conceal or disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental +emotion: but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or +soul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic +chivalry, ennoble armour in the same way; but base sculptors carve +drapery and armour for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only, +and forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern that all delight in +mere incidental beauty, which painting often triumphs in, is wholly +forbidden to sculpture;—for instance, in <i>painting</i> the branch of a +tree, you may rightly represent and enjoy the lichens and moss on it, +but a sculptor must not touch one of them: they are inessential to the +tree's life,—he must give the flow and bending of the branch only, else +he does not enough "see Pallas" in it.</p> + +<p>Or to take a higher instance, here is an exquisite little painted poem, +by Edward Frere; a cottage interior, one of the thousands which within +the last two months<a name="FNanchor_123_123" id="FNanchor_123_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> have been laid desolate in unhappy France. +Every accessory in the painting is of value—the fireside, the tiled +floor, the vegetables lying upon it, and the basket hanging from the +roof. But not one of these accessories would have been admissible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> in +sculpture. You must carve nothing but what has life. "Why"? you probably +feel instantly inclined to ask me.—You see the principle we have got, +instead of being blunt or useless, is such an edged tool that you are +startled the moment I apply it. "Must we refuse every pleasant accessory +and picturesque detail, and petrify nothing but living creatures"?—Even +so: I would not assert it on my own authority. It is the Greeks who say +it, but whatever they say of sculpture, be assured, is true.</p> + +<p>112. That then is the first law—you must see Pallas as the Lady of +Life—the second is, you must see her as the Lady of Wisdom; or σοφια—and this is the chief matter of all. I cannot but think, that +after the considerations into which we have now entered, you will find +more interest than hitherto in comparing the statements of Aristotle, in +the Ethics, with those of Plato in the Polity, which are authoritative +as Greek definitions of goodness in art, and which you may safely hold +authoritative as constant definitions of it. You remember, doubtless, +that the σοφια or αρετη τεχνης, for the sake of +which Phidias is called σοφος as a sculptor, and Polyclitus as +an image-maker, Eth. 6. 7. (the opposition is both between ideal and +portrait sculpture, and between working in stone and bronze) consists in +the "νους των τιμιωτατων τη φυσει" "the mental apprehension of +the things that are most honourable in their nature." Therefore what is, +indeed, most lovely, the true image-maker will most love; and what is +most hateful, he will most hate, and in all things discern the best and +strongest part of them, and represent that essentially, or, if the +opposite of that, then with manifest detestation and horror. That is his +art wisdom; the knowledge of good and evil, and the love of good, so +that you may discern, even in his representation of the vilest thing, +his acknowledgment of what redemption is possible for it, or latent +power exists in it; and, contrariwise, his sense of its present misery. +But for the most part, he will idolize, and force us also to idolize, +whatever is living, and virtuous, and victoriously right; opposing to it +in some definite mode the image of the conquered ἑρπετον.</p> + +<p>113. This is generally true of both the great arts; but in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> severity and +precision, true of sculpture. To return to our illustration: this poor +little girl was more interesting to Edward Frere, he being a painter, +because she was poorly dressed, and wore these clumsy shoes, and old red +cap, and patched gown. May we sculpture her so? No. We may sculpture her +naked, if we like; but not in rags.</p> + +<p>But if we may not put her into marble in rags, may we give her a pretty +frock with ribands and flounces to it, and put her into marble in that? +No. We may put her simplest peasant's dress, so it be perfect and +orderly, into marble; anything finer than that would be more +dishonourable in the eyes of Athena than rags. If she were a French +princess, you might carve her embroidered robe and diadem; if she were +Joan of Arc you might carve her armour—for then these also would be +"των τιμιωτατων," not otherwise.</p> + +<p>114. Is not this an edge-tool we have got hold of, unawares? and a +subtle one too; so delicate and scimitar-like in decision. For note, +that even Joan of Arc's armour must be only sculptured, <i>if she has it +on</i>; it is not the honourableness or beauty of it that are enough, but +the direct bearing of it by her body. You might be deeply, even +pathetically, interested by looking at a good knight's dinted coat of +mail, left in his desolate hall. May you sculpture it where it hangs? +No; the helmet for his pillow, if you will—no more.</p> + +<p>You see we did not do our dull work for nothing in last lecture. I +define what we have gained once more, and then we will enter on our new +ground.</p> + +<p>115. The proper subject of sculpture, we have determined, is the +spiritual power seen in the form of any living thing, and so represented +as to give evidence that the sculptor has loved the good of it and hated +the evil.</p> + +<p>"<i>So</i> represented," we say; but how is that to be done? Why should it +not be represented, if possible, just as it is seen? What mode or limit +of representation may we adopt? We are to carve things that have +life;—shall we try so to imitate them that they may indeed seem +living,—or only half living, and like stone instead of flesh?</p> + +<p>It will simplify this question if I show you three examples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> of what the +Greeks actually did: three typical pieces of their sculpture, in order +of perfection.</p> + +<p>116. And now, observe that in all our historical work, I will endeavour +to do, myself, what I have asked you to do in your drawing exercises; +namely, to outline firmly in the beginning, and then fill in the detail +more minutely. I will give you first, therefore, in a symmetrical form, +absolutely simple and easily remembered, the large chronology of the +Greek school; within that unforgettable scheme we will place, as we +discover them, the minor relations of arts and times.</p> + +<p>I number the nine centuries before Christ thus, upwards, and divide them +into three groups of three each.</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>9</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A. archaic.</td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>8</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>7</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>——</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>6</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>B. best.</td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>5</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>4</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>——</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>3</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>C. corrupt.</td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'> 2</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>{</td><td align='left'>1</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>Then the ninth, eighth, and seventh centuries are the period of Archaic +Greek Art, steadily progressive wherever it existed.</p> + +<p>The sixth, fifth, and fourth are the period of central Greek Art; the +fifth, or central century producing the finest. That is easily +recollected by the battle of Marathon. And the third, second, and first +centuries are the period of steady decline.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 299px;"> +<img src="images/plate7.jpg" width="299" height="550" alt="Plate VII.—Archaic, Central and Declining Art of +Greece." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate VII.—Archaic, Central and Declining Art of +Greece.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p> + +<p>Learn this A B C thoroughly, and mark, for yourselves, what you, at +present, think the vital events in each century. As you know more, you +will think other events the vital ones; but the best historical +knowledge only approximates to true thought in that matter; only be sure +that what is truly vital in the character which governs events, is +always expressed by the art of the century; so that if you could +interpret that art rightly, the better part of your task in reading +history would be done to your hand.</p> + +<p>117. It is generally impossible to date with precision art of the +archaic period—often difficult to date even that of the central three +hundred years. I will not weary you with futile minor divisions of time; +here are three coins (Plate VII.) roughly, but decisively, +characteristic of the three ages. The first is an early coin of +Tarentum. The city was founded as you know, by the Spartan Phalanthus, +late in the eighth century. I believe the head is meant for that of +Apollo Archegetes, it may however be Taras, the son of Poseidon; it is +no matter to us at present whom it is meant for, but the fact that we +cannot know, is itself of the greatest import. We cannot say, with any +certainty, unless by discovery of some collateral evidence, whether this +head is intended for that of a god, or demi-god, or a mortal warrior. +Ought not that to disturb some of your thoughts respecting Greek +idealism? Farther, if by investigation we discover that the head is +meant for that of Phalanthus, we shall know nothing of the character of +Phalanthus from the face; for there is no portraiture at this early +time.</p> + +<p>118. The second coin is of Ænus in Macedonia; probably of the fifth or +early fourth century, and entirely characteristic of the central period. +This we know to represent the face of a god—Hermes. The third coin is a +king's, not a city's. I will not tell you, at this moment, what king's; +but only that it is a late coin of the third period, and that it is as +distinct in purpose as the coin of Tarentum is obscure. We know of this +coin, that it represents no god nor demi-god, but a mere mortal; and we +know precisely, from the portrait, what that mortal's face was like.</p> + +<p>119. A glance at the three coins, as they are set side by side, will now +show you the main differences in the three great Greek styles. The +archaic coin is sharp and hard; every line decisive and numbered, set +unhesitatingly in its place; nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> is wrong, though everything +incomplete, and, to us who have seen finer art, ugly. The central coin +is as decisive and clear in arrangement of masses, but its contours are +completely rounded and finished. There is no character in its execution +so prominent that you can give an epithet to the style. It is not hard, +it is not soft, it is not delicate, it is not coarse, it is not +grotesque, it is not beautiful; and I am convinced, unless you had been +told that this is fine central Greek art, you would have seen nothing at +all in it to interest you. Do not let yourselves be anywise forced into +admiring it; there is, indeed, nothing more here, than an approximately +true rendering of a healthy youthful face, without the slightest attempt +to give an expression of activity, cunning, nobility, or any other +attribute of the Mercurial mind. Extreme simplicity, unpretending vigour +of work, which claims no admiration either for minuteness or dexterity, +and suggests no idea of effort at all; refusal of extraneous ornament, +and perfectly arranged disposition of counted masses in a sequent order, +whether in the beads, or the ringlets of hair; this is all you have to +be pleased with; neither will you ever find, in the best Greek Art, +more. You might at first suppose that the chain of beads round the cap +was an extraneous ornament; but I have little doubt that it is as +definitely the proper fillet for the head of Hermes, as the olive for +Zeus, or corn for Triptolemus. The cap or petasus cannot have expanded +edges, there is no room for them on the coin; these must be understood, +therefore; but the nature of the cloud-petasus is explained by edging it +with beads, representing either dew or hail. The shield of Athena often +bears white pellets for hail, in like manner.</p> + +<p>120. The third coin will, I think, at once strike you by what we moderns +should call its "vigour of character." You may observe also that the +features are finished with great care and subtlety, but at the cost of +simplicity and breadth. But the <i>essential</i> difference between it and +the central art, is its disorder in design—you see the locks of hair +cannot be counted any longer—they are entirely dishevelled and +irregular. Now the individual character may, or may not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> be, a sign of +decline; but the licentiousness, the casting loose of the masses in the +design, is an infallible one. The effort at portraiture is good for art +if the men to be portrayed are good men, not otherwise. In the instance +before you, the head is that of Mithridates VI. of Pontus, who had, +indeed, the good qualities of being a linguist and a patron of the arts; +but as you will remember, murdered, according to report, his mother, +certainly his brother, certainly his wives and sisters, I have not +counted how many of his children, and from a hundred to a hundred and +fifty thousand persons besides; these last in a single day's massacre. +The effort to represent this kind of person is not by any means a method +of study from life ultimately beneficial to art.</p> + +<p>121. This however is not the point I have to urge to-day. What I want +you to observe is that, though the master of the great time does not +attempt portraiture, he <i>does</i> attempt animation. And as far as his +means will admit, he succeeds in making the face—you might almost +think—vulgarly animated; as like a real face, literally, "as it can +stare." Yes: and its sculptor meant it to be so; and that was what +Phidias meant his Jupiter to be, if he could manage it. Not, indeed, to +be taken for Zeus himself; and yet, to be as like a living Zeus as art +could make it. Perhaps you think he tried to make it look living only +for the sake of the mob, and would not have tried to do so for +connoisseurs. Pardon me; for real connoisseurs, he would, and did; and +herein consists a truth which belongs to all the arts, and which I will +at once drive home in your minds, as firmly as I can.</p> + +<p>122. All second-rate artists—(and remember, the second-rate ones are a +loquacious multitude, while the great come only one or two in a century; +and then, silently)—all second-rate artists will tell you that the +object of fine art is not resemblance, but some kind of abstraction more +refined than reality. Put that out of your heads at once. The object of +the great Resemblant Arts is, and always has been, to resemble; and to +resemble as closely as possible. It is the function of a good portrait +to set the man before you in habit as he lived, and I would we had a few +more that did so. It is the function<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> of a good landscape to set the +scene before you in its reality, to make you, if it may be, think the +clouds are flying, and the streams foaming. It is the function of the +best sculptor—the true Dædalus—to make stillness look like breathing, +and marble look like flesh.</p> + +<p>123. And in all great times of art, this purpose is as naïvely expressed +as it is steadily held. All the talk about abstraction belongs to +periods of decadence. In living times, people see something living that +pleases them; and they try to make it live for ever, or to make it +something as like it as possible, that will last for ever. They paint +their statues, and inlay the eyes with jewels, and set real crowns on +their heads; they finish, in their pictures, every thread of embroidery, +and would fain, if they could, draw every leaf upon the trees. And their +only verbal expression of conscious success is, that they have made +their work "look real."</p> + +<p>124. You think all that very wrong. So did I, once; but it was I that +was wrong. A long time ago, before ever I had seen Oxford, I painted a +picture of the Lake of Como, for my father. It was not at all like the +Lake of Como; but I thought it rather the better for that. My father +differed with me; and objected particularly to a boat with a red and +yellow awning, which I had put into the most conspicuous corner of my +drawing. I declared this boat to be "necessary to the composition." My +father not the less objected, that he had never seen such a boat, either +at Como or elsewhere; and suggested that if I would make the lake look a +little more like water, I should be under no necessity of explaining its +nature by the presence of floating objects. I thought him at the time a +very simple person for his pains; but have since learned, and it is the +very gist of all practical matters, which, as professor of fine art, I +have now to tell you, that the great point in painting a lake is—to get +it to look like water.</p> + +<p>125. So far, so good. We lay it down for a first principle, that our +graphic art, whether painting or sculpture, is to produce something +which shall look as like Nature as possible. But now we must go one step +farther, and say that it is to produce what shall look like Nature to +people who know what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> Nature is like! You see this is at once a great +restriction, as well as a great exaltation of our aim. Our business is +not to deceive the simple; but to deceive the wise! Here, for instance, +is a modern Italian print, representing, to the best of its power, St. +Cecilia, in a brilliantly realistic manner. And the fault of the work is +not in its earnest endeavour to show St. Cecilia in habit as she lived, +but in that the effort could only be successful with persons unaware of +the habit St. Cecilia lived in. And this condition of appeal only to the +wise increases the difficulty of imitative resemblance so greatly, that, +with only average skill or materials, we must surrender all hope of it, +and be content with an imperfect representation, true as far as it +reaches, and such as to excite the imagination of a wise beholder to +complete it; though falling very far short of what either he or we +should otherwise have desired. For instance, here is a suggestion, by +Sir Joshua Reynolds, of the general appearance of a British +Judge—requiring the imagination of a very wise beholder indeed, to fill +it up, or even at first to discover what it is meant for. Nevertheless, +it is better art than the Italian St. Cecilia, because the artist, +however little he may have done to represent his knowledge, does, +indeed, know altogether what a Judge is like, and appeals only to the +criticism of those who know also.</p> + +<p>126. There must be, therefore, two degrees of truth to be looked for in +the good graphic arts; one, the commonest, which, by any partial or +imperfect sign conveys to you an idea which you must complete for +yourself; and the other, the finest, a representation so perfect as to +leave you nothing to be farther accomplished by this independent +exertion; but to give you the same feeling of possession and presence +which you would experience from the natural object itself. For instance +of the first, in this representation of a rainbow,<a name="FNanchor_124_124" id="FNanchor_124_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> the artist has +no hope that, by the black lines of engraving, he can deceive you into +any belief of the rainbow's being there, but he gives indication enough +of what he intends, to enable you to supply the rest of the idea +yourself, providing always you know beforehand what a rainbow is like. +But in this drawing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> of the falls of Terni,<a name="FNanchor_125_125" id="FNanchor_125_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> the painter has +strained his skill to the utmost to give an actually deceptive +resemblance of the iris, dawning and fading among the foam. So far as he +has not actually deceived you, it is not because he would not have done +so if he could; but only because his colours and science have fallen +short of his desire. They have fallen so little short that, in a good +light, you may all but believe the foam and the sunshine are drifting +and changing among the rocks.</p> + +<p>127. And after looking a little while, you will begin to regret that +they are not so: you will feel that, lovely as the drawing is, you would +like far better to see the real place, and the goats skipping among the +rocks, and the spray floating above the fall. And this is the true sign +of the greatest art—to part voluntarily with its greatness;—to make +<i>itself</i> poor and unnoticed; but so to exalt and set forth its theme +that you may be fain to see the theme instead of it. So that you have +never enough admired a great workman's doing till you have begun to +despise it. The best homage that could be paid to the Athena of Phidias +would be to desire rather to see the living goddess; and the loveliest +Madonnas of Christian art fall short of their due power, if they do not +make their beholders sick at heart to see the living Virgin.</p> + +<p>128. We have then, for our requirement of the finest art (sculpture, or +anything else), that it shall be so like the thing it represents as to +please those who best know or can conceive the original; and, if +possible, please them deceptively—its final triumph being to deceive +even the wise; and (the Greeks thought) to please even the Immortals, +who were so wise as to be undeceivable. So that you get the Greek, thus +far entirely true, idea of perfectness in sculpture, expressed to you by +what Phalaris says, at first sight of the bull of Perilaus, "It only +wanted motion and bellowing to seem alive; and as soon as I saw it, I +cried out, it ought to be sent to the god." To Apollo, for only he, the +undeceivable, could thoroughly understand such sculpture, and perfectly +delight in it.</p> + +<p>129. And with this expression of the Greek ideal of sculpture,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> I wish +you to join the early Italian, summed in a single line by Dante—"non +vide me' di me, chi vide 'l vero." Read the 12th canto of the +"Purgatory," and learn that whole passage by heart; and if ever you +chance to go to Pistoja, look at La Robbia's coloured porcelain +bas-reliefs of the seven works of Mercy on the front of the hospital +there; and note especially the faces of the two sick men—one at the +point of death, and the other in the first peace and long-drawn +breathing of health after fever—and you will know what Dante meant by +the preceding line, "Morti li morti, e i vivi parèn vivi."</p> + +<p>130. But now, may we not ask farther,—is it impossible for art such as +this, prepared for the wise, to please the simple also? Without entering +on the awkward questions of degree, how many the wise can be, or how +much men should know, in order to be rightly called wise, may we not +conceive an art to be possible, which would deceive <i>every</i>body, or +everybody worth deceiving? I showed you at my first lecture, a little +ringlet of Japan ivory, as a type of elementary bas-relief touched with +colour; and in your rudimentary series you have a drawing by Mr. +Burgess, of one of the little fishes enlarged, with every touch of the +chisel facsimiled on the more visible scale; and showing the little +black bead inlaid for the eye, which in the original is hardly to be +seen without a lens. You may, perhaps be surprised, when I tell you, +that (putting the question of <i>subject</i> aside for the moment, and +speaking only of the mode of execution and aim at resemblance), you have +there a perfect example of the Greek ideal of method in sculpture. And +you will admit that, to the simplest person whom we could introduce as a +critic, that fish would be a satisfactory, nay, almost a deceptive fish; +while to any one caring for subtleties of art, I need not point out that +every touch of the chisel is applied with consummate knowledge, and that +it would be impossible to convey more truth and life with the given +quantity of workmanship.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/fig7.jpg" width="450" height="372" alt="Fig. 7." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 7.</span> +</div> + +<p>131. Here is, indeed, a drawing by Turner, (Edu. 131), in which with +some fifty times the quantity of labour, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> far more highly educated +faculty of sight, the artist has expressed some qualities of lustre and +colour which only very wise persons indeed could perceive in a John +Dory; and this piece of paper contains, therefore, much more, and more +subtle, art, than the Japan ivory; but are we sure that it is therefore +<i>greater</i> art? or that the painter was better employed in producing this +drawing, which only one person can possess, and only one in a hundred +enjoy, than he would have been in producing two or three pieces on a +larger scale, which should have been at once accessible to, and +enjoyable by, a number of simpler persons? Suppose for instance, that +Turner, instead of faintly touching this outline, on white paper, with +his camel's hair pencil, had struck the main forms of his fish into +marble, thus (Fig. 7): and instead of colouring the white paper so +delicately that, perhaps, only a few of the most keenly observant +artists in England can see it at all, had,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> with his strong hand, tinted +the marble with a few colours, deceptive to the people, and harmonious +to the initiated; suppose that he had even conceded so much to the +spirit of popular applause as to allow of a bright glass bead being +inlaid for the eye, in the Japanese manner; and that the enlarged, +deceptive, and popularly pleasing work had been carved on the outside of +a great building,—say Fishmongers' Hall,—where everybody commercially +connected with Billingsgate could have seen it, and ratified it with the +wisdom of the market;—might not the art have been greater, worthier, +and kinder in such use?</p> + +<p>132. Perhaps the idea does not once approve itself to you of having your +public buildings covered with ornaments like this; but pray, remember +that the choice of <i>subject</i> is an ethical question, not now before us. +All I ask you to decide is whether the method is right, and would be +pleasant in giving the distinctiveness to pretty things, which it has +here given to what, I suppose it may be assumed, you feel to be an ugly +thing. Of course, I must note parenthetically, such realistic work is +impossible in a country where the buildings are to be discoloured by +coal-smoke; but so is all fine sculpture, whatsoever; and the whiter, +the worse its chance. For that which is prepared for private persons, to +be kept under cover, will, of necessity, degenerate into the copyism of +past work, or merely sensational and sensual forms of present life, +unless there be a governing school addressing the populace, for their +instruction, on the outside of buildings. So that, as I partly warned +you in my third lecture, you can simply have <i>no</i> sculpture in a coal +country. Whether you like coals or carvings best, is no business of +mine. I merely have to assure you of the fact that they are +incompatible.</p> + +<p>But, assuming that we are again, some day, to become a civilized and +governing race, deputing ironmongery, coal-digging, and lucre-digging, +to our slaves in other countries, it is quite conceivable that, with an +increasing knowledge of natural history, and desire for such knowledge, +what is now done by careful, but inefficient, woodcuts, and in +ill-coloured engravings, might be put in quite permanent sculptures, +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> inlay of variegated precious stones, on the outside of buildings, +where such pictures would be little costly to the people; and in a more +popular manner still, by Robbia ware and Palissy ware, and inlaid +majolica, which would differ from the housewives' present favourite +decoration of plates above her kitchen dresser, by being every piece of +it various, instructive, and universally visible.</p> + +<p>133. You hardly know, I suppose, whether I am speaking in jest or +earnest. In the most solemn earnest, I assure you; though such is the +strange course of our popular life that all the irrational arts of +destruction are at once felt to be earnest; while any plan for those of +instruction on a grand scale, sounds like a dream or jest. Still, I do +not absolutely propose to decorate our public buildings with sculpture +wholly of this character; though beast, and fowl, and creeping things, +and fishes, might all find room on such a building as the Solomon's +House of a New Atlantis; and some of them might even become symbolic of +much to us again. Passing through the Strand, only the other day, for +instance, I saw four highly finished and delicately coloured pictures of +cock-fighting, which, for imitative quality, were nearly all that could +be desired, going far beyond the Greek cock of Himera; and they would +have delighted a Greek's soul, if they had meant as much as a Greek +cock-fight; but they were only types of the "ενδομαχας αλεκτωρ," and of the spirit of home contest, which has been so fatal +lately to the Bird of France; and not of the defence of one's own +barnyard, in thought of which the Olympians set the cock on the pillars +of their chariot course; and gave it goodly alliance in its battle, as +you may see here, in what is left of the angle of mouldering marble in +the chair of the priest of Dionusos. The cast of it, from the centre of +the theatre under the Acropolis, is in the British Museum; and I wanted +its spiral for you, and this kneeling Angel of Victory;—it is late +Greek art, but nobly systematic flat bas-relief. So I set Mr. Burgess to +draw it; but neither he nor I for a little while, could make out what +the Angel of Victory was kneeling for. His attitude is an ancient and +grandly conventional one among the Egyptians;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> and I was tracing it back +to a kneeling goddess of the greatest dynasty of the Pharaohs—a goddess +of Evening, or Death, laying down the sun out of her right hand;—when, +one bright day, the shadows came out clear on the Athenian throne, and I +saw that my Angel of Victory was only backing a cock at a cock-fight.</p> + +<p>134. Still, as I have said, there is no reason why sculpture, even for +simplest persons, should confine itself to imagery of fish, or fowl, or +four-footed things.</p> + +<p>We go back to our first principle: we ought to carve nothing but what is +honourable. And you are offended, at this moment, with my fish, (as I +believe, when the first sculptures appeared on the windows of this +museum, offence was taken at the unnecessary introduction of cats), +these dissatisfactions being properly felt by your "νους των τιμιωτατων." For indeed, in all cases, our right judgment must depend +on our wish to give honour only to things and creatures that deserve it.</p> + +<p>135. And now I must state to you another principle of veracity, both in +sculpture, and all following arts, of wider scope than any hitherto +examined. We have seen that sculpture is to be a true representation of +true external form. Much more is it to be a representation of true +internal emotion. You must carve only what you yourself see as you see +it; but, much more, you must carve only what you yourself feel, as you +feel it. You may no more endeavour to feel through other men's souls, +than to see with other men's eyes. Whereas generally now in Europe and +America, every man's energy is bent upon acquiring some false emotion, +not his own, but belonging to the past, or to other persons, because he +has been taught that such and such a result of it will be fine. Every +attempted sentiment in relation to art is hypocritical; our notions of +sublimity, of grace, or pious serenity, are all second hand; and we are +practically incapable of designing so much as a bell-handle or a +door-knocker without borrowing the first notion of it from those who are +gone—where we shall not wake them with our knocking. I would we could.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p> + +<p>136. In the midst of this desolation we have nothing to count on for +real growth, but what we can find of honest liking and longing, in +ourselves and in others. We must discover, if we would healthily +advance, what things are verily τιμιωτατα among us; and if we +delight to honour the dishonourable, consider how, in future, we may +better bestow our likings. Now it appears to me from all our popular +declarations, that we, at present, honour nothing so much as liberty and +independence; and no person so much as the Free man and Self-made man, +who will be ruled by no one, and has been taught, or helped, by no one. +And the reason I chose a fish for you as the first subject of sculpture, +was that in men who are free and self-made, you have the nearest +approach, humanly possible, to the state of the fish, and finely +organized ἑρπετον. You get the exact phrase in Habakkuk, if +you take the Septuagint text.—"ροιησεις τους ανθρωπους ὡς τους ιχθυας +της θαλασσης, και ὡς τα ἑρπετα τα ουκ εχοντα +ἡγουμενον."] "Thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the +reptile things, <i>that have no ruler over them</i>." And it chanced that as +I was preparing this lecture, one of our most able and popular prints +gave me a woodcut of the "self-made man," specified as such, so +vigorously drawn, and with so few touches, that Phidias or Turner +himself could scarcely have done it better; so that I had only to ask my +assistant to enlarge it with accuracy, and it became comparable with my +fish at once. Of course it is not given by the caricaturist as an +admirable face; only, I am enabled by his skill to set before you, +without any suspicion of unfairness on <i>my</i> part, the expression to +which the life we profess to think most honourable, naturally leads. If +we were to take the hat off, you see how nearly the profile corresponds +with that of the typical fish.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/plate8.jpg" width="650" height="357" alt="Plate VIII.—The Apollo of Syracuse and the Self-made +Man." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate VIII.—The Apollo of Syracuse and the Self-made +Man.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span></p> + +<p>137. Such, then, being the definition by your best popular art, of the +ideal of feature at which we are gradually arriving by self-manufacture; +when I place opposite to it (in Plate VIII.) the profile of a man not in +any wise self-made, neither by the law of his own will, nor by the love +of his own interest—nor capable, for a moment, of any kind of +"Independence," or of the idea of independence; but wholly dependent +upon, and subjected to, external influence of just law, wise teaching, +and trusted love and truth, in his fellow-spirits;—setting before you, +I say, this profile of a God-made instead of a self-made, man, I know +that you will feel, on the instant, that you are brought into contact +with the vital elements of human art; and that this, the sculpture of +the good, is indeed the only permissible sculpture.</p> + +<p>138. A God-made <i>man</i>, I say. The face, indeed, stands as a symbol of +more than man in its sculptor's mind. For as I gave you, to lead your +first effort in the form of leaves, the sceptre of Apollo, so this, +which I give you as the first type of rightness in the form of flesh, is +the countenance of the holder of that sceptre, the Sun-God of Syracuse. +But there is nothing in the face (nor did the Greek suppose there was) +more perfect than might be seen in the daily beauty of the creatures the +Sun-God shone upon, and whom his strength and honour animated. This is +not an ideal, but a quite literally true, face of a Greek youth; nay, I +will undertake to show you that it is not supremely beautiful, and even +to surpass it altogether with the literal portrait of an Italian one. It +is in verity no more than the form habitually taken by the features of a +well educated young Athenian or Sicilian citizen; and the one +requirement for the sculptors of to-day is not, as it has been thought, +to invent the same ideal, but merely to see the same reality.</p> + +<p>Now, you know I told you in my fourth lecture, that the beginning of art +was in getting our country clean and our people beautiful, and you +supposed that to be a statement irrelevant to my subject; just as, at +this moment, you perhaps think, I am quitting the great subject of this +present lecture—the method of likeness-making—and letting myself +branch into the discussion of what things we are to make likeness of. +But you shall see hereafter that the method of imitating a beautiful +thing must be different from the method of imitating an ugly one; and +that, with the change in subject from what is dishonourable to what is +honourable, there will be involved a parallel change in the management +of tools, of lines,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> and of colours. So that before I can determine for +you <i>how</i> you are to imitate, you must tell me what kind of face you +wish to imitate. The best draughtsmen in the world could not draw this +Apollo in ten scratches, though he can draw the self-made man. Still +less this nobler Apollo of Ionian Greece, (Plate IX.) in which the +incisions are softened into a harmony like that of Correggio's painting. +So that you see the method itself,—the choice between black incision or +fine sculpture, and perhaps, presently, the choice between colour or no +colour, will depend on what you have to represent. Colour may be +expedient for a glistening dolphin or a spotted fawn;—perhaps +inexpedient for white Poseidon, and gleaming Dian. So that, before +defining the laws of sculpture, I am compelled to ask you, <i>what you +mean to carve</i>; and that, little as you think it, is asking you how you +mean to live, and what the laws of your State are to be, for <i>they</i> +determine those of your statue. You can only have this kind of face to +study from, in the sort of state that produced it. And you will find +that sort of state described in the beginning of the fourth book of the +laws of Plato; as founded, for one thing, on the conviction that of all +the evils that can happen to a state, quantity of money is the greatest! +μειζον κακον, ως επος ειρειν, ρολει ουδεν αν γιγνοιτο, εις +γενναιων και δικαιων ηθων κτησιν, "for, to speak shortly, no greater +evil, matching each against each, can possibly happen to a city, as +adverse to its forming just or generous character," than its being full +of silver and gold.</p> + +<p>139. Of course, the Greek notion may be wrong, and ours right, +only—ως επος ειρειν—you can have Greek sculpture only on that +Greek theory: shortly expressed by the words put into the mouth of +Poverty herself, in the Plutus of Aristophanes "Του πλουτου παρεχω βελτιονας ανδρας, και την γνωμην, και την ιδεαν," "I deliver to +you better men than the God of Money can, both in imagination and +feature." So on the other hand, this ichthyoid, reptilian, or +mono-chondyloid ideal of the self-made man can only be reached, +universally, by a nation which holds that poverty, either of purse or +spirit,—but especially the spiritual character of being πτωχοι τω πνευματι, is the lowest of degradations; and which believes that the +desire of wealth is the first of manly and moral sentiments. As I have +been able to get the popular ideal represented by its own living art, so +I can give you this popular faith in its own living words; but in words +meant seriously and not at all as caricature, from one of our leading +journals, professedly æsthetic also in its very name, the <i>Spectator</i>, +of August 6th, 1870.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 286px;"> +<img src="images/plate9.jpg" width="286" height="500" alt="Plate IX.—Apollo Chrysocomes of Clazomenœ." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate IX.—Apollo Chrysocomes of Clazomenœ.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mr. Ruskin's plan," it says, "would make England poor, in order that +she might be cultivated, and refined and artistic. A wilder proposal was +never broached by a man of ability; and it might be regarded as a proof +that the assiduous study of art emasculates the intellect, <i>and even the +moral sense</i>. Such a theory almost warrants the contempt with which art +is often regarded by essentially intellectual natures, like Proudhon" +(sic). "Art is noble as the flower of life, and the creations of a +Titian are a great heritage of the race; but if England could secure +high art and Venetian glory of colour only by the sacrifice of her +manufacturing supremacy, and <i>by the acceptance of national poverty</i>, +then the pursuit of such artistic achievements would imply that we had +ceased to possess natures of manly strength, <i>or to know the meaning of +moral aims</i>. If we must choose between a Titian and a Lancashire cotton +mill, then, in the name of manhood and of morality, give us the cotton +mill. Only the dilettantism of the studio; that dilettantism which +loosens the moral no less than the intellectual fibre, and which is as +fatal to rectitude of action as to correctness of reasoning power, would +make a different choice."</p> + +<p>You see also, by this interesting and most memorable passage, how +completely the question is admitted to be one of ethics—the only real +point at issue being, whether this face or that is developed on the +truer moral principle.</p> + +<p>140. I assume, however, for the present, that this Apolline type is the +kind of form you wish to reach and to represent. And now observe, +instantly, the whole question of manner of imitation is altered for us. +The fins of the fish, the plumes of the swan, and the flowing of the +Sun-God's hair are all represented by incisions—but the incisions do +sufficiently represent the fin and feather,—they <i>in</i>sufficiently +represent the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> hair. If I chose, with a little more care and labor, I +could absolutely get the surface of the scales and spines of the fish, +and the expression of its mouth; but no quantity of labor would obtain +the real surface of a tress of Apollo's hair, and the full expression of +his mouth. So that we are compelled at once to call the imagination to +help us, and say to it, <i>You</i> know what the Apollo Chrysocomes must be +like; finish all this for yourself. Now, the law under which imagination +works, is just that of other good workers. "You must give me clear +orders; show me what I have to do, and where I am to begin, and let me +alone." And the orders can be given, quite clearly, up to a certain +point, in form; but they cannot be given clearly in color, now that the +subject is subtle. All beauty of this high kind depends on harmony; let +but the slightest discord come into it, and the finer the thing is, the +more fatal will be the flaw. Now, on a flat surface, I can command my +color to be precisely what and where I mean it to be; on a round one I +cannot. For all harmony depends, first, on the fixed proportion of the +color of the light to that of the relative shadow; and therefore if I +fasten my color, I must fasten my shade. But on a round surface the +shadow changes at every hour of the day; and therefore all coloring +which is expressive of form, is impossible; and if the form is fine, +(and here there is nothing but what is fine,) you may bid farewell to +color.</p> + +<p>141. Farewell to color; that is to say, if the thing is to be seen +distinctly, and you have only wise people to show it to; but if it is to +be seen indistinctly, at a distance, color may become explanatory; and +if you have simple people to show it to, color may be necessary to +excite <i>their</i> imaginations, though not to excite yours. And the art is +great always by meeting its conditions in the straightest way; and if it +is to please a multitude of innocent and bluntly-minded persons, must +express itself in the terms that will touch them; else it is not good. +And I have to trace for you through the history of the past, and +possibilities of the future, the expedients used by great sculptors to +obtain clearness, impressiveness, or splendor; and the manner of their +appeal to the people, under various light and shadow, and with reference +to different degrees of public intelligence: such investigation +resolving itself again and again, as we proceed, into questions +absolutely ethical; as, for instance, whether color is to be bright or +dull,—that is to say, for a populace cheerful or heartless;—whether it +is to be delicate or strong,—that is to say, for a populace attentive +or careless; whether it is to be a background like the sky, for a +procession of young men and maidens, because your populace revere +life—or the shadow of the vault behind a corpse stained with drops of +blackened blood, for a populace taught to worship Death. Every critical +determination of rightness depends on the obedience to some ethic law, +by the most rational and, therefore, simplest means. And you see how it +depends most, of all things, on whether you are working for chosen +persons, or for the mob; for the joy of the boudoir, or of the Borgo. +And if for the mob, whether the mob of Olympia, or of St. Antoine. +Phidias, showing his Jupiter for the first time, hides behind the temple +door to listen, resolved afterwards "ρὑθμιζειν το αγαλμα προς το τοις πλειστοις δοκουν, ου γαρ ἡγειτο μικραν ειναι συμβουλην δημου τοσουτου," and truly, as your people is, in judgment, and in multitude, +so must your sculpture be, in glory. An elementary principle which has +been too long out of mind.</p> + +<p>142. I leave you to consider it, since, for some time, we shall not +again be able to take up the inquiries to which it leads. But, +ultimately, I do not doubt that you will rest satisfied in these +following conclusions:</p> + +<p>1. Not only sculpture, but all the other fine arts, must be for the +people.</p> + +<p>2. They must be didactic to the people, and that as their chief end. The +structural arts, didactic in their manner; the graphic arts, in their +matter also.</p> + +<p>3. And chiefly the great representative and imaginative arts—that is to +say, the drama and sculpture—are to teach what is noble in past +history, and lovely in existing human and organic life.</p> + +<p>4. And the test of right manner of execution in these arts, +is that they strike, in the most emphatic manner, the +rank of popular minds to which they are addressed.</p> + +<p>5. And the test of utmost fineness in execution in these arts, is that +they make themselves be forgotten in what they represent; and so fulfil +the words of their greatest Master,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<span class="smcap">The best, in this kind, are but shadows</span>."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_123_123" id="Footnote_123_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> See date of delivery of Lecture. The picture was of a +peasant girl of eleven or twelve years old, peeling carrots by a cottage +fire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_124_124" id="Footnote_124_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> In Durer's "Melencholia."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_125_125" id="Footnote_125_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> Turner's, in the Hakewill series.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LECTURE V.</h2> + +<h3>STRUCTURE.</h3> + +<h4><i>December, 1870.</i></h4> + + +<p>143. On previous occasions of addressing you, I have endeavoured to show +you, first, how sculpture is distinguished from other arts; then its +proper subjects, then its proper method in the realization of these +subjects. To-day, we must, in the fourth place, consider the means at +its command for the accomplishment of these ends; the nature of its +materials; and the mechanical or other difficulties of their treatment.</p> + +<p>And however doubtful we may have remained, as to the justice of Greek +ideals, or propriety of Greek methods of representing them, we may be +certain that the example of the Greeks will be instructive in all +practical matters relating to this great art, peculiarly their own. I +think even the evidence I have already laid before you is enough to +convince you, that it was by rightness and reality, not by idealism or +delightfulness only, that their minds were finally guided; and I am sure +that, before closing the present course, I shall be able so far to +complete that evidence, as to prove to you that the commonly received +notions of classic art are, not only unfounded, but even in many +respects, directly contrary to the truth. You are constantly told that +Greece idealized whatever she contemplated. She did the exact contrary: +she realized and verified it. You are constantly told she sought only +the beautiful. She sought, indeed, with all her heart; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> she found, +because she never doubted that the search was to be consistent with +propriety and common sense. And the first thing you will always discern +in Greek work is the first which you <i>ought</i> to discern in all work; +namely, that the object of it has been rational, and has been obtained +by simple and unostentatious means.</p> + +<p>144. "That the object of the work has been rational!" Consider how much +that implies. That it should be by all means seen to have been +determined upon, and carried through, with sense and discretion; these +being gifts of intellect far more precious than any knowledge of +mathematics, or of the mechanical resources of art. Therefore, also, +that it should be a modest and temperate work, a structure fitted to the +actual state of men; proportioned to their actual size, as animals,—to +their average strength,—to their true necessities,—and to the degree +of easy command they have over the forces and substances of nature.</p> + +<p>145. You see how much this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent, +insolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such a +thing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also with +modesty and <i>Equ</i>animity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, or +singular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers of Babel envious of +the skies; no pyramids in mimicry of the mountains of the earth; no +streets that are a weariness to traverse, nor temples that make pigmies +of the worshippers.</p> + +<p>It is one of the primal merits and decencies of Greek work that it was, +on the whole, singularly small in scale, and wholly within reach of +sight, to its finest details. And, indeed, the best buildings that I +know are thus modest; and some of the best are minute jewel cases for +sweet sculpture. The Parthenon would hardly attract notice, if it were +set by the Charing Cross Railway Station: the Church of the Miracoli, at +Venice, the Chapel of the Rose, at Lucca, and the Chapel of the Thorn, +at Pisa, would not, I suppose, all three together, fill the tenth part, +cube, of a transept of the Crystal Palace. And they are better so.</p> + +<p>146. In the chapter on Power in the "Seven Lamps of Architecture,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> I +have stated what seems, at first, the reverse of what I am saying now; +namely, that it is better to have one grand building than any number of +mean ones. And that is true, but you cannot command grandeur by size +till you can command grace in minuteness; and least of all, remember, +will you so command it to-day, when magnitude has become the chief +exponent of folly and misery, co-ordinate in the fraternal enormities of +the Factory and Poorhouse,—the Barracks and Hospital. And the final law +in this matter is, that if you require edifices only for the grace and +health of mankind, and build them without pretence and without +chicanery, they will be sublime on a modest scale, and lovely with +little decoration.</p> + +<p>147. From these principles of simplicity and temperance, two very +severely fixed laws of construction follow; namely, first, that our +structure, to be beautiful, must be produced with tools of men; and +secondly, that it must be composed of natural substances. First, I say, +produced with tools of men. All fine art requires the application of the +whole strength and subtlety of the body, so that such art is not +possible to any sickly person, but involves the action and force of a +strong man's arm from the shoulder, as well as the delicatest touch of +his finger: and it is the evidence that this full and fine strength has +been spent on it which makes the art executively noble; so that no +instrument must be used, habitually, which is either too heavy to be +delicately restrained, or too small and weak to transmit a vigorous +impulse; much less any mechanical aid, such as would render the +sensibility of the fingers ineffectual.<a name="FNanchor_126_126" id="FNanchor_126_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a></p> + +<p>148. Of course, any kind of work in glass, or in metal, on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> large +scale, involves some painful endurance of heat; and working in clay, +some habitual endurance of cold; but the point beyond which the effort +must not be carried is marked by loss of power of manipulation. As long +as the eyes and fingers have complete command of the material (as a +glass blower has, for instance, in doing fine ornamental work)—the law +is not violated; but all our great engine and furnace work, in +gun-making and the like, is degrading to the intellect; and no nation +can long persist in it without losing many of its human faculties. Nay, +even the use of machinery, other than the common rope and pully, for the +lifting of weights, is degrading to architecture; the invention of +expedients for the raising of enormous stones has always been a +characteristic of partly savage or corrupted races. A block of marble +not larger than a cart with a couple of oxen could carry, and a +cross-beam, with a couple of pulleys, raise, is as large as should +generally be used in any building. The employment of large masses is +sure to lead to vulgar exhibitions of geometrical arrangement,<a name="FNanchor_127_127" id="FNanchor_127_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> and +to draw away the attention from the sculpture. In general, rocks +naturally break into such pieces as the human beings that have to build +with them can easily lift, and no larger should be sought for.</p> + +<p>149. In this respect, and in many other subtle ways, the law that the +work is to be with tools of men is connected with the farther condition +of its modesty, that it is to be wrought in substance provided by +Nature, and to have a faithful respect to all the essential qualities of +such substance.</p> + +<p>And here I must ask your attention to the idea, and, more than +idea,—the fact, involved in that infinitely misused term, +"Providentia," when applied to the Divine Power. In its truest sense and +scholarly use, it is a human virtue, Προμηθεια; the personal +type of it is in Prometheus, and all the first power of τεχνη, +is from him, as compared to the weakness of days when men without +foresight "εφυρον εικη παντα." But, so far as we use the word +"Providence" as an attribute of the Maker and Giver of all things, it +does not mean that in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> shipwreck He takes care of the passengers who +are to be saved and takes none of those who are to be drowned; but it +<i>does</i> mean that every race of creatures is born into the world under +circumstances of approximate adaptation to its necessities; and, beyond +all others, the ingenious and observant race of man is surrounded with +elements naturally good for his food, pleasant to his sight, and +suitable for the subjects of his ingenuity;—the stone, metal, and clay +of the earth he walks upon lending themselves at once to his hand, for +all manner of workmanship.</p> + +<p>150. Thus, his truest respect for the law of the entire creation is +shown by his making the most of what he can get most easily; and there +is no virtue of art, nor application of common sense, more sacredly +necessary than this respect to the beauty of natural substance, and the +ease of local use; neither are there any other precepts of construction +so vital as these—that you show all the strength of your material, +tempt none of its weaknesses, and do with it only what can be simply and +permanently done.</p> + +<p>151. Thus, all good building will be with rocks, or pebbles, or burnt +clay, but with no artificial compound; all good painting, with common +oils and pigments on common canvas, paper, plaster, or wood,—admitting, +sometimes for precious work, precious things, but all applied in a +simple and visible way. The highest imitative art should not, indeed, at +first sight, call attention to the means of it; but even that, at +length, should do so distinctly, and provoke the observer to take +pleasure in seeing how completely the workman is master of the +particular material he has used, and how beautiful and desirable a +substance it was, for work of that kind. In oil painting its unctious +quality is to be delighted in; in fresco, its chalky quality; in glass, +its transparency; in wood, its grain; in marble, its softness; in +porphyry, its hardness; in iron, its toughness. In a flint country, one +should feel the delightfulness of having flints to pick up, and fasten +together into rugged walls. In a marble country one should be always +more and more astonished at the exquisite colour and structure of +marble; in a slate country one should feel as if every rock cleft itself +only for the sake of being built with conveniently.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/plate10.jpg" width="650" height="436" alt="Plate X.—Marble Masonry in the Duomo of Verona." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate X.—Marble Masonry in the Duomo of Verona.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> + +<p>152. Now, for sculpture, there are, briefly, two materials—Clay, and +Stone; for glass is only a clay that gets clear and brittle as it cools, +and metal a clay that gets opaque and tough as it cools. Indeed, the +true use of gold in this world is only as a very pretty and very ductile +clay, which you can spread as flat as you like, spin as fine as you +like, and which will neither crack, nor tarnish.</p> + +<p>All the arts of sculpture in clay may be summed up under the word +"Plastic," and all of those in stone, under the word "Glyptic."</p> + +<p>153. Sculpture in clay will accordingly include all cast brick-work, +pottery, and tile-work<a name="FNanchor_128_128" id="FNanchor_128_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a>—a somewhat important branch of human skill. +Next to the potter's work, you have all the arts in porcelain, glass, +enamel, and metal; everything, that is to say, playful and familiar in +design, much of what is most felicitously inventive, and, in bronze or +gold, most precious and permanent.</p> + +<p>154. Sculpture in stone, whether granite, gem, or marble, while we +accurately use the general term "glyptic" for it, may be thought of +with, perhaps, the most clear force under the English word "engraving." +For, from the mere angular incision which the Greek consecrated in the +triglyphs of his greatest order of architecture, grow forth all the arts +of bas-relief, and methods of localized groups of sculpture connected +with each other and with architecture: as, in another direction, the +arts of engraving and wood-cutting themselves.</p> + +<p>155. Over all this vast field of human skill the laws which I have +enunciated to you rule with inevitable authority, embracing the +greatest, and consenting to the humblest, exertion; strong to repress +the ambition of nations, if fantastic and vain, but gentle to approve +the efforts of children, made in accordance with the visible intention +of the Maker of all flesh, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> the Giver of all Intelligence. These +laws, therefore, I now repeat, and beg of you to observe them as +irrefragable.</p> + +<p>1. That the work is to be with tools of men.</p> + +<p>2. That it is to be in natural materials.</p> + +<p>3. That it is to exhibit the virtues of those materials, and aim at no +quality inconsistent with them.</p> + +<p>4. That its temper is to be quiet and gentle, in harmony with common +needs, and in consent to common intelligence.</p> + +<p>We will now observe the bearing of these laws on the elementary +conditions of the art at present under discussion.</p> + +<p>156. There is, first, work in baked clay, which contracts as it dries, +and is very easily frangible. Then you must put no work into it +requiring niceness in dimension, nor any so elaborate that it would be a +great loss if it were broken, but as the clay yields at once to the +hand, and the sculptor can do anything with it he likes, it is a +material for him to sketch with and play with,—to record his fancies +in, before they escape him—and to express roughly, for people who can +enjoy such sketches, what he has not time to complete in marble. The +clay, being ductile, lends itself to all softness of line; being easily +frangible, it would be ridiculous to give it sharp edges, so that a +blunt and massive rendering of graceful gesture will be its natural +function; but as it can be pinched, or pulled, or thrust in a moment +into projection which it would take hours of chiselling to get in stone, +it will also properly be used for all fantastic and grotesque form, not +involving sharp edges. Therefore, what is true of chalk and charcoal, +for painters, is equally true of clay, for sculptors; they are all most +precious materials for true masters, but tempt the false ones into fatal +license; and to judge rightly of terra-cotta work is a far higher reach +of skill in sculpture-criticism than to distinguish the merits of a +finished statue.</p> + +<p>157. We have, secondly, work in bronze, iron, gold, and other metals; in +which the laws of structure are still more definite.</p> + +<p>All kinds of twisted and wreathen work on every scale become delightful +when wrought in ductile or tenacious metal, but metal which is to be +<i>hammered</i> into form separates itself into two great divisions—solid, +and flat.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 283px;"> +<img src="images/plate11.jpg" width="283" height="500" alt="Plate XI.—The First Elements of Sculpture." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XI.—The First Elements of Sculpture.<br /> +Incised Outline and Opened Space.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + +<p>(A.) In solid metal work, <i>i. e.</i>, metal cast thick enough to resist +bending, whether it be hollow or not, violent and various projection may +be admitted, which would be offensive in marble; but no sharp edges, +because it is difficult to produce them with the hammer. But since the +permanence of the material justifies exquisiteness of workmanship, +whatever delicate ornamentation can be wrought with rounded surfaces may +be advisedly introduced; and since the colour of bronze or any other +metal is not so pleasantly representative of flesh as that of marble, a +wise sculptor will depend less on flesh contour, and more on picturesque +accessories, which, though they would be vulgar if attempted in stone, +are rightly entertaining in bronze or silver. Verrochio's statue of +Colleone at Venice, Cellini's Perseus at Florence, and Ghiberti's gates +at Florence, are models of bronze treatment.</p> + +<p>(B.) When metal is beaten thin, it becomes what is technically called +"plate," (the <i>flattened</i> thing) and may be treated advisably in two +ways; one, by beating it out into bosses, the other by cutting it into +strips and ramifications. The vast schools of goldsmith's work and of +iron decoration, founded on these two principles, have had the most +powerful influences over general taste in all ages and countries. One of +the simplest and most interesting elementary examples of the treatment +of flat metal by cutting is the common branched iron bar, Fig. 8, used +to close small apertures in countries possessing any good primitive +style of iron-work, formed by alternate cuts on its sides, and the +bending down of the several portions. The ordinary domestic window +balcony of Verona is formed by mere ribands of iron, bent into curves as +studiously refined as those of a Greek vase, and decorated merely by +their own terminations in spiral volutes.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 126px;"> +<img src="images/fig8.jpg" width="126" height="450" alt="Fig. 8." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 8.</span> +</div> + +<p>All cast work in metal, unfinished by hand, is inadmissible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> in any +school of living art, since it cannot possess the perfection of form due +to a permanent substance; and the continual sight of it is destructive +of the faculty of taste: but metal stamped with precision, as in coins, +is to sculpture what engraving is to painting.</p> + +<p>158. Thirdly. Stone-sculpture divides itself into three schools: one in +very hard material; one in very soft, and one in that of centrally +useful consistence.</p> + +<p>A. The virtue of work in hard material is the expression of form in +shallow relief, or in broad contours; deep cutting in hard material is +inadmissible, and the art, at once pompous and trivial, of gem +engraving, has been in the last degree destructive of the honour and +service of sculpture.</p> + +<p>B. The virtue of work in soft material is deep cutting, with studiously +graceful disposition of the masses of light and shade. The greater +number of flamboyant churches of France are cut out of an adhesive +chalk; and the fantasy of their latest decoration was, in great part, +induced by the facility of obtaining contrast of black space, undercut, +with white tracery easily left in sweeping and interwoven rods—the +lavish use of wood in domestic architecture materially increasing the +habit of delight in branched complexity of line. These points, however, +I must reserve for illustration in my lectures on architecture. To-day, +I shall limit myself to the illustration of elementary sculptural +structure in the best material;—that is to say, in crystalline marble, +neither soft enough to encourage the caprice of the workman, nor hard +enough to resist his will.</p> + +<p>159. C. By the true "Providence" of Nature, the rock which is thus +submissive has been in some places stained with the fairest colours, and +in others blanched into the fairest absence of colour, that can be found +to give harmony to inlaying, or dignity to form. The possession by the +Greeks of their λευκος λιθος was indeed the first circumstance +regulating the development of their art; it enabled them at once to +express their passion for light by executing the faces, hands, and feet +of their dark wooden statues in white marble, so that what we look upon +only with pleasure for fineness of texture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> was to them an imitation of +the luminous body of the deity shining from behind its dark robes; and +ivory afterwards is employed in their best statues for its yet more soft +and flesh-like brightness, receptive also of the most delicate +colour—(therefore to this day the favourite ground of miniature +painters). In like manner, the existence of quarries of peach-coloured +marble within twelve miles of Verona, and of white marble and green +serpentine between Pisa and Genoa, defined the manner both of sculpture +and architecture for all the Gothic buildings of Italy. No subtlety of +education could have formed a high school of art without these +materials.</p> + +<p>160. Next to the colour, the fineness of substance which will take a +perfectly sharp edge, is essential; and this not merely to admit fine +delineation in the sculpture itself, but to secure a delightful +precision in placing the blocks of which it is composed. For the +possession of too fine marble, as far as regards the work itself, is a +temptation instead of an advantage to an inferior sculptor; and the +abuse of the facility of undercutting, especially of undercutting so as +to leave profiles defined by an edge against shadow, is one of the chief +causes of decline of style in such encrusted bas-reliefs as those of the +Certosa of Pavia and its contemporary monuments. But no undue temptation +ever exists as to the fineness of block fitting; nothing contributes to +give so pure and healthy a tone to sculpture as the attention of the +builder to the jointing of his stones; and his having both the power to +make them fit so perfectly as not to admit of the slightest portion of +cement showing externally, and the skill to insure, if needful, and to +suggest always, their stability in cementless construction. Plate X. +represents a piece of entirely fine Lombardic building, the central +portion of the arch in the Duomo of Verona, which corresponds to that of +the porch of San Zenone, represented in Plate I. In both these pieces of +building, the only line that traces the architrave round the arch, is +that of the masonry joint; yet this line is drawn with extremest +subtlety, with intention of delighting the eye by its relation of varied +curvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as the +finest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> the stone is used, +in like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cement +would spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his fine +jointing, and so fearless of any distortion or strain spoiling the +adjustment afterwards, that in one place he runs his joint quite +gratuitously through a bas-relief, and gives the keystone its only sign +of pre-eminence by the minute inlaying of the head of the Lamb, into the +stone of the course above.</p> + +<p>161. Proceeding from this fine jointing to fine draughtsmanship, you +have, in the very outset and earliest stage of sculpture, your flat +stone surface given you as a sheet of white paper, on which you are +required to produce the utmost effect you can with the simplest means, +cutting away as little of the stone as may be, to save both time and +trouble; and, above all, leaving the block itself, when shaped, as solid +as you can, that its surface may better resist weather, and the carved +parts be as much protected as possible by the masses left around them.</p> + +<p>162. The first thing to be done is clearly to trace the outline of +subject with an incision approximating in section to that of the furrow +of a plough, only more equal-sided. A fine sculptor strikes it, as his +chisel leans, freely, on marble; an Egyptian, in hard rock, cuts it +sharp, as in cuneiform inscriptions. In any case, you have a result +somewhat like the upper figure, Plate XI., in which I show you the most +elementary indication of form possible, by cutting the outline of the +typical archaic Greek head with an incision like that of a Greek +triglyph, only not so precise in edge or slope, as it is to be modified +afterwards.</p> + +<p>163. Now, the simplest thing we can do next, is to round off the flat +surface <i>within</i> the incision, and put what form we can get into the +feebler projection of it thus obtained. The Egyptians do this, often +with exquisite skill, and then, as I showed you in a former lecture, +colour the whole—using the incision as an outline. Such a method of +treatment is capable of good service in representing, at little cost of +pains, subjects in distant effect, and common, or merely picturesque, +subjects even near. To show you what it is capable of, and what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> +coloured sculpture would be in its rudest type, I have prepared the +coloured relief of the John Dory<a name="FNanchor_129_129" id="FNanchor_129_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> as a natural history drawing for +distant effect. You know, also, that I meant him to be ugly—as ugly as +any creature can well be. In time, I hope to show you prettier +things—peacocks and kingfishers,—butterflies and flowers, on grounds +of gold, and the like, as they were in Byzantine work. I shall expect +you, in right use of your æsthetic faculties, to like those better than +what I show you to-day. But it is now a question of method only; and if +you will look, after the lecture, first at the mere white relief, and +then see how much may be gained by a few dashes of colour, such as a +practised workman could lay in a quarter of an hour,—the whole forming, +if well done, almost a deceptive image—you will, at least, have the +range of power in Egyptian sculpture clearly expressed to you.</p> + +<p>164. But for fine sculpture, we must advance by far other methods. If we +carve the subject with real delicacy, the cast shadow of the incision +will interfere with its outline, so that, for representation of +beautiful things, you must clear away the ground about it, at all events +for a little distance. As the law of work is to use the least pains +possible, you clear it only just as far back as you need, and then for +the sake of order and finish, you give the space a geometrical outline. +By taking, in this case, the simplest I can,—a circle,—I can clear the +head with little labor in the removal of surface round it; (see the +lower figure in Plate XI.)</p> + +<p>165. Now, these are the first terms of all well-constructed bas-relief. +The mass you have to treat consists of a piece of stone, which, however +you afterwards carve it, can but, at its most projecting point, reach +the level of the external plane surface out of which it was mapped, and +defined by a depression round it; that depression being at first a mere +trench, then a moat of certain width, of which the outer sloping bank is +in contact, as a limiting geometrical line, with the laterally salient +portions of sculpture. This, I repeat, is the primal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>construction of +good bas-relief, implying, first, perfect protection to its surface from +any transverse blow, and a geometrically limited space to be occupied by +the design, into which it shall pleasantly (and as you shall ultimately +see, ingeniously,) contract itself: implying, secondly, a determined +depth of projection, which it shall rarely reach, and never exceed: and +implying, finally, the production of the whole piece with the least +possible labor of chisel and loss of stone.</p> + +<p>166. And these, which are the first, are very nearly the last +constructive laws of sculpture. You will be surprised to find how much +they include, and how much of minor propriety in treatment their +observance involves.</p> + +<p>In a very interesting essay on the architecture of the Parthenon, by the +professor of architecture of the Ecole Polytechnique, M. Emile Boutmy, +you will find it noticed that the Greeks do not usually weaken, by +carving, the constructive masses of their building; but put their chief +sculpture in the empty spaces between the triglyphs, or beneath the +roof. This is true; but in so doing, they merely build their panel +instead of carving it; they accept no less than the Goths, the laws of +recess and limitation, as being vital to the safety and dignity of their +design; and their noblest recumbent statues are, constructively, the +fillings of the acute extremity of a panel in the form of an obtusely +summitted triangle.</p> + +<p>167. In gradual descent from that severest type, you will find that an +immense quantity of sculpture of all times and styles may be generally +embraced under the notion of a mass hewn out of, or, at least, placed +in, a panel or recess, deepening, it may be, into a niche; the sculpture +being always designed with reference to its position in such recess; +and, therefore, to the effect of the building out of which the recess is +hewn.</p> + +<p>But, for the sake of simplifying our inquiry, I will at first suppose no +surrounding protective ledge to exist, and that the area of stone we +have to deal with is simply a flat slab, extant from a flat surface +depressed all round it.</p> + +<p>168. A <i>flat</i> slab, observe. The flatness of surface is essential to the +problem of bas-relief. The lateral limit of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> panel may, or may not, +be required; but the vertical limit of surface <i>must</i> be expressed; and +the art of bas-relief is to give the effect of true form on that +condition. For observe, if nothing more were needed than to make first a +cast of a solid form, then cut it in half, and apply the half of it to +the flat surface;—if, for instance, to carve a bas-relief of an apple, +all I had to do was to cut my sculpture of the whole apple in half, and +pin it to the wall, any ordinary trained sculptor, or even a mechanical +workman, could produce bas-relief; but the business is to carve a +<i>round</i> thing out of <i>flat</i> thing; to carve an apple out of a +biscuit!—to conquer, as a subtle Florentine has here conquered,<a name="FNanchor_130_130" id="FNanchor_130_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> +his marble, so as not only to get motion into what is most rigidly +fixed, but to get boundlessness into what is most narrowly bounded; and +carve Madonna and Child, rolling clouds, flying angels, and space of +heavenly air behind all, out of a film of stone not the third of an inch +thick where it is thickest.</p> + +<p>169. Carried, however, to such a degree of subtlety as this, and with so +ambitious and extravagant aim, bas-relief becomes a tour-de-force; and, +you know, I have just told you all tours-de-force are wrong. The true +law of bas-relief is to begin with a depth of incision proportioned +justly to the distance of the observer and the character of the subject, +and out of that rationally determined depth, neither increased for +ostentation of effect, nor diminished for ostentation of skill, to do +the utmost that will be easily visible to an observer, supposing him to +give an average human amount of attention, but not to peer into, or +critically scrutinize the work.</p> + +<p>170. I cannot arrest you to-day by the statement of any of the laws of +sight and distance which determine the proper depth of bas-relief. +Suppose that depth fixed; then observe what a pretty problem, or, +rather, continually varying cluster of problems, will be offered to us. +You might, at first, imagine that, given what we may call our scale of +solidity, or scale of depth, the diminution from nature would be in +regular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> proportion, as for instance, if the real depth of your subject +be, suppose a foot, and the depth of your bas-relief an inch, then the +parts of the real subject which were six inches round the side of it +would be carved, you might imagine, at the depth of half-an-inch, and so +the whole thing mechanically reduced to scale. But not a bit of it. Here +is a Greek bas-relief of a chariot with two horses (upper figure, Plate +XXI). Your whole subject has therefore the depth of two horses side by +side, say six or eight feet. Your bas-relief has, on the scale,<a name="FNanchor_131_131" id="FNanchor_131_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a> say +the depth of the third of an inch. Now, if you gave only the sixth of an +inch for the depth of the off horse, and, dividing him again, only the +twelfth of an inch for that of each foreleg, you would make him look a +mile away from the other, and his own forelegs a mile apart. Actually, +the Greek has made the <i>near leg of the off horse project much beyond +the off leg of the near horse</i>; and has put nearly the whole depth and +power of his relief into the breast of the off horse, while for the +whole distance from the head of the nearest to the neck of the other, he +has allowed himself only a shallow line; knowing that, if he deepened +that, he would give the nearest horse the look of having a thick nose; +whereas, by keeping that line down, he has not only made the head itself +more delicate, but detached it from the other by giving no cast shadow, +and left the shadow below to serve for thickness of breast, cutting it +as sharp down as he possibly can, to make it bolder.</p> + +<p>171. Here is a fine piece of business we have got into!—even supposing +that all this selection and adaptation were to be contrived under +constant laws, and related only to the expression of given forms. But +the Greek sculptor, all this while, is not only debating and deciding +how to show what he wants, but, much more, debating and deciding what, +as he can't show everything, he will choose to show at all. Thus, being +himself interested, and supposing that you will be, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> the manner of +the driving, he takes great pains to carve the reins, to show you where +they are knotted, and how they are fastened round the driver's waist +(you recollect how Hippolytus was lost by doing that), but he does not +care the least bit about the chariot, and having rather more geometry +than he likes in the cross and circle of one wheel of it, entirely omits +the other!</p> + +<p>172. I think you must see by this time that the sculptor's is not quite +a trade which you can teach like brickmaking; nor its produce an article +of which you can supply any quantity "demanded" for the next railroad +waiting-room. It may perhaps, indeed, seem to you that, in the +difficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more direct +exertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so, +however. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious and +amusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none except +such as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing and invents +easily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of weight +in mass, of balance, of perspective and opposition, in projecting forms, +and of restraint for those which must not project, such as none but the +greatest masters have ever completely solved; and they, not always; the +difficulty of arranging the composition so as to be agreeable from +points of view on all sides of it, being, itself, arduous enough.</p> + +<p>173. Thus far, I have been speaking only of the laws of structure +relating to the projection of the mass which becomes itself the +sculpture. Another most interesting group of constructive laws governs +its relation to the line that contains or defines it.</p> + +<p>In your Standard Series I have placed a photograph of the south transept +of Rouen Cathedral. Strictly speaking, all standards of Gothic are of +the thirteenth century; but, in the fourteenth, certain qualities of +richness are obtained by the diminution of restraint; out of which we +must choose what is best in their kinds. The pedestals of the statues +which once occupied the lateral recesses are, as you see, covered with +groups of figures, enclosed each in a quatrefoil panel; the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> spaces +between this panel and the enclosing square being filled with sculptures +of animals.</p> + +<p>You cannot anywhere find a more lovely piece of fancy, or more +illustrative of the quantity of result that may be obtained with low and +simple chiselling. The figures are all perfectly simple in drapery, the +story told by lines of action only in the main group, no accessories +being admitted. There is no undercutting anywhere, nor exhibition of +technical skill, but the fondest and tenderest appliance of it; and one +of the principal charms of the whole is the adaptation of every subject +to its quaint limit. The tale must be told within the four petals of the +quatrefoil, and the wildest and playfullest beasts must never come out +of their narrow corners. The attention with which spaces of this kind +are filled by the Gothic designers is not merely a beautiful compliance +with architectural requirements, but a definite assertion of their +delight in the restraint of law; for, in illuminating books, although, +if they chose it, they might have designed floral ornaments, as we now +usually do, rambling loosely over the leaves, and although, in later +works, such license is often taken by them, in all books of the fine +time the wandering tendrils are enclosed by limits approximately +rectilinear, and in gracefullest branching often detach themselves from +the right line only by curvature of extreme severity.</p> + +<p>174 Since the darkness and extent of shadow by which the sculpture is +relieved necessarily vary with the depth of the recess, there arise a +series of problems, in deciding which the wholesome desire for emphasis +by means of shadow is too often exaggerated by the ambition of the +sculptor to show his skill in undercutting. The extreme of vulgarity is +usually reached when the entire bas-relief is cut hollow underneath, as +in much Indian and Chinese work, so as to relieve its forms against an +absolute darkness; but no formal law can ever be given; for exactly the +same thing may be beautifully done for a wise purpose, by one person, +which is basely done, and to no purpose, or to a bad one, by another. +Thus, the desire for emphasis itself may be the craving of a deadened +imagination, or the passion of a vigorous one; and relief against +shadow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> may be sought by one man only for sensation, and by another for +intelligibility. John of Pisa undercuts fiercely, in order to bring out +the vigour of life which no level contour could render; the Lombardi of +Venice undercut delicately, in order to obtain beautiful lines, and +edges of faultless precision; but the base Indian craftsmen undercut +only that people may wonder how the chiselling was done through the +holes, or that they may see every monster white against black.</p> + +<p>175. Yet, here again we are met by another necessity for discrimination. +There may be a true delight in the inlaying of white on dark, as there +is a true delight in vigorous rounding. Nevertheless, the general law is +always, that, the lighter the incisions, and the broader the surface, +the grander, cæteris paribus, will be the work. Of the structural terms +of that work you now know enough to understand that the schools of good +sculpture, considered in relation to projection, divide themselves into +four entirely distinct groups:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1st. Flat Relief, in which the surface is, in many places, +absolutely flat; and the expression depends greatly on the +lines of its outer contour, and on fine incisions within +them.</p> + +<p>2nd. Round Relief, in which, as in the best coins, the +sculptured mass projects so as to be capable of complete +modulation into form, but is not anywhere undercut. The +formation of a coin by the blow of a die necessitates, of +course, the severest obedience to this law.</p> + +<p>3rd. Edged Relief. Undercutting admitted, so as to throw out +the forms against a background of shadow.</p> + +<p>4th. Full Relief. The statue completely solid in form, and +unreduced in retreating depth of it, yet connected locally +with some definite part of the building, so as to be still +dependent on the shadow of its background and direction of +protective line.</p></div> + +<p>176. Let me recommend you at once to take what pains may be needful to +enable you to distinguish these four kinds of sculpture, for the +distinctions between them are not founded on mere differences in +gradation of depth. They are truly four species, or orders, of +sculpture, separated from each other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> by determined characters. I have +used, you may have noted, hitherto in my Lectures, the word "bas-relief" +almost indiscriminately for all, because the degree of lowness or +highness of relief is not the question, but the <i>method</i> of relief. +Observe again, therefore—</p> + +<p>A. If a portion of the surface is absolutely flat, you have the first +order—Flat Relief.</p> + +<p>B. If every portion of the surface is rounded, but none undercut, you +have Round Relief—essentially that of seals and coins.</p> + +<p>C. If any part of the edges be undercut, but the general projection of +solid form reduced, you have what I think you may conveniently call +Foliate Relief,—the parts of the design overlapping each other in +places, like edges of leaves.</p> + +<p>D. If the undercutting is bold and deep, and the projection of solid +form unreduced, you have full relief.</p> + +<p>Learn these four names at once by heart:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Flat Relief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round Relief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Foliate Relief.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full Relief.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And whenever you look at any piece of sculpture, determine first to +which of these classes it belongs; and then consider how the sculptor +has treated it with reference to the necessary structure—that +reference, remember, being partly to the mechanical conditions of the +material, partly to the means of light and shade at his command.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 327px;"> +<img src="images/plate12.jpg" width="327" height="500" alt="Plate XII.—Branch of Phillyrea. Dark Purple" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XII.—Branch of Phillyrea. Dark Purple</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> + +<p>177. To take a single instance. You know, for these many years, I have +been telling our architects with all the force of voice I had in me, +that they could design nothing until they could carve natural forms +rightly. Many imagine that work was easy; but judge for yourselves +whether it be or not. In Plate XII., I have drawn, with approximate +accuracy, a cluster of Phillyrea leaves as they grow. Now, if we wanted +to cut them in bas-relief, the first thing we should have to consider +would be the position of their outline on the marble;—here it is, as +far down as the spring of the leaves. But do you suppose that is what an +ordinary sculptor could either lay for his first sketch, or contemplate +as a limit to be worked down to? Then consider how the interlacing and +springing of the leaves can be expressed within this outline. It must be +done by leaving such projection in the marble as will take the light in +the same proportion as the drawing does;—and a Florentine workman could +do it, for close sight, without driving one incision deeper, or raising +a single surface higher, than the eighth of an inch. Indeed, no sculptor +of the finest time would design such a complex cluster of leaves as +this, except for bronze or iron work; they would take simpler contours +for marble; but the laws of treatment would, under these conditions, +remain just as strict: and you may, perhaps, believe me now when I tell +you that, in any piece of fine structural sculpture by the great +masters, there is more subtlety and noble obedience to lovely laws than +could be explained to you if I took twenty lectures to do it in, instead +of one.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;"> +<img src="images/fig9.jpg" width="346" height="450" alt="Fig. 9." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 9.</span> +</div> + +<p>178. There remains yet a point of mechanical treatment, on which I have +not yet touched at all; nor that the least important,—namely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> the +actual method and style of handling. A great sculptor uses his tools +exactly as a painter his pencil, and you may recognize the decision of +his thought, and glow of his temper, no less in the workmanship than the +design. The modern system of modelling the work in clay, getting it into +form by machinery, and by the hands of subordinates, and touching it at +last, if indeed the (so called) sculptor touch it at all, only to +correct their inefficiencies, renders the production of good work in +marble a physical impossibility. The first result of it is that the +sculptor thinks in clay instead of marble, and loses his instinctive +sense of the proper treatment of a brittle substance. The second is that +neither he nor the public recognize the touch of the chisel as +expressive of personal feeling or power, and that nothing is looked for +except mechanical polish.</p> + +<p>179. The perfectly simple piece of Greek relief represented in Plate +XIII., will enable you to understand at once,—examination of the +original, at your leisure, will prevent you, I trust, from ever +forgetting—what is meant by the virtue of handling in sculpture.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 629px;"> +<img src="images/plate13.jpg" width="629" height="500" alt="Plate XIII.—Greek Flat Relief and Sculpture by Edged +Incision." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XIII.—Greek Flat Relief and Sculpture by Edged +Incision.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + +<p>The projection of the heads of the four horses, one behind the other, is +certainly not more, altogether, than three-quarters of an inch from the +flat ground, and the one in front does not in reality project more than +the one behind it, yet, by mere drawing,<a name="FNanchor_132_132" id="FNanchor_132_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> you see the sculptor has +got them to appear to recede in due order, and by the soft rounding of +the flesh surfaces, and modulation of the veins, he has taken away all +look of flatness from the necks. He has drawn the eyes and nostrils with +dark incision, careful as the finest touches of a painter's pencil: and +then, at last, when he comes to the manes, he has let fly hand and +chisel with their full force, and where a base workman, (above all, if +he had modelled the thing in clay first,) would have lost himself in +laborious imitation of hair, the Greek has struck the tresses out with +angular incisions, deep driven, every one in appointed place and +deliberate curve, yet flowing so free under his noble hand that you +cannot alter, without harm, the bending of any single ridge, nor +contract, nor extend, a point of them. And if you will look back to +Plate IX. you will see the difference between this sharp incision, used +to express horse-hair, and the soft incision with intervening rounded +ridge, used to express the hair of Apollo Chrysocomes; and, beneath, the +obliquely ridged incision used to express the plumes of his swan; in +both these cases the handling being much more slow, because the +engraving is in metal; but the structural importance of incision, as the +means of effect, never lost sight of. Finally, here are two actual +examples of the work in marble of the two great schools of the world; +one, a little Fortune, standing tiptoe on the globe of the Earth, its +surface traced with lines in hexagons; not chaotic under Fortune's feet; +Greek, this, and by a trained workman;—dug up in the temple of Neptune +at Corfu;—and here, a Florentine portrait-marble, found in the recent +alterations, face downwards, under the pavement of St<sup>a</sup> Maria +Novella;<a name="FNanchor_133_133" id="FNanchor_133_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> both of them first-rate of their kind; and both of them, +while exquisitely finished at the telling points, showing, on all their +unregarded surfaces, the rough furrow of the fast-driven chisel, as +distinctly as the edge of a common paving-stone.</p> + +<p>180. Let me suggest to you, in conclusion, one most interesting point of +mental expression in these necessary aspects of finely executed +sculpture. I have already again and again pressed on your attention the +beginning of the arts of men in the make and use of the ploughshare. +Read more carefully—you might indeed do well to learn at once by +heart,—the twenty-seven lines of the Fourth Pythian, which describe the +ploughing of Jason. There is nothing grander extant in human fancy, nor +set down in human words: but this great mythical expression of the +conquest of the earth-clay, and brute-force, by vital human energy, will +become yet more interesting to you when you reflect what enchantment has +been cut, on whiter clay, by the tracing of finer furrows;—what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> the +delicate and consummate arts of man have done by the ploughing of +marble, and granite, and iron. You will learn daily more and more, as +you advance in actual practice, how the primary manual art of engraving, +in the steadiness, clearness, and irrevocableness of it, is the best +art-discipline that can be given either to mind or hand;<a name="FNanchor_134_134" id="FNanchor_134_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> you will +recognize one law of right, pronouncing itself in the well-resolved work +of every age; you will see the firmly traced and irrevocable incision +determining not only the forms, but, in great part, the moral temper, of +all vitally progressive art; you will trace the same principle and power +in the furrows which the oblique sun shows on the granite of his own +Egyptian city,—in the white scratch of the stylus through the colour on +a Greek vase—in the first delineation, on the wet wall, of the groups +of an Italian fresco; in the unerring and unalterable touch of the great +engraver of Nüremberg,—and in the deep driven and deep bitten ravines +of metal by which Turner closed, in embossed limits, the shadows of the +Liber Studiorum.</p> + +<p>Learn, therefore, in its full extent, the force of the great Greek word, +χαρασσω;—and, give me pardon—if you think pardon needed, +that I ask you also to learn the full meaning of the English word +derived from it. Here, at the Ford of the Oxen of Jason, are other +furrows to be driven than these in the marble of Pentelicus. The +fruitfullest, or the fatallest of all ploughing is that by the thoughts +of your youth, on the white field of its imagination. For by these, +either down to the disturbed spirit, "κεκοπται και χαρασσεται πεδον;" or around the quiet spirit, and on all the laws of conduct that +hold it, as a fair vase its frankincense, are ordained the pure colours, +and engraved the just Characters, of Æonian life.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_126_126" id="Footnote_126_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Nothing is more wonderful, or more disgraceful among the +forms of ignorance engendered by modern vulgar occupations in pursuit of +gain, than the unconsciousness, now total, that fine art is essentially +Athletic. I received a letter from Birmingham, some little time since, +inviting me to see how much, in glass manufacture, "machinery excelled +rude hand work." The writer had not the remotest conception that he +might as well have asked me to come and see a mechanical boat-race rowed +by automata, and "how much machinery excelled rude arm-work."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_127_127" id="Footnote_127_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> Such as the sculptureless arch of Waterloo Bridge, for +instance, referred to in the Third Lecture, § 84.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_128_128" id="Footnote_128_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> It is strange, at this day, to think of the relation of +the Athenian Ceramicus to the French Tile-fields, Tileries, or +Tuileries; and how these last may yet become—have already partly +become—"the Potter's field," blood-bought (December, 1870.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_129_129" id="Footnote_129_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> This relief is now among the other casts which I have +placed in the lower school in the University galleries.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_130_130" id="Footnote_130_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> The reference is to a cast from a small and low relief of +Florentine work in the Kensington Museum.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_131_131" id="Footnote_131_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> The actual bas-relief is on a coin, and the projection +not above the twentieth of an inch, but I magnified it in photograph, +for this Lecture, so as to represent a relief with about the third of an +inch for maximum projection.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_132_132" id="Footnote_132_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> This plate has been executed from a drawing by Mr. +Burgess, in which he has followed the curves of incision with exquisite +care, and preserved the effect of the surface of the stone, where a +photograph would have lost it by exaggerating accidental stains.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_133_133" id="Footnote_133_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> These two marbles will always, henceforward, be +sufficiently accessible for reference in my room at Corpus Christi +College.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_134_134" id="Footnote_134_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> That it was also, in, some cases, the earliest that the +Greeks gave, is proved by Lucian's account of his first lesson at his +uncle's; the ενκοπευς, literally "in-cutter"—being the first +tool put into his hand, and an earthenware tablet to cut upon, which the +boy pressing too hard, presently breaks;—gets beaten—goes home crying, +and becomes, after his dream above quoted, a philosopher instead of a +sculptor.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE VI.</h2> + +<h3>THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS.</h3> + +<h4><i>December, 1870.</i></h4> + + +<p>181. It can scarcely be needful for me to tell even the younger members +of my present audience, that the conditions necessary for the production +of a perfect school of sculpture have only twice been met in the history +of the world, and then for a short time; nor for short time only, but +also in narrow districts, namely, in the valleys and islands of Ionian +Greece, and in the strip of land deposited by the Arno, between the +Apennine crests and the sea.</p> + +<p>All other schools, except these two, led severally by Athens in the +fifth century before Christ, and by Florence in the fifteenth of our own +era, are imperfect; and the best of them are derivative: these two are +consummate in themselves, and the origin of what is best in others.</p> + +<p>182. And observe, these Athenian and Florentine schools are both of +equal rank, as essentially original and independent. The Florentine, +being subsequent to the Greek, borrowed much from it; but it would have +existed just as strongly—and, perhaps, in some respects, more +nobly—had it been the first, instead of the latter of the two. The task +set to each of these mightiest of the nations was, indeed, practically +the same, and as hard to the one as to the other. The Greeks found +Phœnician and Etruscan art monstrous, and had to make them human. The +Italians found Byzantine and Norman art monstrous, and had to make them +human. The original power in the one case is easily traced; in the other +it has partly to be unmasked, because the change at Florence was, in +many points, suggested and stimulated by the former school. But we +mistake in supposing that Athens taught Florence the laws of design; she +taught her, in reality, only the duty of truth.</p> + +<p>183. You remember that I told you the highest art could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> do no more than +rightly represent the human form. This is the simple test, then, of a +perfect school,—that it has represented the human form, so that it is +impossible to conceive of its being better done. And that, I repeat, has +been accomplished twice only: once in Athens, once in Florence. And so +narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that it +cannot be said of either of them that they represented the entire human +form. The Greeks perfectly drew, and perfectly moulded the body and +limbs; but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance of their +representing the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand, +the Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there +is no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by +command of his religion, it became his pride to despise, and his safety +to mortify.</p> + +<p>184. The general course of your study here renders it desirable that you +should be accurately acquainted with the leading principles of Greek +sculpture; but I cannot lay these before you without giving undue +prominence to some of the special merits of that school, unless I +previously indicate the relation it holds to the more advanced, though +less disciplined, excellence of Christian art.</p> + +<p>In this and the last lecture of the present course,<a name="FNanchor_135_135" id="FNanchor_135_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> I shall +endeavour, therefore, to mass for you, in such rude and diagram-like +outline as may be possible or intelligible, the main characteristics of +the two schools, completing and correcting the details of comparison +afterwards; and not answering, observe, at present, for any +generalization I give you, except as a ground for subsequent closer and +more qualified statements.</p> + +<p>And in carrying out this parallel, I shall speak indifferently of works +of sculpture, and of the modes of painting which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> propose to themselves +the same objects as sculpture. And this indeed Florentine, as opposed to +Venetian, painting, and that of Athens in the fifth century, nearly +always did.</p> + +<p>185. I begin, therefore, by comparing two designs of the simplest +kind—engravings, or, at least, linear drawings, both; one on clay, one +on copper, made in the central periods of each style, and representing +the same goddess—Aphrodite. They are now set beside each other in your +Rudimentary Series. The first is from a patera lately found at Camirus, +authoritatively assigned by Mr. Newton, in his recent catalogue, to the +best period of Greek art. The second is from one of the series of +engravings executed, probably, by Baccio Baldini, in 1485, out of which +I chose your first practical exercise—the Sceptre of Apollo. I cannot, +however, make the comparison accurate in all respects, for I am obliged +to set the restricted type of the Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks beside +the universal Deity conceived by the Italian as governing the air, +earth, and sea; nevertheless the restriction in the mind of the Greek, +and expatiation in that of the Florentine, are both characteristic. The +Greek Venus Urania is flying in heaven, her power over the waters +symbolized by her being borne by a swan, and her power over the earth by +a single flower in her right hand; but the Italian Aphrodite is rising +out of the actual sea, and only half risen: her limbs are still in the +sea, her merely animal strength filling the waters with their life; but +her body to the loins is in the sunshine, her face raised to the sky; +her hand is about to lay a garland of flowers on the earth.</p> + +<p>186. The Venus Urania of the Greeks, in her relation to men, has power +only over lawful and domestic love; therefore, she is fully dressed, and +not only quite dressed, but most daintily and trimly: her feet +delicately sandalled, her gown spotted with little stars, her hair +brushed exquisitely smooth at the top of her head, trickling in minute +waves down her forehead; and though, because there's such a quantity of +it, she can't possibly help having a chignon, look how tightly she has +fastened it in with her broad fillet. Of course she is married, so she +must wear a cap with pretty minute pendant jewels at the border; and a +very small necklace, all that her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> husband can properly afford, just +enough to go closely round the neck, and no more. On the contrary, the +Aphrodite of the Italian, being universal love, is pure-naked; and her +long hair is thrown wild to the wind and sea.</p> + +<p>These primal differences in the symbolism, observe, are only because the +artists are thinking of separate powers: they do not necessarily involve +any national distinction in feeling. But the differences I have next to +indicate are essential, and characterize the two opposed national modes +of mind.</p> + +<p>187. First, and chiefly. The Greek Aphrodite is a very pretty person, +and the Italian a decidedly plain one. That is because a Greek thought +no one could possibly love any but pretty people; but an Italian thought +that love could give dignity to the meanest form that it inhabited, and +light to the poorest that it looked upon. So his Aphrodite will not +condescend to be pretty.</p> + +<p>188. Secondly. In the Greek Venus the breasts are broad and full, though +perfectly severe in their almost conical profile;—(you are allowed on +purpose to see the outline of the right breast, under the chiton:)—also +the right arm is left bare, and you can just see the contour of the +front of the right limb and knee; both arm and limb pure and firm, but +lovely. The plant she holds in her hand is a branching and flowering +one, the seed vessel prominent. These signs all mean that her essential +function is child-bearing.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, in the Italian Venus the breasts are so small as to be +scarcely traceable; the body strong, and almost masculine in its angles; +the arms meagre and unattractive, and she lays a decorative garland of +flowers on the earth. These signs mean that the Italian thought of love +as the strength of an eternal spirit, for ever helpful; and for ever +crowned with flowers, that neither know seed-time nor harvest, and bloom +where there is neither death, nor birth.</p> + +<p>189. Thirdly. The Greek Aphrodite is entirely calm, and looks straight +forward. Not one feature of her face is disturbed, or seems ever to have +been subject to emotion. The Italian Aphrodite looks up, her face all +quivering and burning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> with passion and wasting anxiety. The Greek one +is quiet, self-possessed, and self-satisfied; the Italian incapable of +rest, she has had no thought nor care for herself; her hair has been +bound by a fillet like the Greeks; but it is now all fallen loose, and +clotted with the sea, or clinging to her body; only the front tress of +it is caught by the breeze from her raised forehead, and lifted, in the +place where the tongues of fire rest on the brows, in the early +Christian pictures of Pentecost, and the waving fires abide upon the +heads of Angelico's seraphim.</p> + +<p>190. There are almost endless points of interest, great and small, to be +noted in these differences of treatment. This binding of the hair by the +single fillet marks the straight course of one great system of art +method, from that Greek head which I showed you on the archaic coin of +the seventh century before Christ, to this of the fifteenth of our own +era—nay, when you look close, you will see the entire action of the +head depends on one lock of hair falling back from the ear, which it +does in compliance with the old Greek observance of its being bent there +by the pressure of the helmet. That rippling of it down her shoulders +comes from the Athena of Corinth; the raising of it on her forehead, +from the knot of the hair of Diana, changed into the vestal fire of the +angels. But chiefly, the calmness of the features in the one face, and +their anxiety in the other, indicate first, indeed, the characteristic +difference in every conception of the schools, the Greek never +representing expression, the Italian primarily seeking it; but far more, +mark for us here the utter change in the conception of love; from the +tranquil guide and queen of a happy terrestrial domestic life, accepting +its immediate pleasures and natural duties, to the agonizing hope of an +infinite good, and the ever mingled joy and terror of a love divine in +jealousy, crying, "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon +thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave."</p> + +<p>The vast issues dependent on this change in the conception of the ruling +passion of the human soul, I will endeavour to show you, on a future +occasion: in my present lecture, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> shall limit myself to the definition +of the temper of Greek sculpture, and of its distinctions from +Florentine in the treatment of any subject whatever, be it love or +hatred, hope or despair.</p> + +<p>These great differences are mainly the following.</p> + +<p>191. 1. A Greek never expresses momentary passion; a Florentine looks to +momentary passion as the ultimate object of his skill.</p> + +<p>When you are next in London, look carefully in the British Museum at the +casts from the statues in the pediment of the Temple of Minerva at +Ægina. You have there Greek work of definite date;—about 600 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, +certainly before 580—of the purest kind; and you have the +representation of a noble ideal subject, the combats of the Æacidæ at +Troy, with Athena herself looking on. But there is no attempt whatever +to represent expression in the features, none to give complexity of +action or gesture; there is no struggling, no anxiety, no visible +temporary exertion of muscles. There are fallen figures, one pulling a +lance out of his wound, and others in attitudes of attack and defence; +several kneeling to draw their bows. But all inflict and suffer, conquer +or expire, with the same smile.</p> + +<p>192. Plate XIV. gives you examples, from more advanced art, of true +Greek representation; the subjects being the two contests of leading +import to the Greek heart—that of Apollo with the Python, and of +Hercules with the Nemean Lion. You see that in neither case is there the +slightest effort to represent the λυσσα or agony of contest. No +good Greek artist would have you behold the suffering, either of gods, +heroes, or men; nor allow you to be apprehensive of the issue of their +contest with evil beasts, or evil spirits. All such lower sources of +excitement are to be closed to you; your interest is to be in the +thoughts involved by the fact of the war; and in the beauty or rightness +of form, whether active or inactive. I have to work out this subject +with you afterwards, and to compare with the pure Greek method of +thought, that of modern dramatic passion, engrafted on it, as typically +in Turner's contest of Apollo and the Python: in the meantime, be +content with the statement of this first great principle—that a Greek, +as such, never expresses momentary passion.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 280px;"> +<img src="images/plate14.jpg" width="280" height="500" alt="Plate XIV.—Apollo and the Python." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XIV.—Apollo and the Python.<br /> +Heracles and the Nemean Lion.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 275px;"> +<img src="images/plate15.jpg" width="275" height="500" alt="Plate XV.—Hera of Argos. Zeus of Syracuse." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XV.—Hera of Argos. Zeus of Syracuse.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p> + +<p>193. Secondly. The Greek, as such, never expresses personal character, +while a Florentine holds it to be the ultimate condition of beauty. You +are startled, I suppose, at my saying this, having had it often pointed +out to you, as a transcendent piece of subtlety in Greek art, that you +could distinguish Hercules from Apollo by his being stout, and Diana +from Juno by her being slender. That is very true; but those are general +distinctions of class, not special distinctions of personal character. +Even as general, they are bodily, not mental. They are the distinctions, +in fleshly aspect, between an athlete and a musician,—between a matron +and a huntress; but in no wise distinguish the simple-hearted hero from +the subtle Master of the Muses, nor the wilful and fitful girl-goddess +from the cruel and resolute matron-goddess. But judge for +yourselves;—In the successive plates, XV.—XVIII., I show you,<a name="FNanchor_136_136" id="FNanchor_136_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a> +typically represented as the protectresses of nations, the Argive, +Cretan, and Lacinian Hera, the Messenian Demeter, the Athena of Corinth, +the Artemis of Syracuse, the fountain Arethusa of Syracuse, and the +Sirem Ligeia of Terina. Now, of these heads, it is true that some are +more delicate in feature than the rest, and some softer in expression: +in other respects, can you trace any distinction between the Goddesses +of Earth and Heaven, or between the Goddess of Wisdom and the Water +Nymph of Syracuse? So little can you do so, that it would have remained +a disputed question—had not the name luckily been inscribed on some +Syracusan coins—whether the head upon them was meant for Arethusa at +all; and, continually, it becomes a question respecting finished +statues, if without attributes, "Is this Bacchus or Apollo—Zeus or +Poseidon?" There is a fact for you; noteworthy, I think! There is no +personal character in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> true Greek art:—abstract ideas of youth and age, +strength and swiftness, virtue and vice,—yes: but there is no +individuality; and the negative holds down to the revived +conventionalism of the Greek school by Leonardo, when he tells you how +you are to paint young women, and how old ones; though a Greek would +hardly have been so discourteous to age as the Italian is in his canon +of it,—"old women should be represented as passionate and hasty, after +the manner of Infernal Furies."</p> + +<p>194. "But at least, if the Greeks do not give character, they give ideal +beauty?" So it is said, without contradiction. But will you look again +at the series of coins of the best time of Greek art, which I have just +set before you? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful? +Certainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Demeters are not. The Siren, +and Arethusa, have well-formed and regular features; but I am quite sure +that if you look at them without prejudice, you will think neither +reach even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Venus +Urania suggests at first, the idea of a very charming person, but you +will find there is no real depth nor sweetness in the contours, looked +at closely. And remember, these are chosen examples; the best I can find +of art current in Greece at the great time; and if even I were to take +the celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not one +of them excels the Venus of Melos; and she, as I have already asserted, +in <i>The Queen of the Air</i>, has nothing notable in feature except dignity +and simplicity. Of Athena I do not know one authentic type of great +beauty; but the intense ugliness which the Greeks could tolerate in +their symbolism of her will be convincingly proved to you by the coin +represented in Plate VI. You need only look at two or three vases of the +best time, to assure yourselves that beauty of feature was, in popular +art, not only unattained, but unattempted; and finally,—and this you +may accept as a conclusive proof of the Greek insensitiveness to the +most subtle beauty—there is little evidence even in their literature, +and none in their art, of their having ever perceived any beauty in +infancy, or early childhood.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 269px;"> +<img src="images/plate16.jpg" width="269" height="500" alt="Plate XVI.—Demeter of Messene. Hera of Crossus." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XVI.—Demeter of Messene. Hera of Crossus.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 280px;"> +<img src="images/plate17.jpg" width="280" height="500" alt="Plate XVII.—Athena of Thurium." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XVII.—Athena of Thurium.<br /> +Sereie Ligeia of Terina</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p> + +<p>195. The Greeks, then, do not give passion, do not give character, do +not give refined or naïve beauty. But you may think that the absence of +these is intended to give dignity to the gods and nymphs; and that their +calm faces would be found, if you long observed them, instinct with some +expression of divine mystery or power.</p> + +<p>I will convince you of the narrow range of Greek thought in these +respects, by showing you, from the two sides of one and the same coin, +images of the most mysterious of their Deities, and the most +powerful,—Demeter and Zeus.</p> + +<p>Remember, that just as the west coasts of Ireland and England catch +first on their hills the rain of the Atlantic, so the western +Peloponnese arrests, in the clouds of the first mountain ranges of +Arcadia, the moisture of the Mediterranean; and over all the plains of +Elis, Pylos, and Messene, the strength and sustenance of men was +naturally felt to be granted by Zeus; as, on the east coast of Greece, +the greater clearness of the air by the power of Athena. If you will +recollect the prayer of Rhea, in the single line of +Callimachus—"Γαια φιλη, τεκε και συ τεαι δ' ωδινες ελαφραι," +(compare Pausanias iv. 33, at the beginning,)—it will mark for you the +connection, in the Greek mind, of the birth of the mountain springs of +Arcadia with the birth of Zeus. And the centres of Greek thought on this +western coast are necessarily Elis, and, (after the time of +Epaminondas,) Messene.</p> + +<p>196. I show you the coin of Messene, because the splendid height and +form of Mount Ithome were more expressive of the physical power of Zeus +than the lower hills of Olympia; and also because it was struck just at +the time of the most finished and delicate Greek art—a little after the +main strength of Phidias, but before decadence had generally pronounced +itself. The coin is a silver didrachm, bearing on one side a head of +Demeter (Plate XVI., at the top); on the other a full figure of Zeus +Aietophoros (Plate XIX., at the top); the two together signifying the +sustaining strength of the earth and heaven. Look first at the head of +Demeter. It is merely meant to personify fulness of harvest; there is no +mystery in it, no sadness, no vestige of the expression which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> we should +have looked for in any effort to realize the Greek thoughts of the Earth +Mother, as we find them spoken by the poets. But take it merely as +personified abundance;—the goddess of black furrow and tawny grass—how +commonplace it is, and how poor! The hair is grand, and there is one +stalk of wheat set in it, which is enough to indicate the goddess who is +meant; but, in that very office, ignoble, for it shows that the artist +could only inform you that this was Demeter by such a symbol. How easy +it would have been for a great designer to have made the hair lovely +with fruitful flowers, and the features noble in mystery of gloom, or of +tenderness. But here you have nothing to interest you, except the common +Greek perfections of a straight nose and a full chin.</p> + +<p>197. We pass, on the reverse of the die, to the figure of Zeus +Aietophoros. Think of the invocation to Zeus in the Suppliants, (525), +"King of Kings, and Happiest of the Happy, Perfectest of the Perfect in +strength, abounding in all things, Jove—hear us and be with us;" and +then, consider what strange phase of mind it was, which, under the very +mountain-home of the god, was content with this symbol of him as a +well-fed athlete, holding a diminutive and crouching eagle on his fist. +The features and the right hand have been injured in this coin, but the +action of the arms shows that it held a thunderbolt, of which, I +believe, the twisted rays were triple. In the, presumably earlier, coin +engraved by Millingen, however,<a name="FNanchor_137_137" id="FNanchor_137_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> it is singly pointed only; and the +added inscription "ΙΘΩΜ," in the field, renders the conjecture +of Millingen probable, that this is a rude representation of the statue +of Zeus Ithomates, made by Ageladas, the master of Phidias; and I think +it has, indeed, the aspect of the endeavour, by a workman of more +advanced knowledge, and more vulgar temper, to put the softer anatomy of +later schools into the simple action of an archaic figure. Be that as it +may, here is one of the most refined cities of Greece content with the +figure of an athlete as the representative of their own mountain god; +marked as a divine power merely by the attributes of the eagle and +thunderbolt.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 270px;"> +<img src="images/plate18.jpg" width="270" height="500" alt="Plate XVIII.—Artemis of Syracuse." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XVIII.—Artemis of Syracuse.<br /> +Hera of Lacinian Cape.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 280px;"> +<img src="images/plate19.jpg" width="280" height="500" alt="Plate XIX.—Zeus of Messene. Ajax of Opus." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XIX.—Zeus of Messene. Ajax of Opus.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p> + +<p>198. Lastly. The Greeks have not, it appears, in any supreme way, given +to their statues character, beauty, or divine strength. Can they give +divine sadness? Shall we find in their artwork any of that pensiveness +and yearning for the dead, which fills the chants of their tragedy? I +suppose if anything like nearness or firmness of faith in afterlife is +to be found in Greek legend, you might look for it in the stories about +the Island of Leuce, at the mouth of the Danube, inhabited by the ghosts +of Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax the son of Oïleus, and Helen; and in which +the pavement of the Temple of Achilles was washed daily by the sea-birds +with their wings, dipping them in the sea.</p> + +<p>Now it happens that we have actually on a coin of the Locrians the +representation of the ghost of the Lesser Ajax. There is nothing in the +history of human imagination more lovely, than their leaving always a +place for his spirit, vacant in their ranks of battle. But here is their +sculptural representation of the phantom; (lower figure, Plate XIX.), +and I think you will at once agree with me in feeling that it would be +impossible to conceive anything more completely unspiritual. You might +more than doubt that it could have been meant for the departed soul, +unless you were aware of the meaning of this little circlet between the +feet. On other coins you find his name inscribed there, but in this you +have his habitation, the haunted Island of Leuce itself, with the waves +flowing round it.</p> + +<p>199. Again and again, however, I have to remind you, with respect to +these apparently frank and simple failures, that the Greek always +intends you to think for yourself, and understand, more than he can +speak. Take this instance at our hands, the trim little circlet for the +Island of Leuce. The workman knows very well it is not like the island, +and that he could not make it so; that at its best, his sculpture can be +little more than a letter; and yet, in putting this circlet, and its +encompassing fretwork of minute waves, he does more than if he had +merely given you a letter L, or written "Leuce." If you know anything of +beaches and sea, this symbol will set your imagination at work in +recalling them;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> then you will think of the temple service of the +novitiate sea-birds, and of the ghosts of Achilles and Patroclus +appearing, like the Dioscuri, above the storm-clouds of the Euxine. And +the artist, throughout his work, never for an instant loses faith in +your sympathy and passion being ready to answer his;—if you have none +to give, he does not care to take you into his counsel; on the whole, +would rather that you should not look at his work.</p> + +<p>200. But if you have this sympathy to give, you may be sure that +whatever he does for you will be right, as far as he can render it so. +It may not be sublime, nor beautiful, nor amusing; but it will be full +of meaning, and faithful in guidance. He will give you clue to myriads +of things that he cannot literally teach; and, so far as he does teach, +you may trust him. Is not this saying much?</p> + +<p>And as he strove only to teach what was true, so, in his sculptured +symbol, he strove only to carve what was—Right. He rules over the arts +to this day, and will for ever, because he sought not first for beauty, +nor first for passion, or for invention, but for Rightness; striving to +display, neither himself nor his art, but the thing that he dealt with, +in its simplicity. That is his specific character as a Greek. Of course, +every nation's character is connected with that of others surrounding or +preceding it; and in the best Greek work you will find some things that +are still false, or fanciful; but whatever in it is false or fanciful, +is not the Greek part of it—it is the Phœnician, or Egyptian, or +Pelasgian part. The essential Hellenic stamp is veracity:—Eastern +nations drew their heroes with eight legs, but the Greeks drew them with +two;—Egyptians drew their deities with cats' heads, but the Greeks drew +them with men's; and out of all fallacy, disproportion, and +indefiniteness, they were, day by day, resolvedly withdrawing and +exalting themselves into restricted and demonstrable truth.</p> + +<p>201. And now, having cut away the misconceptions which encumbered our +thoughts, I shall be able to put the Greek school into some clearness of +its position for you, with respect to the art of the world. That +relation is strangely duplicate; for on one side, Greek art is the root +of all simplicity; and on the other, of all complexity.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;"> +<img src="images/plate20.jpg" width="650" height="329" alt="Plate XX.—Greek and Barbarian Sculpture." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XX.—Greek and Barbarian Sculpture.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span></p> + +<p>On one side I say, it is the root of all simplicity. If you were for +some prolonged period to study Greek sculpture exclusively in the Elgin +Room of the British Museum, and were then suddenly transported to the +Hôtel de Cluny, or any other museum of Gothic and barbarian workmanship, +you would imagine the Greeks were the masters of all that was grand, +simple, wise, and tenderly human, opposed to the pettiness of the toys +of the rest of mankind.</p> + +<p>202. On one side of their work they are so. From all vain and mean +decoration—all weak and monstrous error, the Greeks rescue the forms of +man and beast, and sculpture them in the nakedness of their true flesh, +and with the fire of their living soul. Distinctively from other races, +as I have now, perhaps to your weariness, told you, this is the work of +the Greek, to give health to what was diseased, and chastisement to what +was untrue. So far as this is found in any other school, hereafter, it +belongs to them by inheritance from the Greeks, or invests them with the +brotherhood of the Greek. And this is the deep meaning of the myth of +Dædalus as the giver of motion to statues. The literal change from the +binding together of the feet to their separation, and the other +modifications of action which took place, either in progressive skill, +or often, as the mere consequence of the transition from wood to stone, +(a figure carved out of one wooden log must have necessarily its feet +near each other, and hands at its sides), these literal changes are as +nothing, in the Greek fable, compared to the bestowing of apparent life. +The figures of monstrous gods on Indian temples have their legs separate +enough; but they are infinitely more dead than the rude figures at +Branchidæ sitting with their hands on their knees. And, briefly, the +work of Dædalus is the giving of deceptive life, as that of Prometheus +the giving of real life; and I can put the relation of Greek to all +other art, in this function, before you in easily compared and +remembered examples.</p> + +<p>203. Here, on the right, in Plate XX., is an Indian bull, colossal, and +elaborately carved, which you may take as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> sufficient type of the bad +art of all the earth. False in form, dead in heart, and loaded with +wealth, externally. We will not ask the date of this; it may rest in the +eternal obscurity of evil art, everywhere and for ever. Now, besides +this colossal bull, here is a bit of Dædalus work, enlarged from a coin +not bigger than a shilling: look at the two together, and you ought to +know, henceforward, what Greek art means, to the end of your days.</p> + +<p>204. In this aspect of it then, I say, it is the simplest and nakedest +of lovely veracities. But it has another aspect, or rather another pole, +for the opposition is diametric. As the simplest, so also it is the most +complex of human art. I told you in my fifth Lecture, showing you the +spotty picture of Velasquez, that an essential Greek character is a +liking for things that are dappled. And you cannot but have noticed how +often and how prevalently the idea which gave its name to the Porch of +Polygnotus, "στοα ποικιλη," occurs to the Greeks as connected +with the finest art. Thus, when the luxurious city is opposed to the +simple and healthful one, in the second book of Plato's Polity, you find +that, next to perfumes, pretty ladies, and dice, you must have in it +"ποικιλια," which observe, both in that place and again in the +third book, is the separate art of joiners' work, or inlaying; but the +idea of exquisitely divided variegation or division, both in sight and +sound—the "ravishing division to the lute," as in Pindar's "ροικιλοι ὑμνοι"—runs through the compass of all Greek +art-description; and if, instead of studying that art among marbles you +were to look at it only on vases of a fine time, (look back, for +instance, to Plate IV. here), your impression of it would be, instead of +breadth and simplicity, one of universal spottiness and chequeredness, +"εν ανγεων Ἑρκεσιν παμποικιλοις;" and of the artist's +delighting in nothing so much as in crossed or starred or spotted +things; which, in right places, he and his public both do unlimitedly. +Indeed they hold it complimentary even to a trout, to call him a +"spotty." Do you recollect the trout in the tributaries of the Ladon, +which Pausanias says were spotted, so that they were like thrushes and +which, the Arcadians told him, could speak? In this last ποικιλια, however, they disappointed him. "I, indeed, saw some of them +caught," he says, "but I did not hear any of them speak, though I waited +beside the river till sunset."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 272px;"> +<img src="images/plate21.jpg" width="272" height="500" alt="Plate XXI.—The Beginnings of Chivalry." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Plate XXI.—The Beginnings of Chivalry.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p> + +<p>205. I must sum roughly now, for I have detained you too long.</p> + +<p>The Greeks have been thus the origin not only of all broad, mighty, and +calm conception, but of all that is divided, delicate, and tremulous; +"variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made." To them, as +first leaders of ornamental design, belongs, of right, the praise of +glistenings in gold, piercings in ivory, stainings in purple, +burnishings in dark blue steel; of the fantasy of the Arabian +roof—quartering of the Christian shield,—rubric and arabesque of +Christian scripture; in fine, all enlargement, and all diminution of +adorning thought, from the temple to the toy, and from the mountainous +pillars of Agrigentum to the last fineness of fretwork in the Pisan +Chapel of the Thorn.</p> + +<p>And in their doing all this, they stand as masters of human order and +justice, subduing the animal nature guided by the spiritual one, as you +see the Sicilian Charioteer stands, holding his horse-reins, with the +wild lion racing beneath him, and the flying angel above, on the +beautiful coin of early Syracuse; (lowest in Plate XXI).</p> + +<p>And the beginnings of Christian chivalary were in that Greek bridling of +the dark and the white horses.</p> + +<p>206. Not that a Greek never made mistakes. He made as many as we do +ourselves, nearly;—he died of his mistakes at last—as we shall die of +them; but so far he was separated from the herd of more mistaken and +more wretched nations—so far as he was Greek—it was by his rightness. +He lived, and worked, and was satisfied with the fatness of his land, +and the fame of his deeds, by his justice, and reason, and modesty. He +became <i>Græculus esuriens</i>, little, and hungry, and every man's +errand-boy, by his iniquity, and his competition, and his love of talk. +But his Græcism was in having done, at least at one period of his +dominion, more than anybody else, what was modest, useful, and eternally +true; and as a workman, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> verily did, or first suggested the doing of, +everything possible to man.</p> + +<p>Take Dædalus, his great type of the practically executive craftsman, and +the inventor of expedients in craftsmanship, (as distinguished from +Prometheus, the institutor of moral order in art). Dædalus invents,—he, +or his nephew,—</p> + +<p>The potter's wheel, and all work in clay;</p> + +<p>The saw, and all work in wood;</p> + +<p>The masts and sails of ships, and all modes of motion; (wings only +proving too dangerous!)</p> + +<p>The entire art of minute ornament;</p> + +<p>And the deceptive life of statues.</p> + +<p>By his personal toil, he involves the fatal labyrinth for Minos; builds +an impregnable fortress for the Agrigentines; adorns healing baths among +the wild parsley fields of Selinus; buttresses the precipices of Eryx, +under the temple of Aphrodite; and for her temple itself—finishes in +exquisiteness the golden honeycomb.</p> + +<p>207. Take note of that last piece of his art: it is connected with many +things which I must bring before you when we enter on the study of +architecture. That study we shall begin at the foot of the Baptistery of +Florence, which, of all buildings known to me, unites the most perfect +symmetry with the quaintest ροικιλια. Then, from the tomb of +your own Edward the Confessor, to the farthest shrine of the opposite +Arabian and Indian world, I must show you how the glittering and +iridescent dominion of Dædalus prevails; and his ingenuity in division, +interposition, and labyrinthine sequence, more widely still. Only this +last summer I found the dark red masses of the rough sandstone of +Furness Abbey had been fitted by him, with no less pleasure than he had +in carving them, into wedged hexagons—reminiscences of the honeycomb of +Venus Erycina. His ingenuity plays around the framework of all the +noblest things; and yet the brightness of it has a lurid shadow. The +spot of the fawn, of the bird, and the moth, may be harmless. But +Dædalus reigns no less over the spot of the leopard and snake. That +cruel and venomous power of his art is marked, in the legends of him, +by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> his invention of the saw from the serpent's tooth; and his seeking +refuge, under blood-guiltiness, with Minos, who can judge evil, and +measure, or remit, the penalty of it, but not reward good: Rhadamanthus +only can measure <i>that</i>; but Minos is essentially the recognizer of evil +deeds "conoscitor delle peccata," whom, therefore, you find in Dante +under the form of the ερπετον. "Cignesi con la coda tante +volte, quantunque gradi vuol che giu sia messa."</p> + +<p>And this peril of the influence of Dædalus is twofold; first in leading +us to delight in glitterings and semblances of things, more than in +their form, or truth;—admire the harlequin's jacket more than the +hero's strength; and love the gilding of the missal more than its +words;—but farther, and worse, the ingenuity of Dædalus may even become +bestial, an instinct for mechanical labour only, strangely involved with +a feverish and ghastly cruelty:—(you will find this distinct in the +intensely Dædal work of the Japanese); rebellious, finally, against the +laws of nature and honour, and building labyrinths for monsters,—not +combs for bees.</p> + +<p>208. Gentlemen, we of the rough northern race may never, perhaps, be +able to learn from the Greek his reverence for beauty: but we may at +least learn his disdain of mechanism:—of all work which he felt to be +monstrous and inhuman in its imprudent dexterities.</p> + +<p>We hold ourselves, we English, to be good workmen. I do not think I +speak with light reference to recent calamity, (for I myself lost a +young relation, full of hope and good purpose, in the foundered ship +<i>London</i>,) when I say that either an Æginetan or Ionian shipwright built +ships that could be fought from, though they were under water; and +neither of them would have been proud of having built one that would +fill and sink helplessly if the sea washed over her deck, or turn upside +down if a squall struck her topsail.</p> + +<p>Believe me, gentlemen, good workmanship consists in continence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>and +common sense, more than in frantic expatiation of mechanical ingenuity; +and if you would be continent and rational, you had better learn more of +Art than you do now, and less of Engineering. What is taking place at +this very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> hour,<a name="FNanchor_138_138" id="FNanchor_138_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> among the streets, once so bright, and avenues +once so pleasant, of the fairest city in Europe, may surely lead us all +to feel that the skill of Dædalus, set to build impregnable fortresses, +is not so wisely applied as in framing the τρητον πονου—the +golden honeycomb.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_135_135" id="Footnote_135_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> The closing Lecture, on the religious temper of the +Florentine, though necessary for the complete explanation of the subject +to my class, at the time, introduced new points of inquiry which I do +not choose to lay before the general reader until they can be examined +in fuller sequence. The present volume, therefore, closes with the Sixth +Lecture, and that on Christian art will be given as the first of the +published course on Florentine Sculpture.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_136_136" id="Footnote_136_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> These plates of coins are given for future reference and +examination, not merely for the use made of them in this place. The +Lacinian Hera, if a coin could be found unworn in surface, would be very +noble; her hair is thrown free because she is the goddess of the cape of +storms though in her temple, there, the wind never moved the ashes on +its altar. (Livy, xxiv. 3.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_137_137" id="Footnote_137_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Ancient Cities and Kings, Plate IV. No. 20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_138_138" id="Footnote_138_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> The siege of Paris, at the time of the delivery of this +Lecture, was in one of its most destructive phases.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>THE FUTURE OF ENGLAND.</i></h2> + +<h3>(<i>Delivered at the R. A. Institution, Woolwich, December 14, 1869.</i>)</h3> + + +<p>I would fain have left to the frank expression of the moment, but fear I +could not have found clear words—I cannot easily find them, even +deliberately,—to tell you how glad I am, and yet how ashamed, to accept +your permission to speak to you. Ashamed of appearing to think that I +can tell you any truth which you have not more deeply felt than I; but +glad in the thought that my less experience, and way of life sheltered +from the trials, and free from the responsibilities of yours, may have +left me with something of a child's power of help to you; a sureness of +hope, which may perhaps be the one thing that can be helpful to men who +have done too much not to have often failed in doing all that they +desired. And indeed, even the most hopeful of us, cannot but now be in +many things apprehensive. For this at least we all know too well, that +we are on the eve of a great political crisis, if not of political +change. That a struggle is approaching between the newly-risen power of +democracy and the apparently departing power of feudalism; and another +struggle, no less imminent, and far more dangerous, between wealth and +pauperism. These two quarrels are constantly thought of as the same. +They are being fought together, and an apparently common interest unites +for the most part the millionaire with the noble, in resistance to a +multitude, crying, part of it for bread and part of it for liberty.</p> + +<p>And yet no two quarrels can be more distinct. Riches—so far from being +necessary to noblesse—are adverse to it. So utterly adverse, that the +first character of all the Nobilities which have founded great dynasties +in the world is to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> poor;—often poor by oath—always poor by +generosity. And of every true knight in the chivalric ages, the first +thing history tells you is, that he never kept treasure for himself.</p> + +<p>Thus the causes of wealth and noblesse are not the same; but opposite. +On the other hand, the causes of anarchy and of the poor are not the +same, but opposite. Side by side, in the same rank, are now indeed set +the pride that revolts against authority, and the misery that appeals +against avarice. But, so far from being a common cause, all anarchy is +the forerunner of poverty, and all prosperity begins in obedience. So +that thus, it has become impossible to give due support to the cause of +order, without seeming to countenance injury; and impossible to plead +justly the claims of sorrow, without seeming to plead also for those of +license.</p> + +<p>Let me try, then, to put in very brief terms, the real plan of this +various quarrel, and the truth of the cause on each side. Let us face +that full truth, whatever it may be, and decide what part, according to +our power, we should take in the quarrel.</p> + +<p>First. For eleven hundred years, all but five, since Charlemagne set on +his head the Lombard crown, the body of European people have submitted +patiently to be governed; generally by kings—always by single leaders +of some kind. But for the last fifty years they have begun to suspect, +and of late they have many of them concluded, that they have been on the +whole ill-governed, or misgoverned, by their kings. Whereupon they say, +more and more widely, "Let us henceforth have no kings; and no +government at all."</p> + +<p>Now we said, we must face the full truth of the matter, in order to see +what we are to do. And the truth is that the people <i>have</i> been +misgoverned;—that very little is to be said, hitherto, for most of +their masters—and that certainly in many places they will try their new +system of "no masters:"—and as that arrangement will be delightful to +all foolish persons, and, at first, profitable to all wicked ones,—and +as these classes are not wanting or unimportant in any human +society,—the experiment is likely to be tried extensively. And the +world may be quite content to endure much suffering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> with this fresh +hope, and retain its faith in anarchy, whatever comes of it, till it can +endure no more.</p> + +<p>Then, secondly. The people have begun to suspect that one particular +form of this past misgovernment has been, that their masters have set +them to do all the work, and have themselves taken all the wages. In a +word, that what was called governing them, meant only wearing fine +clothes, and living on good fare at their expense. And I am sorry to +say, the people are quite right in this opinion also. If you inquire +into the vital fact of the matter, this you will find to be the constant +structure of European society for the thousand years of the feudal +system; it was divided into peasants who lived by working; priests who +lived by begging; and knights who lived by pillaging; and as the +luminous public mind becomes gradually cognizant of these facts, it will +assuredly not suffer things to be altogether arranged that way any more; +and the devising of other ways will be an agitating business; especially +because the first impression of the intelligent populace is, that +whereas, in the dark ages, half the nation lived idle, in the bright +ages to come, the whole of it may.</p> + +<p>Now, thirdly—and here is much the worst phase of the crisis. This past +system of misgovernment, especially during the last three hundred years, +has prepared, by its neglect, a class among the lower orders which it is +now peculiarly difficult to govern. It deservedly lost their +respect—but that was the least part of the mischief. The deadly part of +it was, that the lower orders lost their habit, and at last their +faculty, of respect;—lost the very capability of reverence, which is +the most precious part of the human soul. Exactly in the degree in which +you can find creatures greater than yourself, to look up to, in that +degree, you are ennobled yourself, and, in that degree, happy. If you +could live always in the presence of archangels, you would be happier +than in that of men; but even if only in the company of admirable +knights and beautiful ladies, the more noble and bright they were, and +the more you could reverence their virtue the happier you would be. On +the contrary, if you were condemned to live among a multitude of idiots, +dumb, distorted and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> malicious, you would not be happy in the constant +sense of your own superiority. Thus all real joy and power of progress +in humanity depend on finding something to reverence; and all the +baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain. Now, by +general misgovernment, I repeat, we have created in Europe a vast +populace, and out of Europe a still vaster one, which has lost even the +power and conception of reverence;<a name="FNanchor_139_139" id="FNanchor_139_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>—which exists only in the +worship of itself—which can neither see anything beautiful around it, +nor conceive anything virtuous above it; which has, towards all goodness +and greatness, no other feelings than those of the lowest +creatures—fear, hatred, or hunger a populace which has sunk below your +appeal in their nature, as it has risen beyond your power in their +multitude;—whom you can now no more charm than you can the adder, nor +discipline, than you can the summer fly.</p> + +<p>It is a crisis, gentlemen; and time to think of it. I have roughly and +broadly put it before you in its darkness. Let us look what we may find +of light.</p> + +<p>Only the other day, in a journal which is a fairly representative +exponent of the Conservatism of our day, and for the most part not at +all in favor of strikes or other popular proceedings; only about three +weeks since, there was a leader, with this, or a similar, title—"What +is to become of the House of Lords?" It startled me, for it seemed as if +we were going even faster than I had thought, when such a question was +put as a subject of quite open debate, in a journal meant chiefly for +the reading of the middle and upper classes. Open or not—the debate is +near. What <i>is</i> to become of them? And the answer to such question +depends first on their being able to answer another question—"What is +the <i>use</i> of them!" For some time back, I think the theory of the nation +has been, that they are useful as impediments to business, so as to give +time for second thoughts. But the nation is getting impatient of +impediments to business; and certainly, sooner or later, will think it +needless to maintain these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> expensive obstacles to its humors. And I +have not heard, either in public, or from any of themselves, a clear +expression of their own conception of their use. So that it seems thus +to become needful for all men to tell them, as our one quite +clear-sighted teacher, Carlyle, has been telling us for many a year, +that the use of the Lords of a country is to <i>govern</i> the country. If +they answer that use, the country will rejoice in keeping them; if not, +that will become of them which must of all things found to have lost +their serviceableness.</p> + +<p>Here, therefore, is the one question, at this crisis, for them, and for +us. Will they be lords indeed, and give us laws—dukes indeed, and give +us guiding—princes indeed, and give us beginning, of truer dynasty, +which shall not be soiled by covetousness, nor disordered by iniquity? +Have they themselves sunk so far as not to hope this? Are there yet any +among them who can stand forward with open English brows, and say,—So +far as in me lies, I will govern with my might, not for Dieu et <i>mon</i> +Droit, but for the first grand reading of the war cry, from which that +was corrupted, "Dieu et Droit?" Among them I know there are some—among +you, soldiers of England, I know there are many, who can do this; and in +you is our trust. I, one of the lower people of your country, ask of you +in their name—you whom I will not any more call soldiers, but by the +truer name of Knights;—Equites of England. How many yet of you are +there, knights errant now beyond all former fields of danger—knights +patient now beyond all former endurance; who still retain the ancient +and eternal purpose of knighthood, to subdue the wicked, and aid the +weak? To them, be they few or many, we English people call for help to +the wretchedness, and for rule over the baseness, of multitudes desolate +and deceived, shrieking to one another this new gospel of their new +religion. "Let the weak do as they can, and the wicked as they will."</p> + +<p>I can hear you saying in your hearts, even the bravest of you, "The time +is past for all that." Gentlemen, it is not so. The time has come for +<i>more</i> than all that. Hitherto,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> soldiers have given their lives for +false fame, and for cruel power. The day is now when they must give +their lives for true fame, and for beneficent power: and the work is +near every one of you—close beside you—the means of it even thrust +into your hands. The people are crying to you for command, and you stand +there at pause, and silent. You think they don't want to be commanded; +try them; determine what is needful for them—honorable for them; show +it them, promise to bring them to it, and they will follow you through +fire. "Govern us," they cry with one heart, though many minds. They +<i>can</i> be governed still, these English; they are men still; not gnats, +nor serpents. They love their old ways yet, and their old masters, and +their old land. They would fain live in it, as many as may stay there, +if you will show them how, there, to live;—or show them even, how, +there, like Englishmen, to die.</p> + +<p>"To live in it, as many as may!" How many do you think may? How many +<i>can</i>? How many do you want to live there? As masters, your first object +must be to increase your power; and in what does the power of a country +consist? Will you have dominion over its stones, or over its clouds, or +over its souls? What do you mean by a great nation, but a great +multitude of men who are true to each other, and strong, and of worth? +Now you can increase the multitude only definitely—your island has only +so much standing room—but you can increase the <i>worth in</i>definitely. It +is but a little island;—suppose, little as it is, you were to fill it +with friends? You may, and that easily. You must, and that speedily; or +there will be an end to this England of ours, and to all its loves and +enmities.</p> + +<p>To fill this little island with true friends—men brave, wise, and +happy! Is it so impossible, think you, after the world's eighteen +hundred years of Christianity, and our own thousand years of toil, to +fill only this little white gleaming crag with happy creatures, helpful +to each other? Africa, and India, and the Brazilian wide-watered plain, +are these not wide enough for the ignorance of our race? have they not +space enough for its pain? Must we remain <i>here</i> also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> savage,—<i>here</i> +at enmity with each other,—<i>here</i> foodless, houseless, in rags, in +dust, and without hope, as thousands and tens of thousands of us are +lying? Do not think it, gentlemen. The thought that it is inevitable is +the last infidelity; infidelity not to God only, but to every creature +and every law that He has made. Are we to think that the earth was only +shaped to be a globe of torture; and that there cannot be one spot of it +where peace can rest, or justice reign? Where are men ever to be happy, +if not in England? by whom shall they ever be taught to do right, if not +by you? Are we not of a race first among the strong ones of the earth; +the blood in us incapable of weariness, unconquerable by grief? Have we +not a history of which we can hardly think without becoming insolent in +our just pride of it? Can we dare, without passing every limit of +courtesy to other nations, to say how much more we have to be proud of +in our ancestors than they? Among our ancient monarchs, great crimes +stand out as monstrous and strange. But their valor, and, according to +their understanding, their benevolence, are constant. The Wars of the +Roses, which are as a fearful crimson shadow on our land, represent the +normal condition of other nations; while from the days of the Heptarchy +downwards we have had examples given us, in all ranks, of the most +varied and exalted virtue; a heap of treasure that no moth can corrupt, +and which even our traitorship, if we are to become traitors to it, +cannot sully.</p> + +<p>And this is the race, then, that we know not any more how to govern! and +this the history which we are to behold broken off by sedition! and this +is the country, of all others, where life is to become difficult to the +honest, and ridiculous to the wise! And the catastrophe, forsooth, is to +come just when we have been making swiftest progress beyond the wisdom +and wealth of the past. Our cities are a wilderness of spinning wheels +instead of palaces; yet the people have not clothes. We have blackened +every leaf of English greenwood with ashes, and the people die of cold; +our harbors are a forest of merchant ships, and the people die of +hunger.</p> + +<p>Whose fault is it? Yours, gentlemen; yours only. You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> alone can feed +them, and clothe, and bring into their right minds, for you only can +govern—that is to say, you only can educate them.</p> + +<p>Educate, or govern, they are one and the same word. Education does not +mean teaching people to know what they do not know. It means teaching +them to behave as they do not behave. And the true "compulsory +education" which the people now ask of you is not catechism, but drill. +It is not teaching the youth of England the shapes of letters and the +tricks of numbers; and then leaving them to turn their arithmetic to +roguery, and their literature to lust. It is, on the contrary, training +them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence of their bodies and +souls. It is a painful, continual, and difficult work; to be done by +kindness, by watching, by warning, by precept, and by praise,—but above +all—by example.</p> + +<p>Compulsory! Yes, by all means! "Go ye out into the highways and hedges, +and <i>compel</i> them to come in." Compulsory! Yes, and gratis also. <i>Dei +Gratia</i>, they must be taught, as, <i>Dei Gratia</i>, you are set to teach +them. I hear strange talk continually, "how difficult it is to make +people pay for being educated!" Why, I should think so! Do you make your +children pay for their education, or do you give it them compulsorily, +and gratis? You do not expect <i>them</i> to pay you for their teaching, +except by becoming good children. Why should you expect a peasant to pay +for his, except by becoming a good man?—payment enough, I think, if we +knew it. Payment enough to himself, as to us. For that is another of our +grand popular mistakes—people are always thinking of education as a +means of livelihood. Education is not a profitable business, but a +costly one; nay, even the best attainments of it are always +unprofitable, in any terms of coin. No nation ever made its bread either +by its great arts, or its great wisdoms. By its minor arts or +manufactures, by its practical knowledges, yes: but its noble +scholarship, its noble philosophy, and its noble art, are always to be +bought as a treasure, not sold for a livelihood. You do not learn that +you may live—you live that you may learn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> You are to spend on National +Education, and to be spent for it, and to make by it, not more money, +but better men;—to get into this British Island the greatest possible +number of good and brave Englishmen. <i>They</i> are to be your "money's +worth."</p> + +<p>But where is the money to come from? Yes, that is to be asked. Let us, +as quite the first business in this our national crisis, look not only +into our affairs, but into our accounts, and obtain some general notion +how we annually spend our money, and what we are getting for it. +Observe, I do not mean to inquire into the public revenue only; of that +some account is rendered already. But let us do the best we can to set +down the items of the national <i>private</i> expenditure; and know what we +spend altogether, and how.</p> + +<p>To begin with this matter of education. You probably have nearly all +seen the admirable lecture lately given by Captain Maxse, at +Southampton. It contains a clear statement of the facts at present +ascertained as to our expenditure in that respect. It appears that of +our public moneys, for every pound that we spend on education we spend +twelve either in charity or punishment;—ten millions a year in +pauperism and crime, and eight hundred thousand in instruction. Now +Captain Maxse adds to this estimate of ten millions public money spent +on crime and want, a more or less conjectural sum of eight millions for +private charities. My impression is that this is much beneath the truth, +but at all events it leaves out of consideration much the heaviest and +saddest form of charity—the maintenance, by the working members of +families, of the unfortunate or ill-conducted persons whom the general +course of misrule now leaves helpless to be the burden of the rest.</p> + +<p>Now I want to get first at some, I do not say approximate, but at all +events some suggestive, estimate of the quantity of real distress and +misguided life in this country. Then next, I want some fairly +representative estimate of our private expenditure in luxuries. We won't +spend more, publicly, it appears, than eight hundred thousand a year, on +educating men gratis. I want to know, as nearly as possible, what we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> +spend privately a year, in educating horses gratis. Let us, at least, +quit ourselves in this from the taunt of Rabshakeh, and see that for +every horse we train also a horseman; and that the rider be at least as +high-bred as the horse, not jockey, but chevalier. Again, we spend eight +hundred thousand, which is certainly a great deal of money, in making +rough <i>minds</i> bright. I want to know how much we spend annually in +making rough <i>stones</i> bright; that is to say, what may be the united +annual sum, or near it, of our jewellers' bills. So much we pay for +educating children gratis;—how much for educating diamonds gratis? and +which pays best for brightening, the spirit or the charcoal? Let us get +those two items set down with some sincerity, and a few more of the same +kind. <i>Publicly</i> set down. We must not be ashamed of the way we spend +our money. If our right hand is not to know what our left does, it must +not be because it would be ashamed if it did.</p> + +<p>That is, therefore, quite the first practical thing to be done. Let +every man who wishes well to his country, render it yearly an account of +his income, and of the main heads of his expenditure; or, if he is +ashamed to do so, let him no more impute to the poor their poverty as a +crime, nor set them to break stones in order to frighten them from +committing it. To lose money ill is indeed often a crime; but to get it +ill is a worse one, and to spend it ill, worst of all. You object, Lords +of England, to increase, to the poor, the wages you give them, because +they spend them, you say, unadvisedly. Render them, therefore, an +account of the wages which <i>they</i> give <i>you</i>; and show them, by your +example, how to spend theirs, to the last farthing advisedly.</p> + +<p>It is indeed time to make this an acknowledged subject of instruction, +to the workingman,—how to spend his wages. For, gentlemen, we <i>must</i> +give that instruction, whether we will or no, one way or the other. We +have given it in years gone by; and now we find fault with our peasantry +for having been too docile, and profited too shrewdly by our tuition. +Only a few days since I had a letter from the wife of a village rector, +a man of common sense and kindness, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> was greatly troubled in his +mind because it was precisely the men who got highest wages in summer +that came destitute to his door in the winter. Destitute, and of riotous +temper—for their method of spending wages in their period of prosperity +was by sitting two days a week in the tavern parlor, ladling port wine, +not out of bowls, but out of buckets. Well, gentlemen, who taught them +that method of festivity? Thirty years ago, I, a most inexperienced +freshman, went to my first college supper; at the head of the table sat +a nobleman of high promise and of admirable powers, since dead of palsy; +there also we had in the midst of us, not buckets, indeed, but bowls as +large as buckets; there also, we helped ourselves with ladles. There +(for this beginning of college education was compulsory), I choosing +ladlefuls of punch instead of claret, because I was then able, +unperceived to pour them into my waistcoat instead of down my throat, +stood it out to the end, and helped to carry four of my fellow-students, +one of them the son of the head of a college, head foremost, down stairs +and home.</p> + +<p>Such things are no more; but the fruit of them remains, and will for +many a day to come. The laborers whom you cannot now shut out of the +ale-house are only the too faithful disciples of the gentlemen who were +wont to shut themselves into the dining-room. The gentlemen have not +thought it necessary, in order to correct their own habits, to diminish +their incomes; and, believe me, the way to deal with your drunken +workman is not to lower his wages,—but to mend his wits.<a name="FNanchor_140_140" id="FNanchor_140_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p> + +<p>And if indeed we do not yet see quite clearly how to deal with the sins +of our poor brother, it is possible that our dimness of sight may still +have other causes that can be cast out. There are two opposite cries of +the great liberal and conservative parties, which are both most right, +and worthy to be rallying cries. On their side "let every man have his +chance;" on yours "let every man stand in his place." Yes, indeed, let +that be so, every man in his place, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> every man fit for it. See that +he holds that place from Heaven's Providence; and not from his family's +Providence. Let the Lords Spiritual quit themselves of simony, we laymen +will look after the heretics for them. Let the Lords Temporal quit +themselves of nepotism, and we will take care of their authority for +them. Publish for us, you soldiers, an army gazette, in which the one +subject of daily intelligence shall be the grounds of promotion; a +gazette which shall simply tell us, what there certainly can be no +detriment to the service in our knowing, when any officer is appointed +to a new command,—what his former services and successes have +been,—whom he has superseded,—and on what ground. It will be always a +satisfaction to us; it may sometimes be an advantage to you: and then, +when there is really necessary debate respecting reduction of wages, let +us always begin not with the wages of the industrious classes, but with +those of the idle ones. Let there be honorary titles, if people like +them; but let there be no honorary incomes.</p> + +<p>So much for the master's motto, "Every man in his place." Next for the +laborer's motto, "Every man his chance." Let us mend that for them a +little, and say, "Every man his certainty"—certainty, that if he does +well, he will be honored, and aided, and advanced in such degree as may +be fitting for his faculty and consistent with his peace; and equal +certainty that if he does ill, he will by sure justice be judged, and by +sure punishment be chastised; if it may be, corrected; and if that may +not be, condemned. That is the right reading of the Republican motto, +"Every man his chance." And then, with such a system of government, +pure, watchful and just, you may approach your great problem of national +education, or in other words, of national employment. For all education +begins in work. What we think, or what we know; or what we believe, is +in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what +we <i>do;</i> and for man, woman, or child, the first point of education is +to make them do their best. It is the law of good economy to make the +best of everything. How much more to make the best of every creature! +Therefore, when your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> pauper comes to you and asks for bread, ask of him +instantly—What faculty have you? What can you do best? Can you drive a +nail into wood? Go and mend the parish fences. Can you lay a brick? Mend +the walls of the cottages where the wind comes in. Can you lift a +spadeful of earth? Turn this field up three feet deep all over. Can you +only drag a weight with your shoulders? Stand at the bottom of this hill +and help up the overladen horses. Can you weld iron and chisel stone? +Fortify this wreck-strewn coast into a harbor; and change these shifting +sands into fruitful ground. Wherever death was, bring life; that is to +be your work; that your parish refuge; that your education. So and no +otherwise can we meet existent distress. But for the continual education +of the whole people, and for their future happiness, they must have such +consistent employment as shall develop all the powers of the fingers, +and the limbs, and the brain: and that development is only to be +obtained by hand-labor, of which you have these four great +divisions—hand-labor on the earth, hand-labor on the sea, hand-labor in +art, hand-labor in war. Of the last two of these I cannot speak +to-night, and of the first two only with extreme brevity.</p> + +<p>I. Hand-labor on the earth, the work of the husbandman and of the +shepherd;—to dress the earth and to keep the flocks of it—the first +task of man, and the final one—the education always of noblest +lawgivers, kings and teachers; the education of Hesiod, of Moses, of +David, of all the true strength of Rome; and all its tenderness: the +pride of Cincinnatus, and the inspiration of Virgil. Hand-labor on the +earth, and the harvest of it brought forth with singing:—not +steam-piston labor on the earth, and the harvest of it brought forth +with steam-whistling. You will have no prophet's voice accompanied by +that shepherd's pipe, and pastoral symphony. Do you know that lately, in +Cumberland, in the chief pastoral district of England—in Wordsworth's +own home—a procession of villagers on their festa day provided for +themselves, by way of music, a steam-plough whistling at the head of +them.</p> + +<p>Give me patience while I put the principle of machine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> labor before you, +as clearly and in as short compass as possible; it is one that should be +known at this juncture. Suppose a farming proprietor needs to employ a +hundred men on his estate, and that the labor of these hundred men is +enough, but not more than enough, to till all his land, and to raise +from it food for his own family, and for the hundred laborers. He is +obliged, under such circumstances, to maintain all the men in moderate +comfort, and can only by economy accumulate much for himself. But, +suppose he contrive a machine that will easily do the work of fifty men, +with only one man to watch it. This sounds like a great advance in +civilization. The farmer of course gets his machine made, turns off the +fifty men, who may starve or emigrate at their choice, and now he can +keep half of the produce of his estate, which formerly went to feed +them, all to himself. That is the essential and constant operation of +machinery among us at this moment.</p> + +<p>Nay, it is at first answered; no man can in reality keep half the +produce of an estate to himself, nor can he in the end keep more than +his own human share of anything; his riches must diffuse themselves at +some time; he must maintain somebody else with them, however he spends +them. That is mainly true (not altogether so), for food and fuel are in +ordinary circumstances personally wasted by rich people, in quantities +which would save many lives. One of my own great luxuries, for instance, +is candlelight—and I probably burn, for myself alone, as many candles +during the winter, as would comfort the old eyes, or spare the young +ones, of a whole rushlighted country village. Still, it is mainly true, +that it is not by their personal waste that rich people prevent the +lives of the poor. This is the way they do it. Let me go back to my +farmer. He has got his machine made, which goes creaking, screaming, and +occasionally exploding, about modern Arcadia. He has turned off his +fifty men to starve. Now, at some distance from his own farm, there is +another on which the laborers were working for their bread in the same +way, by tilling the land. The machinist sends over to these, saying—"I +have got food enough for you without your digging or ploughing any more. +I can maintain you in other occupations instead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> of ploughing that land; +if you rake in its gravel you will find some hard stones—you shall +grind those on mills till they glitter; then, my wife shall wear a +necklace of them. Also, if you turn up the meadows below you will find +some fine white clay, of which you shall make a porcelain service for +me: and the rest of the farm I want for pasture for horses for my +carriage—and you shall groom them, and some of you ride behind the +carriage with staves in your hands, and I will keep you much fatter for +doing that than you can keep yourselves by digging."</p> + +<p>Well—but it is answered, are we to have no diamonds, nor china, nor +pictures, nor footmen, then—but all to be farmers? I am not saying what +we ought to do, I want only to show you with perfect clearness first +what we <i>are doing</i>; and that, I repeat, is the upshot of +machine-contriving in this country. And observe its effect on the +national strength. Without machines, you have a hundred and fifty yeomen +ready to join for defence of the land. You get your machine, starve +fifty of them, make diamond-cutters or footmen of as many more, and for +your national defence against an enemy, you have now, and <i>can</i> have, +only fifty men, instead of a hundred and fifty; these also now with +minds much alienated from you as their chief,<a name="FNanchor_141_141" id="FNanchor_141_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> and the rest, +lapidaries or footmen; and a steam plough.</p> + +<p>That is one effect of machinery; but at all events, if we have thus lost +in men, we have gained in riches; instead of happy human souls, we have +at least got pictures, china, horses, and are ourselves better off than +we were before. But very often, and in much of our machine-contriving, +even <i>that</i> result does not follow. We are not one whit the richer for +the machine, we only employ it for our amusement. For observe, our +gaining in riches depends on the men who are out of employment +consenting to be starved, or sent out of the country. But suppose they +do not consent passively to be starved, but some of them become +criminals, and have to be taken charge of and fed at a much greater cost +than if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> they were at work, and, others, paupers, rioters, and the like, +then you attain the real outcome of modern wisdom and ingenuity. You +have your hundred men honestly at country work; but you don't like the +sight of human beings in your fields; you like better to see a smoking +kettle. You pay, as an amateur, for that pleasure, and you employ your +fifty men in picking oakum, or begging, rioting, and thieving.</p> + +<p>By hand-labor, therefore, and that alone, we are to till the ground. By +hand-labor also to plough the sea; both for food, and in commerce, and +in war: not with floating kettles there neither, but with hempen bridle, +and the winds of heaven in harness. That is the way the power of Greece +rose on her Egean, the power of Venice on her Adria, of Amalfi in her +blue bay, of the Norman sea-riders from the North Cape to Sicily:—so, +your own dominion also of the past. Of the past mind you. On the Baltic +and the Nile, your power is already departed. By machinery you would +advance to discovery; by machinery you would carry your commerce;—you +would be engineers instead of sailors; and instantly in the North seas +you are beaten among the ice, and before the very Gods of Nile, beaten +among the sand. Agriculture, then, by the hand or by the plough drawn +only by animals; and shepherd and pastoral husbandry, are to be the +chief schools of Englishmen. And this most royal academy of all +academies you have to open over all the land, purifying your heaths and +hills, and waters, and keeping them full of every kind of lovely natural +organism, in tree, herb, and living creature. All land that is waste and +ugly, you must redeem into ordered fruitfulness; all ruin, desolateness, +imperfectness of hut or habitation, you must do away with; and +throughout every village and city of your English dominion there must +not be a hand that cannot find a helper, nor a heart that cannot find a +comforter.</p> + +<p>"How impossible!" I know, you are thinking. Ah! So far from impossible, +it is easy, it is natural, it is necessary, and I declare to you that, +sooner or later, it <i>must be done</i>, at our peril. If now our English +lords of land will fix this idea steadily before them; take the people +to their hearts, trust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> to their loyalty, lead their labor;—then indeed +there will be princes again in the midst of us, worthy of the island +throne,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"This royal throne of kings—this sceptred isle—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This fortress built by nature for herself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against infection, and the hand of war;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This precious stone set in the silver sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This happy breed of men—this little world:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This other Eden—Demi-Paradise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But if they refuse to do this, and hesitate and equivocate, clutching +through the confused catastrophe of all things only at what they can +still keep stealthily for themselves—their doom is nearer than even +their adversaries hope, and it will be deeper than even their despisers +dream.</p> + +<p>That, believe me, is the work you have to do in England; and out of +England you have room for everything else you care to do. Are her +dominions in the world so narrow that she can find no place to spin +cotton in but Yorkshire? We may organize emigration into an infinite +power. We may assemble troops of the more adventurous and ambitious of +our youth; we may send them on truest foreign service, founding new +seats of authority, and centres of thought, in uncultivated and +unconquered lands; retaining the full affection to the native country no +less in our colonists than in our armies, teaching them to maintain +allegiance to their fatherland in labor no less than in battle; aiding +them with free hand in the prosecution of discovery, and the victory +over adverse natural powers; establishing seats of every manufacture in +the climates and places best fitted for it, and bringing ourselves into +due alliance and harmony of skill with the dexterities of every race, +and the wisdoms of every tradition and every tongue.</p> + +<p>And then you may make England itself the centre of the learning, of the +arts, of the courtesies and felicities of the world. Yon may cover her +mountains with pasture; her plains with corn, her valleys with the lily, +and her gardens with the rose. You may bring together there in peace +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> wise and the pure, and the gentle of the earth, and by their word, +command through its farthest darkness the birth of "God's first +creature, which was Light." You know whose words those are; the words of +the wisest of Englishmen. He, and with him the wisest of all other great +nations, have spoken always to men of this hope, and they would not +hear. Plato, in the dialogue of Critias, his last, broken off at his +death—Pindar, in passionate singing of the fortunate islands—Virgil, +in the prophetic tenth eclogue—Bacon, in his fable of the New +Atlantis—More, in the book which, too impatiently wise, became the +bye-word of fools—these, all, have told us with one voice what we +should strive to attain; <i>they</i> not hopeless of it, but for our follies +forced, as it seems, by heaven, to tell us only partly and in parables, +lest we should hear them and obey.</p> + +<p>Shall we never listen to the words of these wisest of men? Then listen +at least to the words of your children—let us in the lips of babes and +sucklings find our strength; and see that we do not make them mock +instead of pray, when we teach them, night and morning, to ask for what +we believe never can be granted;—that the will of the Father,—which +is, that His creatures may be righteous and happy—should be done, <i>on +earth</i>, as it is in Heaven.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_139_139" id="Footnote_139_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Compare <i>Time and Tide</i>, § 169, <i>and Fors Clavigera</i>, +Letter XIV, page 9.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_140_140" id="Footnote_140_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> See Appendix, "Modern Education," and compare § 70 of +<i>Time and Tide</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_141_141" id="Footnote_141_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> [They were deserting, I am informed, in the early part of +this year, 1873, at the rate of a regiment a week.]</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>NOTES ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PRUSSIA.</i></h2> + + +<p>I am often accused of inconsistency; but believe myself defensible +against the charge with respect to what I have said on nearly every +subject except that of war. It is impossible for me to write +consistently of war, for the groups of facts I have gathered about it +lead me to two precisely opposite conclusions.</p> + +<p>When I find this the case, in other matters, I am silent, till I can +choose my conclusion: but, with respect to war, I am forced to speak, by +the necessities of the time; and forced to act, one way or another. The +conviction on which I act is, that it causes an incalculable amount of +avoidable human suffering, and that it ought to cease among Christian +nations; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to be soldiers, I +try my utmost to bring them into what I conceive to be a better mind. +But, on the other hand, I know certainly that the most beautiful +characters yet developed among men have been formed in war;—that all +great nations have been warrior nations, and that the only kinds of +peace which we are likely to get in the present age are ruinous alike to +the intellect, and the heart.</p> + +<p>The lecture on "War," in this volume, addressed to young soldiers, had +for its object to strengthen their trust in the virtue of their +profession. It is inconsistent with itself, in its closing appeal to +women, praying them to use their influence to bring wars to an end. And +I have been hindered from completing my long intended notes on the +economy of the Kings of Prussia by continually increasing doubt how far +the machinery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> and discipline of war, under which they learned the art +of government, was essential for such lesson; and what the honesty and +sagacity of the Friedrich who so nobly repaired his ruined Prussia, +might have done for the happiness of his Prussia, unruined.</p> + +<p>In war, however, or in peace, the character which Carlyle chiefly loves +him for, and in which Carlyle has shown him to differ from all kings up +to this time succeeding him, is his constant purpose to use every power +entrusted to him for the good of his people; and be, not in name only, +but in heart and hand, their king.</p> + +<p>Not in ambition, but in natural instinct of duty. Friedrich, born to +govern, determines to govern to the best of his faculty. That "best" may +sometimes be unwise; and self-will, or love of glory, may have their +oblique hold on his mind, and warp it this way or that; but they are +never principal with him. He believes that war is necessary, and +maintains it; sees that peace is necessary, and calmly persists in the +work of it to the day of his death, not claiming therein more praise +than the head of any ordinary household, who rules it simply because it +is his place, and he must not yield the mastery of it to another.</p> + +<p>How far, in the future, it may be possible for men to gain the strength +necessary for kingship without either fronting death, or inflicting it, +seems to me not at present determinable. The historical facts are that, +broadly speaking, none but soldiers, or persons with a soldierly +faculty, have ever yet shown themselves fit to be kings; and that no +other men are so gentle, so just, or so clear-sighted. Wordsworth's +character of the happy warrior cannot be reached in the height of it +<i>but by</i> a warrior; nay, so much is it beyond common strength that I had +supposed the entire meaning of it to be metaphorical, until one of the +best soldiers of England himself read me the poem,<a name="FNanchor_142_142" id="FNanchor_142_142"></a><a href="#Footnote_142_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> and taught me, +what I might have known, had I enough watched his own life, that it was +entirely literal. There is nothing of so high reach distinctly +demonstrable in Friedrich: but I see more and more, as I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> grow older, +that the things which are the most worth, encumbered among the errors +and faults of every man's nature, are never clearly demonstrable; and +are often most forcible when they are scarcely distinct to his own +conscience,—how much less, clamorous for recognition by others!</p> + +<p>Nothing can be more beautiful than Carlyle's showing of this, to any +careful reader of Friedrich. But careful readers are but one in the +thousand; and by the careless, the masses of detail with which the +historian must deal are insurmountable.</p> + +<p>My own notes, made for the special purpose of hunting down the one point +of economy, though they cruelly spoil Carlyle's own current and method +of thought, may yet be useful in enabling readers, unaccustomed to books +involving so vast a range of conception, to discern what, on this one +subject only, may be gathered from that history. On any other subject of +importance, similar gatherings might be made of other passages. The +historian has to deal with all at once.</p> + +<p>I therefore have determined to print here, as a sequel to the Essay on +War, my notes from the first volume of Friedrich, on the economies of +Brandenburg, up to the date of the establishment of the Prussian +monarchy. The economies of the first three Kings of Prussia I shall then +take up in <i>Fors Clavigera</i>, finding them fitter for examination in +connection with the subject of that book than of this.</p> + +<p>I assume, that the reader will take down his first volume of Carlyle, +and read attentively the passages to which I refer him. I give the +reference first to the largest edition, in six volumes (1858-1865); +then, in parenthesis, to the smallest or "people's edition" (1872-1873). +The pieces which I have quoted in my own text are for the use of readers +who may not have ready access to the book; and are enough for the +explanation of the points to which I wish them to direct their thoughts +in reading such histories of soldiers or soldier-kingdoms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p><i>Year</i> 928 to 936.—<i>Dawn of Order in Christian Germany.</i></p> + +<p>Book II. Chap. i. p. 67 (47).</p> + +<p>Henry the Fowler, "the beginning of German kings," is a mighty soldier +<i>in the cause of peace</i>; his essential work the building and +organization of fortified towns for the protection of men.</p> + +<p>Read page 72 with utmost care (51), "He fortified towns," to end of +small print. I have added some notes on the matter in my lecture on +Giovanni Pisano; but whether you can glance at them or not, fix in your +mind this institution of truly civil or civic building in Germany, as +distinct from the building of baronial castles for the security of +<i>robbers</i>: and of a standing army consisting of every ninth man, called +a "burgher" ("townsman")—a soldier, appointed to learn that profession +that he may guard the walls—the exact reverse of <i>our</i> notion of a +burgher.</p> + +<p>Frederick's final idea of his army is, indeed, only this.</p> + +<p>Brannibor, a chief fortress of the Wends, is thus taken, and further +strengthened by Henry the Fowler; wardens appointed for it; and thus the +history of Brandenburg begins. On all frontiers, also, this "beginning +of German kings" has his "Markgraf." "Ancient of the marked place." Read +page 73, measuredly, learning it by heart, if it may be. (51-2.)</p> + + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>936-1000.—<i>History of Nascent Brandenburg.</i></p> + +<p>The passage I last desired you to read ends with this sentence: "The +sea-wall you build, and what main floodgates you establish in it, will +depend on the state of the outer sea."</p> + +<p>From this time forward you have to keep clearly separate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> in your minds, +(A) the history of that outer sea, Pagan Scandinavia, Russia, and +Bor-Russia, or Prussia proper; (B) the history of Henry the Fowler's +Eastern and Western Marches; asserting themselves gradually as Austria +and the Netherlands; and (C) the history of this inconsiderable fortress +of Brandenburg, gradually becoming considerable, and the capital city of +increasing district between them. That last history, however, Carlyle is +obliged to leave vague and gray for two hundred years after Henry's +death. Absolutely dim for the first century, in which nothing is evident +but that its wardens or Markgraves had no peaceable possession of the +place. Read the second paragraph in page 74 (52-3), "in old books" to +"reader," and the first in page 83 (59) "meanwhile" to "substantial," +consecutively. They bring the story of Brandenburg itself down, at any +rate, from 936 to 1000.</p> + + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>936-1000.—<i>State of the Outer Sea.</i></p> + +<p>Read now Chapter II. beginning at page 76 (54), wherein you will get +account of the beginning of vigorous missionary work on the outer sea, +in Prussia proper; of the death of St. Adalbert, and of the purchase of +his dead body by the Duke of Poland.</p> + +<p>You will not easily understand Carlyle's laugh in this chapter, unless +you have learned yourself to laugh in sadness, and to laugh in love.</p> + +<p>"No Czech blows his pipe in the woodlands without certain precautions +and preliminary fuglings of a devotional nature." (Imagine St. Adalbert, +in spirit, at the railway station in Birmingham!)</p> + +<p>My own main point for notice in the chapter is the purchase of his body +for its "weight in gold." Swindling angels held it up in the scales; it +did not weigh so much as a web of gossamer. "Had such excellent odor, +too, and came for a mere nothing of gold," says Carlyle. It is one of +the first commercial transactions of Germany, but I regret the conduct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> +of the angels on the occasion. Evangelicalism has been proud of ceasing +to invest in relics, its swindling angels helping it to better things, +as it supposes. For my own part, I believe Christian Germany could not +have bought at this time any treasure more precious; nevertheless, the +missionary work itself you find is wholly vain. The difference of +opinion between St. Adalbert and the Wends, on Divine matters, does not +signify to the Fates. They will not have it disputed about; and end the +dispute adversely, to St. Adalbert—adversely, even, to Brandenburg and +its civilizing power, as you will immediately see.</p> + + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>1000-1030.—<i>History of Brandenburg in Trouble.</i></p> + +<p>Book II. Chap. iii. p. 83 (59).</p> + +<p>The adventures of Brandenburg in contest with Pagan Prussia, irritated, +rather than amended, by St. Adalbert. In 1023, roughly, a hundred years +after Henry the Fowler's death, Brandenburg is taken by the Wends, and +its first line of Markgraves ended; its population mostly butchered, +especially the priests; and the Wends' God, Triglaph, "something like +three whales' cubs combined by boiling," set up on the top of St. Mary's +Hill.</p> + +<p>Here is an adverse "Doctrine of the Trinity" which has its supporters! +It is wonderful,—this Tripod and Triglyph—three-footed, three-cut +faith of the North and South, the leaf of the oxalis, and strawberry, +and clover, fostering the same in their simple manner. I suppose it to +be the most savage and natural of notions about Deity; a prismatic +idol-shape of Him, rude as a triangular log, as a trefoil grass. I do +not find how long Triglaph held his state on St. Mary's Hill. "For a +time," says Carlyle, "the priests all slain or fled—shadowy Markgraves +the like—church and state lay in ashes, and Triglaph, like a triple +porpoise under the influence of laudanum, stood, I know not whether on +his head or his tail, aloft on the Harlungsberg, as the Supreme of this +Universe for the time being."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>1030-1130.—<i>Brandenburg under the Ditmarsch Markgraves, or +Ditmarsch-Stade Markgraves.</i></p> + +<p>Book II. Chap. iii. p. 85 (60).</p> + +<p>Of Anglish, or Saxon breed. They attack Brandenburg, under its +Triglyphic protector, take it—dethrone him, and hold the town for a +hundred years, their history "stamped beneficially on the face of +things, Markgraf after Markgraf getting killed in the business. +'Erschlagen,' 'slain,' fighting with the Heathen—say the old books, and +pass on to another." If we allow seven years to Triglaph—we get a clear +century for these—as above indicated. They die out in 1130.</p> + + +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>1130-1170.—<i>Brandenburg under Albert the Bear.</i></p> + +<p>Book II. Chap iv. p. 91 (64).</p> + +<p>He is the first of the Ascanien Markgraves, whose castle of Ascanica is +on the northern slope of the Hartz Mountains, "ruins still dimly +traceable."</p> + +<p>There had been no soldier or king of note among the Ditmarsch +Markgraves, so that you will do well to fix in your mind successively +the three men, Henry the Fowler, St. Adalbert, and Albert the Bear. A +soldier again, and a strong one. Named the Bear only from the device on +his shield, first wholly definite Markgraf of Brandenburg that there is, +"and that the luckiest of events for Brandenburg." Read page 93 (66) +carefully, and note this of his economies.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Nothing better is known to me of Albert the Bear than his introducing +large numbers of Dutch Netherlanders into those countries; men thrown +out of work, who already knew how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> to deal with bog and sand, by mixing +and delving, and who first taught Brandenburg what greenness and +cow-pasture was. The Wends, in presence of such things, could not but +consent more and more to efface themselves—either to become German, and +grow milk and cheese in the Dutch manner, or to disappear from the +world.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After two-hundred and fifty years of barking and worrying, the Wends are +now finally reduced to silence; their anarchy well buried and wholesome +Dutch cabbage planted over it; Albert did several great things in the +world; but this, for posterity, remains his memorable feat. Not done +quite easily, but done: big destinies of nations or of persons are not +founded gratis in this world, He had a sore, toilsome time of it, +coercing, warring, managing among his fellow-creatures, while his day's +work lasted—fifty years or so, for it began early. He died in his +castle of Ballenstädt, peaceably among the Hartz Mountains at last, in +the year 1170, age about sixty-five.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now, note in all this the steady gain of soldiership enforcing order and +agriculture, with St. Adalbert giving higher strain to the imagination. +Henry the Fowler establishes walled towns, fighting for mere peace. +Albert the Bear plants the country with cabbages, fighting for his +cabbage-fields. And the disciples of St. Adalbert, generally, have +succeeded in substituting some idea of Christ for the idea of Triglaph. +Some idea only; other ideas than of Christ haunt even to this day those +Hartz Mountains among which Albert the Bear dies so peacefully. +Mephistopheles, and all his ministers, inhabit there, commanding +mephitic clouds and earth-born dreams.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>1170-1320.—<i>Brandenburg 150 years under the Ascanien Markgraves.</i></p> + +<p>Vol. I. Book II Chap. viii. p. 135 (96).</p> + +<p>"Wholesome Dutch cabbages continued to be more and more planted by them +in the waste sand: intrusive chaos, and Triglaph held at bay by them," +till at last in 1240, seventy years after the great Bear's death, they +fortify a new Burg, a "<i>little</i> rampart," Wehrlin, diminutive of Wehr +(or vallum), gradually smoothing itself, with a little echo of the Bear +in it too, into Ber-lin, the oily river Spree flowing by, "in which you +catch various fish;" while trade over the flats and by the dull streams, +is widely possible. Of the Ascanien race, the notablest is Otto with the +Arrow, whose story see, pp. 138-141 (98-100), noting that Otto is one of +the first Minnesingers; that, being a prisoner to the Archbishop of +Magdeburg, his wife rescues him, selling her jewels to bribe the canons; +and that the Knight, set free on parole and promise of farther ransom, +rides back with his own price in his hand; holding himself thereat +cheaply bought, though no angelic legerdemain happens to the scales now. +His own estimate of his price—"Rain gold ducats on my war-horse and me, +till you cannot see the point of my spear atop."</p> + +<p>Emptiness of utter pride, you think?</p> + +<p>Not so. Consider with yourself, reader, how much you dare to say, aloud, +<i>you</i> are worth. If you have <i>no</i> courage to name any price whatsoever +for yourself, believe me, the cause is not your modesty, but that in +very truth you feel in your heart there would be no bid for you at +Lucian's sale of lives, were that again possible, at Christie and +Manson's.</p> + +<p>Finally (1319 exactly; say 1320, for memory), the Ascanien line expired +in Brandenburg, and the little town and its electorate lapsed to the +Kaiser: meantime other economical arrangements had been in progress; but +observe first how far we have got.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Fowler, St. Adalbert and the Bear have established order, and some +sort of Christianity; but the established persons begin to think +somewhat too well of themselves. On quite honest terms, a dead saint or +a living knight ought to be worth their true "weight in gold." But a +pyramid, with only the point of the spear seen at top, would be many +times over one's weight in gold. And although men were yet far enough +from the notion of modern days, that the gold is better than the flesh, +and from buying it with the clay of one's body, and even the fire of +one's soul, instead of soul and body with <i>it</i>, they were beginning to +fight for their own supremacy, or for their own religious fancies, and +not at all to any useful end, until an entirely unexpected movement is +made in the old useful direction forsooth, only by some kind +ship-captains of Lübeck!</p> + + +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>1210-1320.—<i>Civil work, aiding military, during the Ascanien period.</i></p> + +<p>Vol. I. Book II. Chap. vi. p. 109 (77).</p> + +<p>In the year 1190, Acre not yet taken, and the crusading army wasting by +murrain on the shore, the German soldiers especially having none to look +after them, certain compassionate ship-captains of Lübeck, one Walpot +von Bassenheim taking the lead, formed themselves into an union for +succor of the sick and the dying, set up canvas tents from the Lübeck +ship stores, and did what utmost was in them silently in the name of +mercy and heaven. Finding its work prosper, the little medicinal and +weather-fending company took vows on itself, strict chivalry forms, and +decided to become permanent "Knights Hospitallers of our dear Lady of +Mount Zion," separate from the former Knights Hospitallers, as being +entirely German: yet soon, as the German Order of St. Mary, eclipsing in +importance Templars, Hospitallers, and every other chivalric order then +extant; no purpose of battle in them, but much strength for it; their +purpose only the helping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> of German pilgrims. To this only they are +bound by their vow, "gelübde," and become one of the usefullest of clubs +in all the Pall Mall of Europe.</p> + +<p>Finding pilgrimage in Palestine falling slack, and more need for them on +the homeward side of the sea, their Hochmeister, Hermann of the Salza, +goes over to Venice in 1210. There the titular bishop of still +unconverted Preussen advises him of that field of work for his idle +knights. Hermann thinks well of it: sets his St. Mary's riders at +Triglaph, with the sword in one hand and a missal in the other.</p> + +<p>Not your modern way of affecting conversion! Too illiberal, you think; +and what would Mr. J. S. Mill say?</p> + +<p>But if Triglaph <i>had</i> been verily "three whales' cubs combined by +boiling," you would yourself have promoted attack upon him for the sake +of his oil, would not you? The Teutsch Ritters, fighting him for +charity, are they so much inferior to you?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>They built, and burnt, innumerable stockades for and against; built +wooden forts which are now stone towns. They fought much and +prevalently; galloped desperately to and fro, ever on the alert. In +peaceabler ulterior times, they fenced in the Nogat and the Weichsel +with dams, whereby unlimited quagmire might become grassy meadow—as it +continues to this day. Marienburg (Mary's Burg), with its grand stone +Schloss still visible and even habitable: this was at length their +headquarter. But how many Burgs of wood and stone they built, in +different parts; what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody, +boggy places they had, no man has counted.</p> + +<p>But always some preaching by zealous monks, accompanied the chivalrous +fighting. And colonists came in from Germany; trickling in, or at times +streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers terms to the beaten heathen: +terms not of tolerant nature, but which <i>will be punctually kept by +Ritterdom</i>. When the flame of revolt or general conspiracy burnt up +again too extensively, high personages came on crusade to them. Ottocar, +King of Bohemia, with his extensive far-shining chivalry, "conquered +Samland in a month;" tore up the Romova where Adalbert had been +massacred, and burned it from the face of the earth. A certain fortress +was founded at that time, in Ottocar's presence; and in honor of him +they named it King's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> Fortress, "Königsberg." Among King Ottocar's +esquires, or subaltern junior officials, on this occasion, is one +Rudolf, heir of a poor Swiss lordship and gray hill castle, called +Hapsburg, rather in reduced circumstances, whom Ottocar likes for his +prudent, hardy ways; a stout, modest, wise young man, who may chance to +redeem Hapsburg a little, if he lives.</p> + +<p>Conversion, and complete conquest once come, there was a happy time for +Prussia; ploughshare instead of sword: busy sea-havens, German towns, +getting built; churches everywhere rising; grass growing, and peaceable +cows, where formerly had been quagmire and snakes, and for the Order a +happy time. On the whole, this Teutsch Ritterdom, for the first century +and more, was a grand phenomenon, and flamed like a bright blessed +beacon through the night of things, in those Northern countries. For +above a century, we perceive, it was the rallying place of all brave men +who had a career to seek on terms other than vulgar. The noble soul, +aiming beyond money, and sensible to more than hunger in this world, had +a beacon burning (as we say), if the night chanced to overtake it, and +the earth to grow too intricate, as is not uncommon. Better than the +career of stump-oratory, I should fancy, and its Hesperides apples, +golden, and of gilt horse-dung. Better than puddling away one's poor +spiritual gift of God (loan, not gift), such as it may be, in building +the lofty rhyme, the lofty review article, for a discerning public that +has sixpence to spare! Times alter greatly.<a name="FNanchor_143_143" id="FNanchor_143_143"></a><a href="#Footnote_143_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We must pause here again for a moment to think where we are, and who is +<i>with us</i>. The Teutsch Ritters have been fighting, independently of all +states, for their own hand, or St. Adalbert's; partly for mere love of +fight, partly for love of order, partly for love of God. Meantime, other +Riders have been fighting wholly for what they could get by it; and +other persons, not Riders, have not been fighting at all, but in their +own towns peacefully manufacturing and selling.</p> + +<p>Of Henry the Fowler's Marches, Austria has become a military power, +Flanders a mercantile one, pious only in the degree consistent with +their several occupations. Prussia is now a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> practical and farming +country, more Christian than its longer-converted neighbors.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Towns are built, Königsberg (King Ottocar's town), Thoren (Thorn, City +of the Gates), with many others; so that the wild population and the +tame now lived tolerably together, under Gospel and Lübeck law; and all +was ploughing and trading.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But Brandenburg itself, what of it?</p> + +<p>The Ascanien Markgraves rule it on the whole prosperously down to 1320, +when their line expires, and it falls into the power of Imperial +Austria.</p> + + +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>1320-1415.—<i>Brandenburg under the Austrians.</i></p> + +<p>A century—the fourteenth—of miserable anarchy and decline for +Brandenburg, its Kurfürsts, in deadly succession, making what they can +out of it for their own pockets. The city itself and its territory +utterly helpless. Read pp. 180, 181 (129, 130). "The towns suffered +much, any trade they might have had going to wreck. Robber castles +flourished, all else decayed, no highway safe. What are Hamburg pedlars +made for but to be robbed?"</p> + + +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p>1415-1440.—<i>Brandenburg under Friedrich of Nüremberg.</i></p> + +<p>This is the fourth of the men whom you are to remember as creators of +the Prussian monarchy, Henry the Fowler, St. Adalbert, Albert the Bear, +of Ascanien, and Friedrich of Nüremberg; (of Hohenzollern, by name, and +by country, of the Black Forest, north of the Lake of Constance).</p> + +<p>Brandenburg is sold to him at Constance, during the great Council, for +about 200,000<i>l.</i> of our money, worth perhaps a million in that day; +still, with its capabilities, "dog cheap." Admitting, what no one at the +time denied, the general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> marketableness of states as private property, +this is the one practical result, thinks Carlyle (not likely to think +wrong), of that œcumenical deliberation, four years long, of the +"elixir of the intellect and dignity of Europe. And that one thing was +not its doing; but a pawnbroking job, intercalated," putting, however, +at last, Brandenburg again under the will of one strong man. On St. +John's day, 1412, he first set foot in his town, "and Brandenburg, under +its wise Kurfürst, begins to be cosmic again." The story of Heavy Peg, +pages 195-198 (138, 140), is one of the most brilliant and important +passages of the first volume; page 199, specially to our purpose, must +be given entire:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The offer to be Kaiser was made him in his old days; but he +wisely declined that too. It was in Brandenburg, by what he +silently founded there, that he did his chief benefit to +Germany and mankind. He understood the noble art of +governing men; had in him the justness, clearness, valor, +and patience needed for that. A man of sterling probity, for +one thing. <i>Which indeed is the first requisite in said +art</i>:—if you will have your laws obeyed without mutiny, see +well that they be pieces of God Almighty's law; otherwise +all the artillery in the world will not keep down mutiny.</p> + +<p>Friedrich "travelled much over Brandenburg;" looking into +everything with his own eyes; making, I can well fancy, +innumerable crooked things straight; reducing more and more +that famishing dog-kennel of a Brandenburg into a fruitful +arable field. His portraits represent a square-headed, +mild-looking, solid gentleman, with a certain twinkle of +mirth in the serious eyes of him. Except in those Hussite +wars for Kaiser Sigismund and the Reich, in which no man +could prosper, he may be defined as constantly prosperous. +To Brandenburg he was, very literally, the blessing of +blessings; redemption out of death into life. In the ruins +of that old Friesack Castle, battered down by Heavy Peg, +antiquarian science (if it had any eyes) might look for the +taproot of the Prussian nation, and the beginning of all +that Brandenburg has since grown to under the sun.</p></div> + +<p>Which growth is now traced by Carlyle in its various budding and +withering, under the succession of the twelve Electors,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> of whom +Friedrich, with his heavy Peg, is first, and Friedrich, first King of +Prussia, grandfather of Friedrich the Great, the twelfth.</p> + + +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>1416-1701.—<i>Brandenburg under the Hohenzollern Kurfürsts.</i></p> + +<p>Book III.</p> + +<p>Who the Hohenzollerns were, and how they came to power in Nüremberg, is +told in Chap. v. of Book II.</p> + +<p>Their succession in Brandenburg is given in brief at page 377 (269). I +copy it, in absolute barrenness of enumeration, for our momentary +convenience, here:</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Friedrich 1st of Brandenburg (6th of Nüremberg),</td><td align='left'>1412-1440</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Friedrich II., called "Iron Teeth,"</td><td align='left'>1440-1472</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Albert,</td><td align='left'>1472-1486</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Johann,</td><td align='left'>1486-1499</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Joachim I.,</td><td align='left'>1499-1535</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Joachim II.,</td><td align='left'>1535-1571</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Johann George,</td><td align='left'>1571-1598</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Joachim Friedrich,</td><td align='left'>1598-1608</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Johann Sigismund,</td><td align='left'>1608-1619</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>George Wilhelm,</td><td align='left'>1619-1640</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Friedrich Wilhelm (the Great Elector),</td><td align='left'>1640-1688</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Friedrich, first King; crowned 18th January,1701</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p>Of this line of princes we have to say they followed generally in their +ancestor's steps, and had success of the like kind more or less; +Hohenzollerns all of them, by character and behaviour as well as by +descent. No lack of quiet energy, of thrift, sound sense. There was +likewise solid fair-play in general, no founding of yourself on ground +that will not carry, <i>and there was instant, gentle, but inexorable +crushing of mutiny</i>, if it showed itself, which after the Second +Elector, or at most the Third, it had altogether ceased to do.</p> + +<p>This is the general account of them; of special matters note the +following:—</p> + + +<p>II. Friedrich, called "Iron-teeth," from his firmness, proves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> a notable +manager and governor. Builds the palace at Berlin in its first form, and +makes it his chief residence. Buys Neumark from the fallen Teutsch +Ritters, and generally establishes things on securer footing.</p> + + +<p>III. Albert, "a fiery, tough old Gentlemen," called the Achilles of +Germany in his day; has half-a-century of fighting with his own +Nürembergers, with Bavaria, France, Burgundy, and its fiery Charles, +besides being head constable to the Kaiser among any disorderly persons +in the East. His skull, long shown on his tomb, "marvellous for strength +and with no visible sutures."</p> + + +<p>IV. John, the orator of his race; (but the orations unrecorded). His +second son, Archbishop of Maintz, for whose piece of memorable work see +page 223 (143) and read in connection with that the history of Margraf +George, pp. 237-241 (152-154), and the 8th chapter of the third book.</p> + + +<p>V. Joachim I., of little note; thinks there has been enough Reformation, +and checks proceedings in a dull stubbornness, causing him at least +grave domestic difficulties.—Page 271 (173).</p> + + +<p>VI. Joachim II. Again active in the Reformation, and staunch,</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>though generally in a cautious, weighty, never in a rash, +swift way, to the great cause of Protestantism and to all +good causes. He was himself a solemnly devout man; deep, +awe-stricken reverence dwelling in his view of this +universe. Most serious, though with a jocose dialect, +commonly having a cheerful wit in speaking to men. Luther's +books he called his Seelenschatz, (soul's treasure); Luther +and the Bible were his chief reading. Fond of profane +learning, too, and of the useful or ornamental arts; given +to music, and "would himself sing aloud" when he had a +melodious leisure hour.</p></div> + + +<p>VII. Johann George, a prudent thrifty Herr; no mistresses, no luxuries +allowed; at the sight of a new-fashioned coat he would fly out on an +unhappy youth and pack him from his presence. Very strict in point of +justice; a peasant once appealing to him in one of his inspection +journeys through the country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Grant me justice, Durchlaucht, against so and so; I am your +Highness's born subject." "Thou shouldst have it, man, wert +thou a born Turk!" answered Johann George.</p></div> + +<p>Thus, generally, we find this line of Electors representing in Europe +the Puritan mind of England in a somewhat duller, but less dangerous, +form; receiving what Protestantism could teach of honesty and common +sense, but not its anti-Catholic fury, or its selfish spiritual anxiety. +Pardon of sins is not to be had from Tetzel; neither, the Hohenzollern +mind advises with itself, from even Tetzel's master, for either the +buying, or the asking. On the whole, we had better commit as few as +possible, and live just lives and plain ones.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A conspicuous thrift, veracity, modest solidity, looks +through the conduct of this Herr; a determined Protestant he +too, as indeed all the following were and are.</p></div> + + +<p>VIII. Joachim Friedrich. Gets hold of Prussia, which hitherto, you +observe, has always been spoken of as a separate country from +Brandenburg. March 11, 1605—"squeezed his way into the actual +guardianship of Preussen and its imbecile Duke, which was his by right."</p> + +<p>For my own part, I do not trouble myself much about these rights, never +being able to make out any single one, to begin with, except the right +to keep everything and every place about you in as good order as you +can—Prussia, Poland, or what else. I should much like, for instance, +just now, to hear of any honest Cornish gentleman of the old Drake breed +taking a fancy to land in Spain, and trying what he could make of his +rights as far round Gibraltar as he could enforce them. At all events, +Master Joachim has somehow got hold of Prussia; and means to keep it.</p> + + +<p>IX. Johann Sigismund. Only notable for our economical purposes, as +getting the "guardianship" of Prussia confirmed to him. The story at +page 317 (226), "a strong flame of choler," indicates a new order of +things among the knights of Europe—"princely etiquettes melting all +into smoke." Too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span> literally so, that being one of the calamitous +functions of the plain lives we are living, and of the busy life our +country is living. In the Duchy of Cleve, especially, concerning which +legal dispute begins in Sigismund's time. And it is well worth the +lawyers' trouble, it seems.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It amounted, perhaps, to two Yorkshires in extent. A +naturally opulent country of fertile meadows, shipping +capabilities, metalliferous hills, and at this time, in +consequence of the Dutch-Spanish war, and the multitude of +Protestant refugees, it was getting filled with ingenious +industries, and rising to be what it still is, the busiest +quarter of Germany. A country lowing with kine; the hum of +the flax-spindle heard in its cottages in those old +days—"much of the linen called Hollands is made in Jülich, +and only bleached, stamped, and sold by the Dutch," says +Büsching. A country in our days which is shrouded at short +intervals with the due canopy of coal-smoke, and loud with +sounds of the anvil and the loom.</p></div> + +<p>The lawyers took two hundred and six years to settle the question +concerning this Duchy, and the thing Johann Sigismund had claimed +legally in 1609 was actually handed over to Johann Sigismund's +descendant in the seventh generation. "These litigated duchies are now +the Prussian provinces, Jülich, Berg, Cleve, and the nucleus of +Prussia's possessions in the Rhine country."</p> + + +<p>X. George Wilhelm. Read pp. 325 to 327 (231, 233) on this Elector and +German Protestantism, now fallen cold, and somewhat too little +dangerous. But George Wilhelm is the only weak prince of all the twelve. +For another example how the heart and life of a country depend upon its +prince, not on its council, read this, of Gustavus Adolphus, demanding +the cession of Spandau and Küstrin:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Which cession Kurfürst George Wilhelm, though giving all his +prayers to the good cause, could by no means grant. Gustav +had to insist, with more and more emphasis, advancing at +last with military menace upon Berlin itself. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> met by +George Wilhelm and his Council, "in the woods of Cöpenick," +short way to the east of that city; there George Wilhelm and +his Council wandered about, sending messages, hopelessly +consulting, saying among each other, "Que faire? ils ont des +canons." For many hours so, round the inflexible Gustav, who +was there like a fixed mile-stone, and to all questions and +comers had only one answer.</p></div> + +<p>On our special question of war and its consequences, read this of the +Thirty Years' one:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>But on the whole, the grand weapon in it, and towards the +latter times, the exclusive one, was hunger. The opposing +armies tried to starve one another; at lowest, tried each +not to starve. Each trying to eat the country or, at any +rate, to leave nothing eatable in it; what that will mean +for the country we may consider. As the armies too +frequently, and the Kaiser's armies habitually, lived +without commissariat, often enough without pay, all horrors +of war and of being a seat of war, that have been since +heard of, are poor to those then practised, the detail of +which is still horrible to read. Germany, in all eatable +quarters of it, had to undergo the process; tortured, torn +to pieces, wrecked, and brayed as in a mortar, under the +iron mace of war. Brandenburg saw its towns seized and +sacked, its country populations driven to despair by the one +party and the other. Three times—first in the +Wallenstein-Mecklenburg times, while fire and sword were the +weapons, and again, twice over, in the ultimate stages of +the struggle, when starvation had become the +method—Brandenburg fell to be the principal theatre of +conflict, where all forms of the dismal were at their +height. In 1638, three years after that precious "Peace of +Prag,"... the ravages of the starving Gallas and his +Imperialists excelled all precedent,... men ate human flesh, +nay, human creatures ate their own children. "Que faire? ils +ont des canons!"</p></div> + +<p>"We have now arrived at the lowest nadir point" (says Carlyle) "of the +history of Brandenburg under the Hohenzollerns." Is this then all that +Heavy Peg and our nine Kurfürsts have done for us?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span></p> + +<p>Carlyle does not mean that; but even he, greatest of historians since +Tacitus, is not enough careful to mark for us the growth of national +character, as distinct from the prosperity of dynasties.</p> + +<p>A republican historian would think of this development only, and suppose +it to be possible without any dynasties.</p> + +<p>Which is indeed in a measure so, and the work now chiefly needed in +moral philosophy, as well as history, is an analysis of the constant and +prevalent, yet unthought of, influences, which, without any external +help from kings, and in a silent and entirely necessary manner, form, in +Sweden, in Bavaria, in the Tyrol, in the Scottish border, and on the +French sea-coast, races of noble peasants; pacific, poetic, heroic, +Christian-hearted in the deepest sense, who may indeed perish by sword +or famine in any cruel thirty years' war, or ignoble thirty years' +peace, and yet leave such strength to their children that the country, +apparently ravaged into hopeless ruin, revives, under any prudent king, +as the cultivated fields do under the spring rain. How the rock to which +no seed can cling, and which no rain can soften, is subdued into the +good ground which can bring forth its hundredfold, we forget to watch, +while we follow the footsteps of the sower, or mourn the catastrophes of +storm. All this while, the Prussian earth—the Prussian soul—has been +thus dealt upon by successive fate; and now, though laid, as it seems, +utterly desolate, it can be revived by a few years of wisdom and of +peace.</p> + +<p>Vol. I. Book III. Chap, xviii.—The Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm. +Eleventh of the dynasty:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>There hardly ever came to sovereign power a young man of +twenty under more distressing, hopeless-looking +circumstances. Political significance Brandenburg had none; +a mere Protestant appendage, dragged about by a Papist +Kaiser. His father's Prime Minister, as we have seen, was in +the interest of his enemies; not Brandenburg's servant, but +Austria's. The very commandants of his fortresses, +Commandant of Spandau more especially, refused to obey +Friedrich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> Wilhelm on his accession; "were bound to obey the +Kaiser in the first place."</p> + +<p>For twenty years past Brandenburg had been scoured by +hostile armies, which, especially the Kaiser's part of +which, committed outrages new in human history. In a year or +two hence, Brandenburg became again the theatre of business, +Austrian Gallas advancing thither again (1644) with intent +"to shut up Torstenson and his Swedes in Jutland." Gallas +could by no means do what he intended; on the contrary, he +had to run from Torstenson—what feet could do; was hunted, +he and his Merode Brüder (beautiful inventors of the +"marauding" art), till they pretty much all died (crepirten) +says Köhler. No great loss to society, the death of these +artists, but we can fancy what their life, and especially +what the process of their dying, may have cost poor +Brandenburg again!</p> + +<p>Friedrich Wilhelm's aim, in this as in other emergencies, +was sun-clear to himself, but for most part dim to everybody +else. He had to walk very warily, Sweden on one hand of him, +suspicious Kaiser on the other: he had to wear semblances, +to be ready with evasive words, and advance noiselessly by +many circuits. More delicate operation could not be +imagined. But advance he did; advance and arrive. With +extraordinary talent, diligence, and felicity the young man +wound himself out of this first fatal position, got those +foreign armies pushed out of his country, and kept them out. +His first concern had been to find some vestige of revenue, +to put that upon a clear footing, and by loans or otherwise +to scrape a little ready-money together. On the strength <i>of +which a small body of soldiers could be collected about him, +and drilled into real ability to fight and obey</i>. This as a +basis: on this followed all manner of things, freedom from +Swedish-Austrian invasions, as the first thing. He was +himself, as appeared by-and-by, a fighter of the first +quality, when it came to that; but never was willing to +fight if he could help it. Preferred rather to shift, +manœuvre, and negotiate, which he did in most vigilant, +adroit, and masterly manner. But by degrees he had grown to +have, and could maintain it, an army of twenty-four thousand +men, among the best troops then in being.</p></div> + +<p>To wear semblances, to be ready with evasive words, how is this, Mr. +Carlyle? thinks perhaps the rightly thoughtful reader.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yes, such things have to be; There are lies and lies, and there are +truths and truths. Ulysses cannot ride on the ram's back, like Phryxus; +but must ride under his belly. Read also this, presently following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Shortly after which, Friedrich Wilhelm, who had shone much +in the battle of Warsaw, into which he was dragged against +his will, changed sides. An inconsistent, treacherous man? +Perhaps not, O reader! perhaps a man advancing "in +circuits," the only way he has; spirally, face now to east, +now to west, with his own reasonable private aim sun-clear +to him all the while?</p></div> + +<p>The battle of Warsaw, three days long, fought with Gustavus, the +grandfather of Charles XII., against the Poles, virtually ends the +Polish power:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Old Johann Casimir, not long after that peace of Oliva, +getting tired of his unruly Polish chivalry and their ways, +abdicated—retired to Paris, and "and lived much with Ninon +de l'Enclos and her circle," for the rest of his life. He +used to complain of his Polish chivalry, that there was no +solidity in them; nothing but outside glitter, with tumult +and anarchic noise; fatal want of one essential talent, <i>the +talent of obeying</i>; and has been heard to prophesy that a +glorious Republic, persisting in such courses, would arrive +at results which would surprise it.</p> + +<p>Onward from this time, Friedrich Wilhelm figures in the +world; public men watching his procedure; kings anxious to +secure him—Dutch print-sellers sticking up his portraits +for a hero-worshipping public. Fighting hero, had the public +known it, was not his essential character, though he had to +fight a great deal. He was essentially an industrial man; +great in organizing, regulating, in constraining chaotic +heaps to become cosmic for him. He drains bogs, settles +colonies in the waste places of his dominions, cuts canals; +unweariedly encourages trade and work. The Friedrich +Wilhelm's Canal, which still carries tonnage from the Oder +to the Spree, is a monument of his zeal in this way; +creditable with the means he had. To the poor French +Protestants in the Edict-of-Nantes affair, he was like an +express benefit of Heaven; one helper appointed to whom the +help itself was profitable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> He munificently welcomed them +to Brandenburg; showed really a noble piety and human pity, +as well as judgment; nor did Brandenburg and he want their +reward. Some twenty thousand nimble French souls, evidently +of the best French quality, found a home there; made "waste +sands about Berlin into potherb gardens;" and in spiritual +Brandenburg, too, did something of horticulture which is +still noticeable.</p></div> + +<p>Now read carefully the description of the man, p. 352 (224-5); the story +of the battle of Fehrbellin, "the Marathon of Brandenburg," p. 354 +(225); and of the winter campaign of 1679, p. 356 (227), beginning with +its week's marches at sixty miles a day; his wife, as always, being with +him;</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Louisa, honest and loving Dutch girl, aunt to our William of +Orange, who trimmed up her own "Orange-burg" +(country-house), twenty miles north of Berlin, into a little +jewel of the Dutch type, potherb gardens, training-schools +for young girls, and the like, a favorite abode of hers when +she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and +earnest; she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever busy +man. They were married young; a marriage of love withal. +Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship; wedding in Holland; the +honest, trustful walk and conversation of the two sovereign +spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, +fears, and manifold vicissitudes, till death, with stern +beauty, shut it in; all is human, true, and wholesome in it, +interesting to look upon, and rare among sovereign persons.</p></div> + +<p>Louisa died in 1667, twenty-one years before her husband, who married +again—(little to his contentment)—died in 1688; and Louisa's second +son, Friedrich, ten years old at his mother's death, and now therefore +thirty-one, succeeds, becoming afterwards Friedrich I. of Prussia.</p> + +<p>And here we pause on two great questions. Prussia is assuredly at this +point a happier and better country than it was, when inhabited by Wends. +But is Friedrich I. a happier and better man than Henry the Fowler? Have +all these kings thus improved their country, but never themselves?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> Is +this somewhat expensive and ambitious Herr, Friedrich I. buttoned in +diamonds, indeed the best that Protestantism can produce, as against +Fowlers, Bears, and Red Beards? Much more, Friedrich Wilhelm, orthodox +on predestination; most of all, his less orthodox son;—have we, in +these, the highest results which Dr. Martin Luther can produce for the +present, in the first circles of society? And if not, how is it that the +country, having gained so much in intelligence and strength, lies more +passively in their power than the baser country did under that of nobler +men?</p> + +<p>These, and collateral questions, I mean to work out as I can, with +Carlyle's good help;—but must pause for this time; in doubt, as +heretofore. Only of this one thing I doubt not, that the name of all +great kings, set over Christian nations, must at last be, in fufilment, +the hereditary one of these German princes, "Rich in Peace;" and that +their coronation will be with Wild olive, not with gold.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_142_142" id="Footnote_142_142"></a><a href="#FNanchor_142_142"><span class="label">[142]</span></a> The late Sir Herbert Edwardes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_143_143" id="Footnote_143_143"></a><a href="#FNanchor_143_143"><span class="label">[143]</span></a> I would much rather print these passages of Carlyle in +large golden letters than small black ones; but they are only here at +all for unlucky people who can't read them with the context.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE</h2> + +<h2>ETHICS OF THE DUST</h2> + +<h3>TEN LECTURES</h3> + +<h4>TO</h4> + +<h3>LITTLE HOUSEWIVES</h3> + +<h4>ON</h4> + +<h3>THE ELEMENTS OF CRYSTALLISATION</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<p> +ETHICS OF THE DUST.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE I. <span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Valley of Diamonds</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_11'>11</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE II.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Pyramid Builders</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_21'>21</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE III.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Crystal Life</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_31'>31</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE IV.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Crystal Orders</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_43'>43</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE V.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Crystal Virtues</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_56'>56</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE VI.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Crystal Quarrels</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_70'>70</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE VII.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Home Virtues</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_82'>82</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE VIII.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Crystal Caprice</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_98'>98</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE IX.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Crystal Sorrows</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_111'>111</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LECTURE X.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Crystal Rest</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_125'>125</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Notes</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_143'>143</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Fiction—Fair and Foul</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_153'>153</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<br /> +ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LETTER I.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">On First Practice</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_233'>233</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LETTER II.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Sketching From Nature</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_293'>293</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +LETTER III.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">On Colour and Composition</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_331'>331</a></span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Appendix: Things To Be Studied</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_403'>403</a></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + + +<p> +ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.<br /> +<br /> +FIGURE <span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +1. <span class="smcap">Squares</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_237'>237</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +<br /> +2. <span class="smcap">Gradated Spaces</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_241'>241</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +3. <span class="smcap">Outline of Letter</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_245'>245</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +4. <span class="smcap">Outline of Bough of Tree</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_248'>248</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +5. <span class="smcap">Charred Log</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_257'>257</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +6. <span class="smcap">Shoot of Lilac</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_272'>272</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +7. <span class="smcap">Leaf</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_274'>274</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +8. <span class="smcap">Bough of Phillyrea</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_275'>275</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +9. <span class="smcap">Spray of Phillyrea</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_276'>276</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +10. <span class="smcap">Trunk of Tree, by Titian</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_284'>284</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +11. <span class="smcap">Sketch from Raphael</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_285'>285</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +12. <span class="smcap">Outlines of a Ball</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_287'>287</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +13. <span class="smcap">Woodcut of Durer's</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_289'>289</a></span> <br /> +<br /> +14, 15, 16. <span class="smcap">Masses of Leaves</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_290'>290</a>, <a href="#Pg_291">291</a></span><br /> +<br /> +17, 18, 19. <span class="smcap">Curvatures in Leaves</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_295'>295</a>, <a href="#Pg_296">296</a></span><br /> +<br /> +20. <span class="smcap">From an Etching, by Turner</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_297'>297</a></span><br /> +<br /> +21. <span class="smcap">Alpine Bridge</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_307'>307</a></span><br /> +<br /> +22. <span class="smcap">Alpine Bridge as it Appears at Various Distances</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_308'>308</a></span><br /> +<br /> +23. <span class="smcap">Outlines Expressive of Foliage</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_314'>314</a></span><br /> +<br /> +24. <span class="smcap">Shoot of Spanish Chestnut</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_315'>315</a></span><br /> +<br /> +25. <span class="smcap">Young Shoot of Oak</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_316'>316</a></span><br /> +<br /> +26, 27, 28. <span class="smcap">Woodcuts after Titian</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_321'>321</a>, <a href="#Pg_322">322</a></span><br /> +<br /> +29. <span class="smcap">Diagram of Window</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_339'>339</a></span><br /> +<br /> +30. <span class="smcap">Swiss Cottage</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_355'>355</a></span><br /> +<br /> +31. <span class="smcap">Groups of Leave</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_350'>350</a></span><br /> +<br /> +32. <span class="smcap">Painting</span>, by Turner <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_361'>361</a></span><br /> +<br /> +33. <span class="smcap">Sketch on Calais Sands</span>, by Turner <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_365'>365</a></span><br /> +<br /> +34. <span class="smcap">Drawing of an Ideal Bridge</span>, by Turner <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_369'>369</a></span><br /> +<br /> +35. <span class="smcap">Profile of the Towers of Ehrenbreitstein</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_370'>370</a></span><br /> +<br /> +36. <span class="smcap">Curves</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_371'>371</a></span><br /> +<br /> +37, 38, 39. <span class="smcap">Curves Found in Leaves</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_372'>372</a></span><br /> +<br /> +40. <span class="smcap">Outlines of a Tree Trunk</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_373'>373</a></span><br /> +<br /> +41-44. <span class="smcap">Tree Radiation</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_374'>374</a>, <a href="#Pg_375">375</a></span><br /> +<br /> +45, 46. <span class="smcap">Woodcuts of Leaf</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_376'>376</a></span><br /> +<br /> +47. <span class="smcap">Leaf of Columbine</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_378'>378</a></span><br /> +<br /> +48. <span class="smcap">Top of an Old Tower</span> <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Pg_385'>385</a></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PERSONÆ.</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Old Lecturer (of incalculable age)</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Florrie, on astronomical evidence presumed to be</td><td align='left'>aged 9.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Isabel</td><td align='left'>" 11.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>May</td><td align='left'>" 11.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lily</td><td align='left'>" 12.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Kathleen</td><td align='left'>" 14.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lucilla</td><td align='left'>" 15.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Violet</td><td align='left'>" 16.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Dora (who has the keys and is housekeeper)</td><td align='left'>" 17.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Egypt (so called from her dark eyes)</td><td align='left'>" 17.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jessie (who somehow always makes the room look brighter when she is in it)</td><td align='left'>" 18.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mary (of whom everybody, including the Old Lecturer, is in great awe)</td><td align='left'>" 20.</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_5" id="Pg_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.</h2> + + +<p>I have seldom been more disappointed by the result of my best pains +given to any of my books, than by the earnest request of my publisher, +after the opinion of the public had been taken on the 'Ethics of the +Dust,' that I would "write no more in dialogue!" However, I bowed to +public judgment in this matter at once, (knowing also my inventive +powers to be of the feeblest,); but in reprinting the book, (at the +prevailing request of my kind friend, Mr. Henry Willett,) I would pray +the readers whom it may at first offend by its disconnected method, to +examine, nevertheless, with care, the passages in which the principal +speaker sums the conclusions of any dialogue: for these summaries were +written as introductions, for young people, to all that I have said on +the same matters in my larger books; and, on re-reading them, they +satisfy me better, and seem to me calculated to be more generally +useful, than anything else I have done of the kind.</p> + +<p>The summary of the contents of the whole book, beginning, "You may at +least earnestly believe," at p. 130, is thus the clearest exposition I +have ever yet given of the general conditions under which the Personal +Creative Power manifests itself in the forms of matter; and the analysis +of heathen conceptions of Deity, beginning at p. 131, and closing at p. +138, not only prefaces, but very nearly supersedes, all that in more +lengthy terms I have since asserted, or pleaded for, in 'Aratra +Pentelici,' and the 'Queen of the Air.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_6" id="Pg_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + +<p>And thus, however the book may fail in its intention of suggesting new +occupations or interests to its younger readers, I think it worth +reprinting, in the way I have also reprinted 'Unto this Last,'—page for +page; that the students of my more advanced works may be able to refer +to these as the original documents of them; of which the most essential +in this book are these following.</p> + +<p>I. The explanation of the baseness of the avaricious functions of the +Lower Pthah, p. 39, with his beetle-gospel, p. 41, "that a nation can +stand on its vices better than on its virtues," explains the main motive +of all my books on Political Economy.</p> + +<p>II. The examination of the connexion between stupidity and crime, pp. +57-62, anticipated all that I have had to urge in Fors Clavigera against +the commonly alleged excuse for public wickedness,—"They don't mean +it—they don't know any better."</p> + +<p>III. The examination of the roots of Moral Power, pp. 90-92, is a +summary of what is afterwards developed with utmost care in my inaugural +lecture at Oxford on the relation of Art to Morals; compare in that +lecture, §§ 83-85, with the sentence in p. 91 of this book, "Nothing is +ever done so as really to please our Father, unless we would also have +done it, though we had had no Father to know of it."</p> + +<p>This sentence, however, it must be observed, regards only the general +conditions of action in the children of God, in consequence of which it +is foretold of them by Christ that they will say at the Judgment, "When +saw we thee?" It does not refer to the distinct cases in which virtue +consists in faith given to command, appearing to foolish human judgment +inconsistent with the Moral Law, as in the sacrifice of Isaac; nor to +those in which any directly-given command requires nothing more of +virtue than obedience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_7" id="Pg_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>IV. The subsequent pages, 92-97, were written especially to check the +dangerous impulses natural to the minds of many amiable young women, in +the direction of narrow and selfish religious sentiment: and they +contain, therefore, nearly everything which I believe it necessary that +young people should be made to observe, respecting the errors of +monastic life. But they in nowise enter on the reverse, or favourable +side: of which indeed I did not, and as yet do not, feel myself able to +speak with any decisiveness; the evidence on that side, as stated in the +text, having "never yet been dispassionately examined."</p> + +<p>V. The dialogue with Lucilla, beginning at p. 63, is, to my own fancy, +the best bit of conversation in the book, and the issue of it, at p. 67, +the most practically and immediately useful. For on the idea of the +inevitable weakness and corruption of human nature, has logically +followed, in our daily life, the horrible creed of modern "Social +science," that all social action must be scientifically founded on +vicious impulses. But on the habit of measuring and reverencing our +powers and talents that we may kindly use them, will be founded a true +Social science, developing, by the employment of them, all the real +powers and honourable feelings of the race.</p> + +<p>VI. Finally, the account given in the second and third lectures, of the +real nature and marvellousness of the laws of crystallization, is +necessary to the understanding of what farther teaching of the beauty of +inorganic form I may be able to give, either in 'Deucalion,' or in my +'Elements of Drawing.' I wish however that the second lecture had been +made the beginning of the book; and would fain now cancel the first +altogether, which I perceive to be both obscure and dull. It was meant +for a metaphorical description of the pleasures and dangers in the +kingdom of Mammon, or of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_8" id="Pg_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> worldly wealth; its waters mixed with blood, +its fruits entangled in thickets of trouble, and poisonous when +gathered; and the final captivity of its inhabitants within frozen walls +of cruelty and disdain. But the imagery is stupid and ineffective +throughout; and I retain this chapter only because I am resolved to +leave no room for any one to say that I have withdrawn, as erroneous in +principle, so much as a single sentence of any of my books written since +1860.</p> + +<p>One license taken in this book, however, though often permitted to +essay-writers for the relief of their dulness, I never mean to take +more,—the relation of composed metaphor as of actual dream, pp. 23 and +104. I assumed, it is true, that in these places the supposed dream +would be easily seen to be an invention; but must not any more, even +under so transparent disguise, pretend to any share in the real powers +of Vision possessed by great poets and true painters.</p> + +<p class="right"> +Brantwood:<br /> + +<i>10th October, 1877.</i> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_9" id="Pg_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>The following lectures were really given, in substance, at a girls' +school (far in the country); which in the course of various experiments +on the possibility of introducing some better practice of drawing into +the modern scheme of female education, I visited frequently enough to +enable the children to regard me as a friend. The lectures always fell +more or less into the form of fragmentary answers to questions; and they +are allowed to retain that form, as, on the whole, likely to be more +interesting than the symmetries of a continuous treatise. Many children +(for the school was large) took part, at different times, in the +conversations; but I have endeavoured, without confusedly multiplying +the number of imaginary<a name="FNanchor_144_144" id="FNanchor_144_144"></a><a href="#Footnote_144_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> speakers, to represent, as far as I could, +the general tone of comment and enquiry among young people.</p> + +<p>It will be at once seen that these Lectures were not intended for an +introduction to mineralogy. Their purpose was merely to awaken in the +minds of young girls, who were ready to work earnestly and +systematically, a vital interest in the subject of their study. No +science can be learned in play; but it is often possible, in play, to +bring good fruit out of past labour, or show sufficient reasons for the +labour of the future.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_10" id="Pg_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>The narrowness of this aim does not, indeed, justify the absence of all +reference to many important principles of structure, and many of the +most interesting orders of minerals; but I felt it impossible to go far +into detail without illustrations; and if readers find this book useful, +I may, perhaps, endeavour to supplement it by illustrated notes of the +more interesting phenomena in separate groups of familiar +minerals;—flints of the chalk;—agates of the basalts;—and the +fantastic and exquisitely beautiful varieties of the vein-ores of the +two commonest metals, lead and iron. But I have always found that the +less we speak of our intentions, the more chance there is of our +realizing them; and this poor little book will sufficiently have done +its work, for the present, if it engages any of its young readers in +study which may enable them to despise it for its shortcomings.</p> + +<p class="right"> +Denmark Hill:<br /> + +<i>Christmas, 1865.</i> + +</p> +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_144_144" id="Footnote_144_144"></a><a href="#FNanchor_144_144"><span class="label">[144]</span></a> I do not mean, in saying 'imaginary,' that I have not +permitted to myself, in several instances, the affectionate discourtesy +of some reminiscence of personal character; for which I must hope to be +forgiven by my old pupils and their friends, as I could not otherwise +have written the book at all. But only two sentences in all the +dialogues, and the anecdote of 'Dotty,' are literally 'historical.'</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ETHICS OF THE DUST.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_11" id="Pg_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE I.</h2> + +<h3><i>THE VALLEY OF DIAMONDS.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A very idle talk, by the dining-room fire, after +raisin-and-almond time.</i></p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Old Lecturer; Florrie, Isabel, May, Lily</span>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Old Lecturer</span> (L.). Come here, Isabel, and tell me what the make-believe +was, this afternoon.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>arranging herself very primly on the foot-stool</i>). Such a +dreadful one! Florrie and I were lost in the Valley of Diamonds.</p> + +<p>L. What! Sindbad's, which nobody could get out of?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Yes; but Florrie and I got out of it.</p> + +<p>L. So I see. At least, I see you did; but are you sure Florrie did?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Quite sure.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span> (<i>putting her head round from behind</i> L.'s <i>sofa-cushion</i>). +Quite sure. (<i>Disappears again.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I think I could be made to feel surer about it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Florrie</span> <i>reappears, gives</i> L. <i>a kiss, and again exit.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I suppose it's all right; but how did you manage it?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Well, you know, the eagle that took up Sindbad was very +large—very, very large—the largest of all the eagles.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> How large were the others?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. I don't quite know—they were so far off. But this one was, oh, +so big! and it had great wings, as wide as—twice over the ceiling. So, +when it was picking up Sindbad, Florrie and I thought it wouldn't know +if we got on its back too: so I got up first, and then I pulled up +Florrie, and we put our arms round its neck, and away it flew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_12" id="Pg_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But why did you want to get out of the valley? and why haven't you +brought me some diamonds?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. It was because of the serpents. I couldn't pick up even the +least little bit of a diamond, I was so frightened.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You should not have minded the serpents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh, but suppose that they had minded me?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> We all of us mind you a little too much, Isabel, I'm afraid.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. No—no—no, indeed.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I tell you what, Isabel—I don't believe either Sindbad, or Florrie, +or you, ever were in the Valley of Diamonds.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. You naughty! when I tell you we were!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Because you say you were frightened at the serpents.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. And wouldn't you have been?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Not at those serpents. Nobody who really goes into the valley is ever +frightened at them—they are so beautiful.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>suddenly serious</i>). But there's no real Valley of Diamonds, is +there?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes, Isabel; very real indeed.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span> (<i>reappearing</i>). Oh, where? Tell me about it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I cannot tell you a great deal about it; only I know it is very +different from Sindbad's. In his valley, there was only a diamond lying +here and there; but, in the real valley, there are diamonds covering the +grass in showers every morning, instead of dew: and there are clusters +of trees, which look like lilac trees; but, in spring, all their +blossoms are of amethyst.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. But there can't be any serpents there, then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Why not?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Because they don't come into such beautiful places.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I never said it was a beautiful place.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. What! not with diamonds strewed about it like dew?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> That's according te your fancy, Florrie. For myself, I like dew +better.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh, but the dew won't stay; it all dries!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; and it would be much nicer if the diamonds dried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_13" id="Pg_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> too, for the +people in the valley have to sweep them off the grass, in heaps, +whenever they want to walk on it; and then the heaps glitter so, they +hurt one's eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Now you're just playing, you know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> So are you, you know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Yes, but you mustn't play.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> That's very hard, Florrie; why mustn't I, if you may?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Oh, I may, because I'm little, but you mustn't, because +you're—(<i>hesitates for a delicate expression of magnitude</i>).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> (<i>rudely taking the first that comes</i>). Because I'm big? No; that's +not the way of it at all, Florrie. Because you're little, you should +have very little play; and because I'm big I should have a great deal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Florrie</span> (<i>both</i>). No—no—no—no. That isn't it at all. +(<span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>sola, quoting Miss Ingelow.</i>) 'The lambs play always—they know +no better.' (<i>Putting her head very much on one side.</i>) Ah, +now—please—please—tell us true; we want to know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But why do you want me to tell you true, any more than the man who +wrote the 'Arabian Nights?'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Because—because we like to know about real things; and you can +tell us, and we can't ask the man who wrote the stories.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> What do you call real things?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Now, you know! Things that really are.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Whether you can see them or not?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Yes, if somebody else saw them.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But if nobody has ever seen them?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>evading the point</i>.) Well, but, you know, if there were a real +Valley of Diamonds, somebody <i>must</i> have seen it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You cannot be so sure of that, Isabel. Many people go to real places, +and never see them; and many people pass through this valley, and never +see it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. What stupid people they must be!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No, Florrie. They are much wiser than the people who do see it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span>. I think I know where it is.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Tell us more about it, and then we'll guess.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_14" id="Pg_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Well. There's a great broad road, by a river-side, leading up into +it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span> (<i>gravely cunning, with emphasis on the last word</i>). Does the road +really go <i>up</i>?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You think it should go down into a valley? No, it goes up; this is a +valley among the hills, and it is as high as the clouds, and is often +full of them; so that even the people who most want to see it, cannot, +always.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. And what is the river beside the road like?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> It ought to be very beautiful, because it flows over diamond +sand—only the water is thick and red.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Red water?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> It isn't all water.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span>. Oh, please never mind that, Isabel, just now; I want to hear about +the valley.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> So the entrance to it is very wide, under a steep rock; only such +numbers of people are always trying to get in, that they keep jostling +each other, and manage it but slowly. Some weak ones are pushed back, +and never get in at all; and make great moaning as they go away: but +perhaps they are none the worse in the end.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span>. And when one gets in, what is it like?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> It is up and down, broken kind of ground: the road stops directly; +and there are great dark rocks, covered all over with wild gourds and +wild vines; the gourds, if you cut them, are red, with black seeds, like +water-melons, and look ever so nice; and the people of the place make a +red pottage of them: but you must take care not to eat any if you ever +want to leave the valley (though I believe putting plenty of meal in it +makes it wholesome). Then the wild vines have clusters of the colour of +amber; and the people of the country say they are the grape of Eshcol; +and sweeter than honey; but, indeed, if anybody else tastes them, they +are like gall. Then there are thickets of bramble, so thorny that they +would be cut away directly, anywhere else; but here they are covered +with little cinque-foiled blossoms of pure silver; and, for berries, +they have clusters of rubies. Dark rubies, which you only see are red +after gathering them. But you may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_15" id="Pg_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> fancy what blackberry parties the +children have! Only they get their frocks and hands sadly torn.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. But rubies can't spot one's frocks as blackberries do?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No; but I'll tell you what spots them—the mulberries. There are +great forests of them, all up the hills, covered with silkworms, some +munching the leaves so loud that it is like mills at work; and some +spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever saw; and, wherever +they fall, they stain a deep red; and nothing ever washes it out again. +And it is their juice, soaking through the grass, which makes the river +so red, because all its springs are in this wood. And the boughs of the +trees are twisted, as if in pain, like old olive branches; and their +leaves are dark. And it is in these forests that the serpents are; but +nobody is afraid of them. They have fine crimson crests, and they are +wreathed about the wild branches, one in every tree, nearly; and they +are singing serpents, for the serpents are, in this forest, what birds +are in ours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Oh, I don't want to go there at all, now.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You would like it very much indeed, Florrie, if you were there. The +serpents would not bite you; the only fear would be of your turning into +one!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Oh, dear, but that's worse.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You wouldn't think so if you really were turned into one, Florrie; +you would be very proud of your crest. And as long as you were yourself +(not that you could get there if you remained quite the little Florrie +you are now), you would like to hear the serpents sing. They hiss a +little through it, like the cicadas in Italy; but they keep good time, +and sing delightful melodies; and most of them have seven heads, with +throats which each take a note of the octave; so that they can sing +chords—it is very fine indeed. And the fire-flies fly round the edge of +the forests all the night long; you wade in fire-flies, they make the +fields look like a lake trembling with reflection of stars; but you must +take care not to touch them, for they are not like Italian fireflies, +but burn, like real sparks.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_16" id="Pg_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. I don't like it at all; I'll never go there.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I hope not, Florrie; or at least that you will get out again if you +do. And it is very difficult to get out, for beyond these serpent +forests there are great cliffs of dead gold, which form a labyrinth, +winding always higher and higher, till the gold is all split asunder by +wedges of ice; and glaciers, welded, half of ice seven times frozen, and +half of gold seven times frozen, hang down from them, and fall in +thunder, cleaving into deadly splinters, like the Cretan arrowheads; and +into a mixed dust of snow and gold, ponderous, yet which the mountain +whirlwinds are able to lift and drive in wreaths and pillars, hiding the +paths with a burial cloud, fatal at once with wintry chill, and weight +of golden ashes. So the wanderers in the labyrinth fall, one by one, and +are buried there:—yet, over the drifted graves, those who are spared +climb to the last, through coil on coil of the path;—for at the end of +it they see the king of the valley, sitting on his throne: and beside +him (but it is only a false vision), spectra of creatures like +themselves, set on thrones, from which they seem to look down on all the +kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And on the canopy of his +throne there is an inscription in fiery letters, which they strive to +read, but cannot; for it is written in words which are like the words of +all languages, and yet are of none. Men say it is more like their own +tongue to the English than it is to any other nation; but the only +record of it is by an Italian, who heard the King himself cry it as a +war cry, 'Pape Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe.'<a name="FNanchor_145_145" id="FNanchor_145_145"></a><a href="#Footnote_145_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But do they all perish there? You said there was a way through +the valley, and out of it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; but few find it. If any of them keep to the grass paths, where +the diamonds are swept aside; and hold their hands over their eyes so as +not to be dazzled, the grass paths lead forward gradually to a place +where one sees a little opening in the golden rocks. You were at +Chamouni last year, Sibyl; did your guide chance to show you the pierced +rock of the Aiguille du Midi?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. No, indeed, we only got up from Geneva on Monday<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_17" id="Pg_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> night; and it +rained all Tuesday; and we had to be back at Geneva again, early on +Wednesday morning.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Of course. That is the way to see a country in a Sibylline manner, by +inner consciousness: but you might have seen the pierced rock in your +drive up, or down, if the clouds broke: not that there is much to see in +it; one of the crags of the aiguille-edge, on the southern slope of it, +is struck sharply through, as by an awl, into a little eyelet hole; +which you may see, seven thousand feet above the valley (as the clouds +flit past behind it, or leave the sky), first white, and then dark blue. +Well, there's just such an eyelet hole in one of the upper crags of the +Diamond Valley; and, from a distance, you think that it is no bigger +than the eye of a needle. But if you get up to it, they say you may +drive a loaded camel through it, and that there are fine things on the +other side, but I have never spoken with anybody who had been through.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. I think we understand it now. We will try to write it down, and +think of it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Meantime, Florrie, though all that I have been telling you is very +true, yet you must not think the sort of diamonds that people wear in +rings and necklaces are found lying about on the grass. Would you like +to see how they really are found?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Oh, yes—yes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Isabel—or Lily—run up to my room and fetch me the little box with a +glass lid, out of the top drawer of the chest of drawers. (<i>Race +between</i> <span class="smcap">Lily</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Isabel</span>.)</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Re-enter</i> <span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>with the box, very much out of breath.</i> +<span class="smcap">Lily</span> <i>behind.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Why, you never can beat Lily in a race on the stairs, can you, +Isabel?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>panting</i>). Lily—beat me—ever so far—but she gave me—the +box—to carry in.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Take off the lid, then; gently.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span> (<i>after peeping in, disappointed</i>). There's only a great ugly +brown stone!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Not much more than that, certainly, Florrie, if people were wise. But +look, it is not a single stone; but a knot of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_18" id="Pg_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> pebbles fastened together +by gravel; and in the gravel, or compressed sand, if you look close, you +will see grains of gold glittering everywhere, all through; and then, do +you see these two white beads, which shine, as if they had been covered +with grease?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. May I touch them?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; you will find they are not greasy, only very smooth. Well, those +are the fatal jewels; native here in their dust with gold, so that you +may see, cradled here together, the two great enemies of mankind,—the +strongest of all malignant physical powers that have tormented our race.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Is that really so? I know they do great harm; but do they not +also do great good?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> My dear child, what good? Was any woman, do you suppose, ever the +better for possessing diamonds? but how many have been made base, +frivolous, and miserable by desiring them? Was ever man the better for +having coffers full of gold? But who shall measure the guilt that is +incurred to fill them? Look into the history of any civilised nations; +analyse, with reference to this one cause of crime and misery, the lives +and thoughts of their nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious +life. Every other temptation is at last concentrated into this; pride, +and lust, and envy, and anger all give up their strength to avarice. The +sin of the whole world is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not +disbelieve their Christ; but they sell Him.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But surely that is the fault of human nature? it is not caused by +the accident, as it were, of there being a pretty metal, like gold, to +be found by digging. If people could not find that, would they not find +something else, and quarrel for it instead?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No. Wherever legislators have succeeded in excluding, for a time, +jewels and precious metals from among national possessions, the national +spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not natural to +man—generosity is; but covetousness must be excited by a special cause, +as a given disease by a given miasma; and the essential nature of a +material for the excitement of covetousness is, that it shall be a +beautiful thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_19" id="Pg_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> which can be retained <i>without a use</i>. The moment we +can use our possessions to any good purpose ourselves, the instinct of +communicating that use to others rises side by side with our power. If +you can read a book rightly, you will want others to hear it; if you can +enjoy a picture rightly, you will want others to see it: learn how to +manage a horse, a plough, or a ship, and you will desire to make your +subordinates good horsemen, ploughmen, or sailors; you will never be +able to see the fine instrument you are master of, abused; but, once fix +your desire on anything useless, and all the purest pride and folly in +your heart will mix with the desire, and make you at last wholly +inhuman, a mere ugly lump of stomach and suckers, like a cuttle-fish.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But surely, these two beautiful things, gold and diamonds, must +have been appointed to some good purpose?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Quite conceivably so, my dear: as also earthquakes and pestilences; +but of such ultimate purposes we can have no sight. The practical, +immediate office of the earthquake and pestilence is to slay us, like +moths; and, as moths, we shall be wise to live out of their way. So, the +practical, immediate office of gold and diamonds is the multiplied +destruction of souls (in whatever sense you have been taught to +understand that phrase); and the paralysis of wholesome human effort and +thought on the face of God's earth: and a wise nation will live out of +the way of them. The money which the English habitually spend in cutting +diamonds would, in ten years, if it were applied to cutting rocks +instead, leave no dangerous reef nor difficult harbour round the whole +island coast. Great Britain would be a diamond worth cutting, indeed, a +true piece of regalia. (<i>Leaves this to their thoughts for a little +while.</i>) Then, also, we poor mineralogists might sometimes have the +chance of seeing a fine crystal of diamond unhacked by the jeweller.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Would it be more beautiful uncut?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No; but of infinite interest. We might even come to know something +about the making of diamonds.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. I thought the chemists could make them already?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> In very small black crystals, yes; but no one knows how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_20" id="Pg_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> they are +formed where they are found; or if indeed they are formed there at all. +These, in my hand, look as if they had been swept down with the gravel +and gold; only we can trace the gravel and gold to their native rocks, +but not the diamonds. Read the account given of the diamond in any good +work on mineralogy;—you will find nothing but lists of localities of +gravel, or conglomerate rock (which is only an old indurated gravel). +Some say it was once a vegetable gum; but it may have been charred wood; +but what one would like to know is, mainly, why charcoal should make +itself into diamonds in India, and only into black lead in Borrowdale.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Are they wholly the same, then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> There is a little iron mixed with our black lead but nothing to +hinder its crystallisation. Your pencils in fact are all pointed with +formless diamond, though they would be HHH pencils to purpose, if it +crystallised.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Subyl</span>. But what <i>is</i> crystallisation?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> A pleasant question, when one's half asleep, and it has been tea time +these two hours. What thoughtless things girls are!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Yes, we are; but we want to know, for all that.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> My dear, it would take a week to tell you.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Well, take it, and tell us.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But nobody knows anything about it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Then tell us something that nobody knows.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Get along with you, and tell Dora to make tea.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The house rises; but of course the</i> <span class="smcap">Lecturer</span> <i>wanted to be +forced to lecture again, and was.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_145_145" id="Footnote_145_145"></a><a href="#FNanchor_145_145"><span class="label">[145]</span></a> Dante, Inf. 7. 1.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_21" id="Pg_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE II.</h2> + +<h3><i>THE PYRAMID BUILDERS.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>In the large Schoolroom, to which everybody has been +summoned by ringing of the great bell.</i></p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> So you have all actually come to hear about crystallisation! I cannot +conceive why, unless the little ones think that the discussion may +involve some reference to sugar-candy.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Symptoms of high displeasure among the younger members of +council.</i> <span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>frowns severely at L., and shakes her head +violently.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>My dear children, if you knew it, you are yourselves, at this moment, as +you sit in your ranks, nothing, in the eye of a mineralogist, but a +lovely group of rosy sugar-candy, arranged by atomic forces. And even +admitting you to be something more, you have certainly been +crystallising without knowing it. Did I not hear a great hurrying and +whispering, ten minutes ago, when you were late in from the playground; +and thought you would not all be quietly seated by the time I was +ready:—besides some discussion about places—something about 'it's not +being fair that the little ones should always be nearest?' Well, you +were then all being crystallised. When you ran in from the garden, and +against one another in the passages, you were in what mineralogists +would call a state of solution, and gradual confluence; when you got +seated in those orderly rows, each in her proper place, you became +crystalline. That is just what the atoms of a mineral do, if they can, +whenever they get disordered: they get into order again as soon as may +be.</p> + +<p>I hope you feel inclined to interrupt me, and say, 'But we know our +places; how do the atoms know theirs? And sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_22" id="Pg_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> we dispute about +our places; do the atoms—(and, besides, we don't like being compared to +atoms at all)—never dispute about theirs?' Two wise questions these, if +you had a mind to put them! it was long before I asked them myself, of +myself. And I will not call you atoms any more. May I call you—let me +see—'primary molecules?' (<i>General dissent, indicated in subdued but +decisive murmurs.</i>) No! not even, in familiar Saxon, 'dust?'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Pause, with expression on faces of sorrowful doubt</i>; <span class="smcap">Lily</span> +<i>gives voice to the general sentiment in a timid 'Please +don't.</i>')</p></div> + +<p>No, children, I won't call you that; and mind, as you grow up, that you +do not get into an idle and wicked habit of calling yourselves that. You +are something better than dust, and have other duties to do than ever +dust can do; and the bonds of affection you will enter into are better +than merely 'getting into order.' But see to it, on the other hand, that +you always behave at least as well as 'dust;' remember, it is only on +compulsion, and while it has no free permission to do as it likes, that +<i>it</i> ever gets out of order; but sometimes, with some of us, the +compulsion has to be the other way—hasn't it? (<i>Remonstratory whispers, +expressive of opinion that the</i> <span class="smcap">Lecturer</span> <i>is becoming too personal.</i>) +I'm not looking at anybody in particular—indeed I am not. Nay, if you +blush so, Kathleen, how can one help looking? We'll go back to the +atoms.</p> + +<p>'How do they know their places?' you asked, or should have asked. Yes, +and they have to do much more than know them: they have to find their +way to them, and that quietly and at once, without running against each +other.</p> + +<p>We may, indeed, state it briefly thus:—Suppose you have to build a +castle, with towers and roofs and buttresses, out of bricks of a given +shape, and that these bricks are all lying in a huge heap at the bottom, +in utter confusion, upset out of carts at random. You would have to draw +a great many plans, and count all your bricks, and be sure you had +enough for this and that tower, before you began, and then you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_23" id="Pg_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> would +have to lay your foundation, and add layer by layer, in order, slowly.</p> + +<p>But how would you be astonished, in these melancholy days, when children +don't read children's books, nor believe any more in fairies, if +suddenly a real benevolent fairy, in a bright brick-red gown, were to +rise in the midst of the red bricks, and to tap the heap of them with +her wand, and say: 'Bricks, bricks, to your places!' and then you saw in +an instant the whole heap rise in the air, like a swarm of red bees, +and—you have been used to see bees make a honeycomb, and to think that +strange enough, but now you would see the honeycomb make itself!—You +want to ask something, Florrie, by the look of your eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Are they turned into real bees, with stings?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No, Florrie; you are only to fancy flying bricks, as you saw the +slates flying from the roof the other day in the storm; only those +slates didn't seem to know where they were going, and, besides, were +going where they had no business: but my spell-bound bricks, though they +have no wings, and what is worse, no heads and no eyes, yet find their +way in the air just where they should settle, into towers and roofs, +each flying to his place and fastening there at the right moment, so +that every other one shall fit to him in his turn.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. But who are the fairies, then, who build the crystals?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> There is one great fairy, Lily, who builds much more than crystals; +but she builds these also. I dreamed that I saw her building a pyramid, +the other day, as she used to do, for the Pharaohs.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. But that was only a dream?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Some dreams are truer than some wakings, Isabel; but I won't tell it +you unless you like.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh, please, please.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You are all such wise children, there's no talking to you; you won't +believe anything.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. No, we are not wise, and we will believe anything, when you say we +ought.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Well, it came about this way. Sibyl, do you recollect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_24" id="Pg_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> that evening +when we had been looking at your old cave by Cumæ, and wondering why you +didn't live there still; and then we wondered how old you were; and +Egypt said you wouldn't tell, and nobody else could tell but she; and +you laughed—I thought very gaily for a Sibyl—and said you would +harness a flock of cranes for us, and we might fly over to Egypt if we +liked, and see.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Yes, and you went, and couldn't find out after all!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Why, you know, Egypt had been just doubling that third pyramid of +hers;<a name="FNanchor_146_146" id="FNanchor_146_146"></a><a href="#Footnote_146_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> and making a new entrance into it; and a fine entrance it +was! First, we had to go through an ante-room, which had both its doors +blocked up with stones; and then we had three granite portcullises to +pull up, one after another; and the moment we had got under them, Egypt +signed to somebody above; and down they came again behind us, with a +roar like thunder, only louder; then we got into a passage fit for +nobody but rats, and Egypt wouldn't go any further herself, but said we +might go on if we liked; and so we came to a hole in the pavement, and +then to a granite trap-door—and then we thought we had gone quite far +enough, and came back, and Egypt laughed at us.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. You would not have had me take my crown off, and stoop all the +way down a passage fit only for rats?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> It was not the crown, Egypt—you know that very well. It was the +flounces that would not let you go any farther. I suppose, however, you +wear them as typical of the inundation of the Nile, so it is all right.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Why didn't you take me with you? Where rats can go, mice can. I +wouldn't have come back.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No, mousie; you would have gone on by yourself, and you might have +waked one of Pasht's cats.<a name="FNanchor_147_147" id="FNanchor_147_147"></a><a href="#Footnote_147_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a> and it would have eaten you. I was very +glad you were not there. But after all this, I suppose the imagination +of the heavy granite blocks and the underground ways had troubled me, +and dreams are often shaped in a strange opposition to the impressions +that have caused them; and from all that we had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_25" id="Pg_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> been reading in Bunsen +about stones that couldn't be lifted with levers, I began to dream about +stones that lifted themselves with wings.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Now you must just tell us all about it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I dreamed that I was standing beside the lake, out of whose clay the +bricks were made for the great pyramid of Asychis.<a name="FNanchor_148_148" id="FNanchor_148_148"></a><a href="#Footnote_148_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> They had just +been all finished, and were lying by the lake margin, in long ridges, +like waves. It was near evening; and as I looked towards the sunset, I +saw a thing like a dark pillar standing where the rock of the desert +stoops to the Nile valley. I did not know there was a pillar there, and +wondered at it; and it grew larger, and glided nearer, becoming like the +form of a man, but vast, and it did not move its feet, but glided like a +pillar of sand. And as it drew nearer, I looked by chance past it, +towards the sun; and saw a silver cloud, which was of all the clouds +closest to the sun (and in one place crossed it), draw itself back from +the sun, suddenly. And it turned, and shot towards the dark pillar; +leaping in an arch, like an arrow out of a bow. And I thought it was +lightning; but when it came near the shadowy pillar, it sank slowly down +beside it, and changed into the shape of a woman, very beautiful, and +with a strength of deep calm in her blue eyes. She was robed to the feet +with a white robe; and above that, to her knees, by the cloud which I +had seen across the sun; but all the golden ripples of it had become +plumes, so that it had changed into two bright wings like those of a +vulture, which wrapped round her to her knees. She had a weaver's +shuttle hanging over her shoulder, by the thread of it, and in her left +hand, arrows, tipped with fire.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>clapping her hands</i>). Oh! it was Neith, it was Neith! I know +now.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; it was Neith herself; and as the two great spirits came nearer +to me, I saw they were the Brother and Sister—the pillared shadow was +the Greater Pthah.<a name="FNanchor_149_149" id="FNanchor_149_149"></a><a href="#Footnote_149_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> And I heard them speak, and the sound of their +words was like a distant singing. I could not understand the words one +by one; yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_26" id="Pg_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> their sense came to me; and so I knew that Neith had come +down to see her brother's work, and the work that he had put into the +mind of the king to make his servants do. And she was displeased at it; +because she saw only pieces of dark clay: and no porphyry, nor marble, +nor any fair stone that men might engrave the figures of the gods upon. +And she blamed her brother, and said, 'Oh, Lord of truth! is this then +thy will, that men should mould only four-square pieces of clay: and the +forms of the gods no more?' Then the Lord of truth sighed, and said, +'Oh! sister, in truth they do not love us; why should they set up our +images? Let them do what they may, and not lie—let them make their clay +four-square; and labour; and perish.'</p> + +<p>Then Neith's dark blue eyes grew darker, and she said, 'Oh, Lord of +truth! why should they love us? their love is vain; or fear us? for +their fear is base. Yet let them testify of us, that they knew we lived +for ever.'</p> + +<p>But the Lord of truth answered, 'They know, and yet they know not. Let +them keep silence; for their silence only is truth.'</p> + +<p>But Neith answered, 'Brother, wilt thou also make league with Death, +because Death is true? Oh! thou potter, who hast cast these human things +from thy wheel, many to dishonour, and few to honour; wilt thou not let +them so much as see my face; but slay them in slavery?'</p> + +<p>But Pthah only answered, 'Let them build, sister, let them build.'</p> + +<p>And Neith answered, 'What shall they build, if I build not with them?'</p> + +<p>And Pthah drew with his measuring rod upon the sand. And I saw suddenly, +drawn on the sand, the outlines of great cities, and of vaults, and +domes, and aqueducts, and bastions, and towers, greater than obelisks, +covered with black clouds. And the wind blew ripples of sand amidst the +lines that Pthah drew, and the moving sand was like the marching of men. +But I saw that wherever Neith looked at the lines, they faded, and were +effaced.</p> + +<p>'Oh, Brother!' she said at last, 'what is this vanity? If I,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_27" id="Pg_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> who am +Lady of wisdom, do not mock the children of men, why shouldst thou mock +them, who art Lord of truth?' But Pthah answered, 'They thought to bind +me; and they shall be bound. They shall labour in the fire for vanity.'</p> + +<p>And Neith said, looking at the sand, 'Brother, there is no true labour +here—there is only weary life and wasteful death.'</p> + +<p>And Pthah answered, 'Is it not truer labour, sister, than thy sculpture +of dreams?'</p> + +<p>Then Neith smiled; and stopped suddenly.</p> + +<p>She looked to the sun; its edge touched the horizon-edge of the desert. +Then she looked to the long heaps of pieces of clay, that lay, each with +its blue shadow, by the lake shore.</p> + +<p>'Brother,' she said, 'how long will this pyramid of thine be in +building?'</p> + +<p>'Thoth will have sealed the scroll of the years ten times, before the +summit is laid.'</p> + +<p>'Brother, thou knowest not how to teach thy children to labour,' +answered Neith. 'Look! I must follow Phre beyond Atlas; shall I build +your pyramid for you before he goes down?' And Pthah answered, 'Yea, +sister, if thou canst put thy winged shoulders to such work.' And Neith +drew herself to her height; and I heard a clashing pass through the +plumes of her wings, and the asp stood up on her helmet, and fire +gathered in her eyes. And she took one of the flaming arrows out of the +sheaf in her left hand, and stretched it out over the heaps of clay. And +they rose up like flights of locusts, and spread themselves in the air, +so that it grew dark in a moment. Then Neith designed them places with +her arrow point; and they drew into ranks, like dark clouds laid level +at morning. Then Neith pointed with her arrow to the north, and to the +south, and to the east, and to the west, and the flying motes of earth +drew asunder into four great ranked crowds; and stood, one in the north, +and one in the south, and one in the east, and one in the west—one +against another. Then Neith spread her wings wide for an instant, and +closed them with a sound like the sound of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_28" id="Pg_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> a rushing sea; and waved her +hand towards the foundation of the pyramid, where it was laid on the +brow of the desert. And the four flocks drew together and sank down, +like sea-birds settling to a level rock; and when they met, there was a +sudden flame, as broad as the pyramid, and as high as the clouds; and it +dazzled me; and I closed my eyes for an instant; and when I looked +again, the pyramid stood on its rock, perfect; and purple with the light +from the edge of the sinking sun.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The younger children</span> (<i>variously pleased</i>). I'm so glad! How nice! But +what did Pthah say?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Neith did not wait to hear what he would say. When I turned back to +look at her, she was gone; and I only saw the level white cloud form +itself again, close to the arch of the sun as it sank. And as the last +edge of the sun disappeared, the form of Pthah faded into a mighty +shadow, and so passed away.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. And was Neith's pyramid left?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; but you could not think, Egypt, what a strange feeling of utter +loneliness came over me when the presence of the two gods passed away. +It seemed as if I had never known what it was to be alone before; and +the unbroken line of the desert was terrible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. I used to feel that, when I was queen: sometimes I had to carve +gods, for company, all over my palace. I would fain have seen real ones, +if I could.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But listen a moment yet, for that was not quite all my dream. The +twilight drew swiftly to the dark, and I could hardly see the great +pyramid; when there came a heavy murmuring sound in the air; and a +horned beetle, with terrible claws, fell on the sand at my feet, with a +blow like the beat of a hammer. Then it stood up on its hind claws, and +waved its pincers at me: and its fore claws became strong arms, and +hands; one grasping real iron pincers, and the other a huge hammer; and +it had a helmet on its head, without any eyelet holes, that I could see. +And its two hind claws became strong crooked legs, with feet bent +inwards. And so there stood by me a dwarf, in glossy black armour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_29" id="Pg_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +ribbed and embossed like a beetle's back, leaning on his hammer. And I +could not speak for wonder; but he spoke with a murmur like the dying +away of a beat upon a bell. He said, 'I will make Neith's great pyramid +small. I am the lower Pthah; and have power over fire. I can wither the +strong things, and strengthen the weak; and everything that is great I +can make small, and everything that is little I can make great.' Then he +turned to the angle of the pyramid and limped towards it. And the +pyramid grew deep purple; and then red like blood, and then pale +rose-colour, like fire. And I saw that it glowed with fire from within. +And the lower Pthah touched it with the hand that held the pincers; and +it sank down like the sand in an hour-glass,—then drew itself together, +and sank, still, and became nothing, it seemed to me; but the armed +dwarf stooped down, and took it into his hand, and brought it to me, +saying, 'Everything that is great I can make like this pyramid; and give +into men's hands to destroy.' And I saw that he had a little pyramid in +his hand, with as many courses in it as the large one; and built like +that, only so small. And because it glowed still, I was afraid to touch +it; but Pthah said, 'Touch it—for I have bound the fire within it, so +that it cannot burn.' So I touched it, and took it into my own hand; and +it was cold; only red, like a ruby. And Pthah laughed, and became like a +beetle again, and buried himself in the sand, fiercely; throwing it back +over his shoulders. And it seemed to me as if he would draw me down with +him into the sand; and I started back, and woke, holding the little +pyramid so fast in my hand that it hurt me.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Holding <span class="smcap">what</span> in your hand?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> The little pyramid.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Neith's pyramid?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Neith's, I believe; though not built for Asychis. I know only that it +is a little rosy transparent pyramid, built of more courses of bricks +than I can count, it being made so small. You don't believe me, of +course, Egyptian infidel; but there it is. (<i>Giving crystal of rose +Fluor.</i>)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_30" id="Pg_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Confused examination by crowded audience, over each +other's shoulders and under each other's arms. +Disappointment begins to manifest itself.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span> (<i>not quite knowing why she and others are disappointed</i>). But you +showed us this the other day!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; but you would not look at it the other day.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But was all that fine dream only about this?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> What finer thing could a dream be about than this! It is small, if +you will; but when you begin to think of things rightly, the ideas of +smallness and largeness pass away. The making of this pyramid was in +reality just as wonderful as the dream I have been telling you, and just +as incomprehensible. It was not, I suppose, as swift, but quite as grand +things are done as swiftly. When Neith makes crystals of snow, it needs +a great deal more marshalling of the atoms, by her flaming arrows, than +it does to make crystals like this one; and that is done in a moment.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. But how you <i>do</i> puzzle us! Why do you say Neith does it? You +don't mean that she is a real spirit, do you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> What <i>I</i> mean, is of little consequence. What the Egyptians meant, +who called her 'Neith,'—or Homer, who called her 'Athena,'—or Solomon, +who called her by a word which the Greeks render as 'Sophia,' you must +judge for yourselves. But her testimony is always the same, and all +nations have received it: 'I was by Him as one brought up with Him, and +I was daily His delight; rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth, +and my delights were with the sons of men.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. But is not that only a personification?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> If it be, what will you gain by unpersonifying it, or what right have +you to do so? Cannot you accept the image given you, in its life; and +listen, like children, to the words which chiefly belong to you as +children: 'I love them that love me, and those that seek me early shall +find me?'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>They are all quiet for a minute or two; questions begin to +appear in their eyes.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>I cannot talk to you any more to-day. Take that rose-crystal away with +you and think.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_146_146" id="Footnote_146_146"></a><a href="#FNanchor_146_146"><span class="label">[146]</span></a> Note i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_147_147" id="Footnote_147_147"></a><a href="#FNanchor_147_147"><span class="label">[147]</span></a> Note iii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_148_148" id="Footnote_148_148"></a><a href="#FNanchor_148_148"><span class="label">[148]</span></a> Note ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_149_149" id="Footnote_149_149"></a><a href="#FNanchor_149_149"><span class="label">[149]</span></a> Note iii.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_31" id="Pg_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE III.</h2> + +<h3><i>THE CRYSTAL LIFE.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A very dull Lecture, wilfully brought upon themselves by +the elder children. Some of the young ones have, however, +managed to get in by mistake.</i> <span class="smcap">Scene</span>, <i>the Schoolroom.</i></p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> So I am to stand up here merely to be asked questions, to-day, Miss +Mary, am I?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Yes; and you must answer them plainly; without telling us any more +stories. You are quite spoiling the children: the poor little things' +heads are turning round like kaleidoscopes; and they don't know in the +least what you mean. Nor do we old ones, either, for that matter: to-day +you must really tell us nothing but facts.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I am sworn; but you won't like it, a bit.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Now, first of all, what do you mean by 'bricks?'—Are the smallest +particles of minerals all of some accurate shape, like bricks?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I do not know, Miss Mary; I do not even know if anybody knows. The +smallest atoms which are visibly and practically put together to make +large crystals, may better be described as 'limited in fixed directions' +than as 'of fixed forms.' But I can tell you nothing clear about +ultimate atoms: you will find the idea of little bricks, or, perhaps, of +little spheres, available for all the uses you will have to put it to.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Well, it's very provoking; one seems always to be stopped just +when one is coming to the very thing one wants to know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No, Mary, for we should not wish to know anything but what is easily +and assuredly knowable. There's no end to it If I could show you, or +myself, a group of ultimate atoms,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_32" id="Pg_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> quite clearly, in this magnifying +glass, we should both be presently vexed because we could not break them +in two pieces, and see their insides.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Well then, next, what do you mean by the flying of the bricks? +What is it the atoms do, that is like flying?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> When they are dissolved, or uncrystallised, they are really separated +from each other, like a swarm of gnats in the air, or like a shoal of +fish in the sea;—generally at about equal distances. In currents of +solutions, or at different depths of them, one part may be more full of +the dissolved atoms than another; but on the whole, you may think of +them as equidistant, like the spots in the print of your gown. If they +are separated by force of heat only, the substance is said to be melted; +if they are separated by any other substance, as particles of sugar by +water, they are said to be 'dissolved.' Note this distinction carefully, +all of you.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I will be very particular. When next you tell me there isn't sugar +enough in your tea, I will say, 'It is not yet dissolved, sir.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I tell you what shall be dissolved, Miss Dora; and that's the present +parliament, if the members get too saucy.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Dora</span> <i>folds her hands and casts down her eyes.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> (<i>proceeds in state</i>). Now, Miss Mary, you know already, I believe, +that nearly everything will melt, under a sufficient heat, like wax. +Limestone melts (under pressure); sand melts; granite melts; the lava of +a volcano is a mixed mass of many kinds of rocks, melted: and any melted +substance nearly always, if not always, crystallises as it cools; the +more slowly the more perfectly. Water melts at what we call the +freezing, but might just as wisely, though not as conveniently, call the +melting, point; and radiates as it cools into the most beautiful of all +known crystals. Glass melts at a greater heat, and will crystallise, if +you let it cool slowly enough, in stars, much like snow. Gold needs more +heat to melt it, but crystallises also exquisitely, as I will presently +show you. Arsenic and sulphur crystallise from their vapours. Now in any +of these cases, either of melted, dissolved, or vaporous bodies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_33" id="Pg_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> the +particles are usually separated from each other, either by heat, or by +an intermediate substance; and in crystallising they are both brought +nearer to each other, and packed, so as to fit as closely as possible: +the essential part of the business being not the bringing together, but +the packing. Who packed your trunk for you, last holidays, Isabel?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Lily does, always.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> And how much can you allow for Lily's good packing, in guessing what +will go into the trunk?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh! I bring twice as much as the trunk holds. Lily always gets +everything in.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. Ah! but, Isey, if you only knew what a time it takes! and since +you've had those great hard buttons on your frocks, I can't do anything +with them. Buttons won't go anywhere, you know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes, Lily, it would be well if she only knew what a time it takes; +and I wish any of us knew what a time crystallisation takes, for that is +consummately fine packing. The particles of the rock are thrown down, +just as Isabel brings her things—in a heap; and innumerable Lilies, not +of the valley, but of the rock, come to pack them. But it takes such a +time!</p> + +<p>However, the best—out and out the best—way of understanding the thing, +is to crystallise yourselves.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Audience</span>. Ourselves!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; not merely as you did the other day, carelessly, on the +schoolroom forms; but carefully and finely, out in the playground. You +can play at crystallisation there as much as you please.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Jessie</span>. Oh! how?—how?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> First, you must put yourselves together, as close as you can, in the +middle of the grass, and form, for first practice any figure you like.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie</span>. Any dancing figure, do you mean?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No; I mean a square, or a cross, or a diamond. Any figure you like, +standing close together. You had better outline it first on the turf, +with sticks, or pebbles, so as to see that it is rightly drawn; then get +into it and enlarge or diminish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_34" id="Pg_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> it at one side, till you are all quite +in it, and no empty space left.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Crinoline and all?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> The crinoline may stand eventually for rough crystalline surface, +unless you pin it in; and then you may make a polished crystal of +yourselves.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. Oh, we'll pin it in—we'll pin it in!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Then, when you are all in the figure, let every one note her place, +and who is next her on each side; and let the outsiders count how many +places they stand from the corners.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>. Yes, yes,—and then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Then you must scatter all over the playground—right over it from +side to side, and end to end; and put yourselves all at equal distances +from each other, everywhere. You needn't mind doing it very accurately, +but so as to be nearly equidistant; not less than about three yards +apart from each other, on every side.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie</span>. We can easily cut pieces of string of equal length, to hold. And +then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Then, at a given signal, let everybody walk, at the same rate, +towards the outlined figure in the middle. You had better sing as you +walk; that will keep you in good time. And as you close in towards it, +let each take her place, and the next comers fit themselves in beside +the first ones, till you are all in the figure again.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>. Oh! how we shall run against each other! What fun it will be!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No, no, Miss Katie; I can't allow any running against each other. The +atoms never do that, whatever human creatures do. You must all know your +places, and find your way to them without jostling.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. But how ever shall we do that?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Mustn't the ones in the middle be the nearest, and the outside +ones farther off—when we go away to scatter, I mean?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes; you must be very careful to keep your order; you will soon find +out how to do it; it is only like soldiers forming square, except that +each must stand still in her place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_35" id="Pg_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> as she reaches it, and the others +come round her; and you will have much more complicated figures, +afterwards, to form, than squares.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. I'll put a stone at my place: then I shall know it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You might each nail a bit of paper to the turf, at your place, with +your name upon it: but it would be of no use, for if you don't know your +places, you will make a fine piece of business of it, while you are +looking for your names. And, Isabel, if with a little head, and eyes, +and a brain (all of them very good and serviceable of their kind, as +such things go), you think you cannot know your place without a stone at +it, after examining it well,—how do you think each atom knows its +place, when it never was there before, and there's no stone at it?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. But does every atom know its place?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> How else could it get there?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Are they not attracted to their places?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Cover a piece of paper with spots, at equal intervals; and then +imagine any kind of attraction you choose, or any law of attraction, to +exist between the spots, and try how, on that permitted supposition, you +can attract them into the figure of a Maltese cross, in the middle of +the paper.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> (<i>having tried it</i>). Yes; I see that I cannot:—one would need all +kinds of attractions, in different ways, at different places. But you do +not mean that the atoms are alive?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> What is it to be alive?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. There now; you're going to be provoking, I know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I do not see why it should be provoking to be asked what it is to be +alive. Do you think you don't know whether you are alive or not?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>skips to the end of the room and back.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes, Isabel, that's all very fine; and you and I may call that being +alive: but a modern philosopher calls it being in a 'mode of motion.' It +requires a certain quantity of heat to take you to the sideboard; and +exactly the same quantity to bring you back again. That's all.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. No, it isn't. And besides, I'm not hot.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_36" id="Pg_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I am, sometimes, at the way they talk. However, you know, Isabel, you +might have been a particle of a mineral, and yet have been carried round +the room, or anywhere else, by chemical forces, in the liveliest way.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Yes; but I wasn't carried: I carried myself.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so much to say what makes +a thing alive, as what makes it a Self. As soon as you are shut off from +the rest of the universe into a Self, you begin to be alive.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>indignant</i>). Oh, surely—surely that cannot be so. Is not all +the life of the soul in communion, not separation?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> There can be no communion where there is no distinction. But we shall +be in an abyss of metaphysics presently, if we don't look out; and +besides, we must not be too grand, to-day, for the younger children. +We'll be grand, some day, by ourselves, if we must. (<i>The younger +children are not pleased, and prepare to remonstrate; but, knowing by +experience, that all conversations in which the word 'communion' occurs, +are unintelligible, think better of it.</i>) Meantime, for broad answer +about the atoms. I do not think we should use the word 'life,' of any +energy which does not belong to a given form. A seed, or an egg, or a +young animal are properly called 'alive' with respect to the force +belonging to those forms, which consistently develops that form, and no +other. But the force which crystallises a mineral appears to be chiefly +external, and it does not produce an entirely determinate and individual +form, limited in size, but only an aggregation, in which some limiting +laws must be observed.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. But I do not see much difference, that way, between a crystal and +a tree.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Add, then, that the mode of the energy in a living thing implies a +continual change in its elements; and a period for its end. So you may +define life by its attached negative, death; and still more by its +attached positive, birth. But I won't be plagued any more about this, +just now; if you choose to think the crystals alive, do, and welcome. +Rocks have always been called 'living' in their native place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_37" id="Pg_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. There's one question more; then I've done.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Only one?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Only one.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But if it is answered, won't it turn into two?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. No; I think it will remain single, and be comfortable.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Let me hear it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. You know, we are to crystallise ourselves out of the whole +playground. Now, what playground have the minerals? Where are they +scattered before they are crystallised; and where are the crystals +generally made?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> That sounds to me more like three questions than one, Mary. If it is +only one, it is a wide one.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. I did not say anything about the width of it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Well, I must keep it within the best compass I can. When rocks either +dry from a moist state, or cool from a heated state, they necessarily +alter in bulk; and cracks, or open spaces, form in them in all +directions. These cracks must be filled up with solid matter, or the +rock would eventually become a ruinous heap. So, sometimes by water, +sometimes by vapour, sometimes nobody knows how, crystallisable matter +is brought from somewhere, and fastens itself in these open spaces, so +as to bind the rock together again, with crystal cement. A vast quantity +of hollows are formed in lavas by bubbles of gas, just as the holes are +left in bread well baked. In process of time these cavities are +generally filled with various crystals.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. But where does the crystallising substance come from?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Sometimes out of the rock itself; sometimes from below or above, +through the veins. The entire substance of the contracting rock may be +filled with liquid, pressed into it so as to fill every pore;—or with +mineral vapour;—or it may be so charged at one place, and empty at +another. There's no end to the 'may be's.' But all that you need fancy, +for our present purpose, is that hollows in the rocks, like the caves in +Derbyshire, are traversed by liquids or vapour containing certain +elements in a more or less free or separate state, which crystallise on +the cave walls.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_38" id="Pg_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. There now;—Mary has had all her questions answered: it's my turn +to have mine.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Ah, there's a conspiracy among you, I see. I might have guessed as +much.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I'm sure you ask us questions enough! How can you have the heart, +when you dislike so to be asked them yourself?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> My dear child, if people do not answer questions, it does not matter +how many they are asked, because they've no trouble with them. Now, when +I ask you questions, I never expect to be answered; but when you ask me, +you always do; and it's not fair.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Very well, we shall understand, next time.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. No, but seriously, we all want to ask one thing more, quite +dreadfully.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> And I don't want to be asked it, quite dreadfully; but you'll have +your own way, of course.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. We none of us understand about the lower Pthah. It was not merely +yesterday; but in all we have read about him in Wilkinson, or in any +book, we cannot understand what the Egyptians put their god into that +ugly little deformed shape for.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Well, I'm glad it's that sort of question; because I can answer +anything I like, to that.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Anything you like will do quite well for us; we shall be pleased +with the answer, if you are.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I am not so sure of that, most gracious queen; for I must begin by +the statement that queens seem to have disliked all sorts of work, in +those days, as much as some queens dislike sewing to-day.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Now, it's too bad! and just when I was trying to say the +civillest thing I could!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> But, Egypt, why did you tell me you disliked sewing so?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Did not I show you how the thread cuts my fingers? and I always +get cramp, somehow, in my neck, if I sew long.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Well, I suppose the Egyptian queens thought every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_39" id="Pg_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> body got cramp in +their neck, if they sewed long; and that thread always cut people's +fingers. At all events, every kind of manual labour was despised both by +them, and the Greeks; and, while they owned the real good and fruit of +it, they yet held it a degradation to all who practised it. Also, +knowing the laws of life thoroughly, they perceived that the special +practice necessary to bring any manual art to perfection strengthened +the body distortedly; one energy or member gaining at the expense of the +rest. They especially dreaded and despised any kind of work that had to +be done near fire: yet, feeling what they owed to it in metal-work, as +the basis of all other work, they expressed this mixed reverence and +scorn in the varied types of the lame Hephæstus, and the lower Pthah.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But what did you mean by making him say 'everything great I can +make small, and everything small great?'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I had my own separate meaning in that. We have seen in modern times +the power of the lower Pthah developed in a separate way, which no Greek +nor Egyptian could have conceived. It is the character of pure and +eyeless manual labour to conceive everything as subjected to it: and, in +reality, to disgrace and diminish all that is so subjected; aggrandising +itself, and the thought of itself, at the expense of all noble things. I +heard an orator, and a good one too, at the Working Men's College, the +other day, make a great point in a description of our railroads; saying, +with grandly conducted emphasis, 'They have made man greater, and the +world less.' His working audience were mightily pleased; they thought it +so very fine a thing to be made bigger themselves; and all the rest of +the world less. I should have enjoyed asking them (but it would have +been a pity—they were so pleased), how much less they would like to +have the world made;—and whether, at present, those of them really felt +the biggest men, who lived in the least houses.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But then, why did you make Pthah say that he could make weak +things strong, and small things great?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> My dear, he is a boaster and self-assertor, by nature; but it is so +far true. For instance, we used to have a fair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_40" id="Pg_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> in our neighbourhood—a +very fine fair we thought it. You never saw such an one; but if you look +at the engraving of Turner's 'St. Catherine's Hill,' you will see what +it was like. There were curious booths, carried on poles; and +peep-shows; and music, with plenty of drums and cymbals; and much +barley-sugar and gingerbread, and the like: and in the alleys of this +fair the London populace would enjoy themselves, after their fashion, +very thoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work upon it one day; he +made the wooden poles into iron ones, and put them across, like his own +crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you don't look where +you are going; and he turned all the canvas into panes of glass, and put +it up on his iron cross-poles; and made all the little booths into one +great booth; and people said it was very fine, and a new style of +architecture; and Mr. Dickens said nothing was ever like it in +Fairyland, which was very true. And then the little Pthah set to work to +put fine fairings in it; and he painted the Nineveh bulls afresh, with +the blackest eyes he could paint (because he had none himself), and he +got the angels down from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like his +gingerbread of old times; and he sent for everything else he could think +of, and put it in his booth. There are the casts of Niobe and her +children; and the Chimpanzee; and the wooden Caffres and New-Zealanders; +and the Shakespeare House; and Le Grand Blondin, and Le Petit Blondin; +and Handel; and Mozart; and no end of shops, and buns, and beer; and all +the little-Pthah-worshippers say, never was anything so sublime!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Now, do you mean to say you never go to these Crystal Palace +concerts? They're as good as good can be.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I don't go to the thundering things with a million of bad voices in +them. When I want a song, I get Julia Mannering and Lucy Bertram and +Counsellor Pleydell to sing 'We be three poor Mariners' to me; then I've +no headache next morning. But I do go to the smaller concerts, when I +can; for they are very good, as you say, Sibyl: and I always get a +reserved seat somewhere near the orchestra, where I am sure I can see +the kettle-drummer drum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_41" id="Pg_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> Now <i>do</i> be serious, for one minute.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L</span>. I am serious—never was more so. You know one can't see the +modulation of violinists' fingers, but one can see the vibration of the +drummer's hand; and it's lovely.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But fancy going to a concert, not to hear, but to see!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L</span>. Yes, it is very absurd. The quite right thing, I believe, is to go +there to talk. I confess, however, that in most music, when very well +done, the doing of it is to me the chiefly interesting part of the +business. I'm always thinking how good it would be for the fat, +supercilious people, who care so little for their half-crown's worth, to +be set to try and do a half-crown's worth of anything like it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great good and help to the +people of London?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L</span>. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, my dear; but they are +spoiling that with smoke as fast as they can. And the palace (as they +call it) is a better place for them, by much, than the old fair; and it +is always there, instead of for three days only; and it shuts up at +proper hours of night. And good use may be made of the things in it, if +you know how: but as for its teaching the people, it will teach them +nothing but the lowest of the lower Pthah's work—nothing but hammer and +tongs. I saw a wonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only the +other day. Some unhappy metal-worker—I am not sure if it was not a +metal-working firm—had taken three years to make a Golden eagle.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Of real gold?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L</span>. No; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul patent metal—it is +no matter what. I meant a model of our chief British eagle. Every +feather was made separately; and every filament of every feather +separately, and so joined on; and all the quills modelled of the right +length and right section, and at last the whole cluster of them fastened +together. You know, children, I don't think much of my own drawing; but +take my proud word for once, that when I go to the Zoological Gardens, +and happen to have a bit of chalk in my pocket, and the Gray Harpy will +sit, without screwing his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_42" id="Pg_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> head round, for thirty seconds,—I can do a +better thing of him in that time than the three years' work of this +industrious firm. For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my +object,—not myself; and during the three years, the firm's object, in +every fibre of bronze it made, was itself, and not the eagle. That is +the true meaning of the little Pthah's having no eyes—he can see only +himself. The Egyptian beetle was not quite the full type of him; our +northern ground beetle is a truer one. It is beautiful to see it at +work, gathering its treasures (such as they are) into little round +balls; and pushing them home with the strong wrong end of it,—head +downmost all the way,—like a modern political economist with his ball +of capital, declaring that a nation can stand on its vices better than +on its virtues. But away with you, children, now, for I'm getting cross.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I'm going down-stairs; I shall take care, at any rate, that there +are no little Pthahs in the kitchen cupboards.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_43" id="Pg_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE IV.</h2> + +<h3><i>THE CRYSTAL ORDERS.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A working Lecture, in the large Schoolroom; with +experimental Interludes The great bell has rung +unexpectedly.</i></p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span> (<i>entering disconsolate, though first at the summons</i>). Oh +dear, oh dear, what a day! Was ever anything so provoking! just when we +wanted to crystallise ourselves;—and I'm sure it's going to rain all +day long.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish way with it But I don't see +why Irish girls should also look so dismal. Fancy that you don't want to +crystallise yourselves: you didn't, the day before yesterday, and you +were not unhappy when it rained then.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span>. Ah! but we do want to-day; and the rain's so tiresome.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> That is to say, children, that because you are all the richer by the +expectation of playing at a new game, you choose to make yourselves +unhappier than when you had nothing to look forward to, but the old +ones.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. But then, to have to wait—wait—wait; and before we've tried +it;—and perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves +uncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick +perhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are as +uncomfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows, when +he would not lie quiet.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. But what <i>are</i> we to do to-day?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there was +nothing better to be done. And to practise patience. I can tell you +children, <i>that</i> requires nearly as much practising as music; and we are +continually losing our lessons when the master comes. Now, to-day, +here's a nice little adagio lesson for us, if we play it properly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_44" id="Pg_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I can't play it properly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel? The more need to practise. +All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in +time. But there must be no hurry.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>. I'm sure there's no music in stopping in on a rainy day.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> There's no music in a 'rest,' Katie, that I know of: but there's the +making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the +life-melody; and scrambling on without counting—not that it's easy to +count; but nothing on which so much depends ever <i>is</i> easy. People are +always talking of perseverance, and courage, and fortitude; but patience +is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude,—and the rarest, too. I +know twenty persevering girls for one patient one: but it is only that +twenty-first who can do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience +lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope +herself ceases to be happiness, when Impatience companions her.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lily</span> <i>sit down on the floor, and fold their +hands. The others follow their example.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>Good children! but that's not quite the way of it, neither. Folded hands +are not necessarily resigned ones. The Patience who really smiles at +grief usually stands, or walks, or even runs: she seldom sits; though +she may sometimes have to do it, for many a day, poor thing, by +monuments; or like Chaucer's, 'with facë pale, upon a hill of sand.' But +we are not reduced to that to-day. Suppose we use this calamitous +forenoon to choose the shapes we are to crystallise into? we know +nothing about them yet.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The pictures of resignation rise from the floor, not in +the patientest manner. General applause.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> <i>(with one or two others</i>). The very thing we wanted to ask you +about!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. We looked at the books about crystals, but they are so dreadful.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_45" id="Pg_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Well, Lily, we must go through a little dreadfulness, that's a fact: +no road to any good knowledge is wholly among the lilies and the grass; +there is rough climbing to be done always. But the crystal-books are a +little <i>too</i> dreadful, most of them, I admit; and we shall have to be +content with very little of their help. You know, as you cannot stand on +each other's heads, you can only make yourselves into the sections of +crystals,—the figures they show when they are cut through; and we will +choose some that will be quite easy. You shall make diamonds of +yourselves——</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh, no, no! we won't be diamonds, please.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Yes, you shall, Isabel; they are very pretty things, if the +jewellers, and the kings and queens, would only let them alone. You +shall make diamonds of yourselves, and rubies of yourselves, and +emeralds; and Irish diamonds; two of those—with Lily in the middle of +one, which will be very orderly, of course; and Kathleen in the middle +of the other, for which we will hope the best;—and you shall make +Derbyshire spar of yourselves, and Iceland spar, and gold, and silver, +and—Quicksilver there's enough of in you, without any making.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Now, you know, the children will be getting quite wild: we must +really get pencils and paper, and begin properly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Wait a minute, Miss Mary; I think as we've the school room clear +to-day, I'll try to give you some notion of the three great orders or +ranks of crystals, into which all the others seem more or less to fall. +We shall only want one figure a day, in the playground; and that can be +drawn in a minute: but the general ideas had better be fastened first. I +must show you a great many minerals; so let me have three tables wheeled +into the three windows, that we may keep our specimens separate;—we +will keep the three orders of crystals on separate tables.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>First Interlude, of pushing and pulling, and spreading of +baize covers.</i> <span class="smcap">Violet,</span> <i>not particularly minding what she is +about, gets herself jammed into a corner, and bid to stand +out of the way; on which she devotes herself to +meditation.</i>)</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_46" id="Pg_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>after interval of meditation</i>). How strange it is that +everything seems to divide into threes!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Everything doesn't divide into threes. Ivy won't, though shamrock +will; and daisies won't, though lilies will.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span>. But all the nicest things seem to divide into threes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Violets won't.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span>. No; I should think not, indeed! But I mean the great things.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I've always heard the globe had four quarters.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Well; but you know you said it hadn't any quarters at all. So +mayn't it really be divided into three?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> If it were divided into no more than three, on the outside of it, +Isabel, it would be a fine world to live in; and if it were divided into +three in the inside of it, it would soon be no world to live in at all.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. We shall never get to the crystals, at this rate. (<i>Aside to</i> +<span class="smcap">Mary</span>.) He will get off into political economy before we know where we +are. (<i>Aloud.</i>) But the crystals are divided into three, then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> No; but there are three general notions by which we may best get hold +of them. Then between these notions there are other notions.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span> (<i>alarmed</i>). A great many? And shall we have to learn them all?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> More than a great many—a quite infinite many. So you cannot learn +them all.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span> (<i>greatly relieved</i>). Then may we only learn the three?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Certainly; unless, when you have got those three notions, you want to +have some more notions;—which would not surprise me. But we'll try for +the three, first. Katie, you broke your coral necklace this morning?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>. Oh! who told you? It was in jumping. I'm so sorry!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> I'm very glad. Can you fetch me the beads of it?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>. I've lost some; here are the rest in my pocket, if I can only +get them out.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> You mean to get them out some day, I suppose; so try now. I want +them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_47" id="Pg_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Kathleen</span> <i>empties her pocket on the floor. The beads +disperse. The School disperses also. Second +Interlude—hunting piece.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. (<i>after waiting patiently for a quarter of an hour, to</i> <span class="smcap">Isabel</span>, <i>who +comes up from under the table with her hair all about her ears, and the +last findable beads in her hand</i>). Mice are useful little things +sometimes. Now, mousie, I want all those beads crystallised. How many +ways are there of putting them in order?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Well, first one would string them, I suppose?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, that's the first way. You cannot string ultimate atoms; but you +can put them in a row, and then they fasten themselves together, +somehow, into a long rod or needle. We will call these +'<i>Needle</i>-crystals.' What would be the next way?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> I suppose, as we are to get together in the playground, when it +stops raining, in different shapes?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; put the beads together, then, in the simplest form you can, to +begin with. Put them into a square, and pack them close.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>after careful endeavour</i>). I can't get them closer.</p> + +<p>L. That will do. Now you may see, beforehand, that if you try to throw +yourselves into square in this confused way, you will never know your +places; so you had better consider every square as made of rods, put +side by side. Take four beads of equal size, first, Isabel; put them +into a little square. That, you may consider as made up of two rods of +two beads each. Then you can make a square a size larger, out of three +rods of three. Then the next square may be a size larger. How many rods, +Lily?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Four rods of four beads each, I suppose.</p> + +<p>L. Yes, and then five rods of five, and so on. But now, look here; make +another square of four beads again. You see they leave a little opening +in the centre.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>pushing two opposite ones closer together</i>). Now they don't.</p> + +<p>L. No; but now it isn't a square; and by pushing the two together you +have pushed the two others farther apart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_48" id="Pg_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> And yet, somehow, they all seem closer than they were!</p> + +<p>L. Yes; for before, each of them only touched two of the others, but now +each of the two in the middle touches the other three. Take away one of +the outsiders, Isabel; now you have three in a triangle—the smallest +triangle you can make out of the beads. Now put a rod of three beads on +at one side. So, you have a triangle of six beads; but just the shape of +the first one. Next a rod of four on the side of that; and you have a +triangle of ten beads: then a rod of five on the side of that; and you +have a triangle of fifteen. Thus you have a square with five beads on +the side, and a triangle with five beads on the side; equal-sided, +therefore, like the square. So, however few or many you may be, you may +soon learn how to crystallise quickly into these two figures, which are +the foundation of form in the commonest, and therefore actually the most +important, as well as in the rarest, and therefore, by our esteem, the +most important, minerals of the world. Look at this in my hand.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> Why, it is leaf-gold!</p> + +<p>L. Yes; but beaten by no man's hammer; or rather, not beaten at all, but +woven. Besides, feel the weight of it. There is gold enough there to +gild the walls and ceiling, if it were beaten thin.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> How beautiful! And it glitters like a leaf covered with frost.</p> + +<p>L. You only think it so beautiful because you know it is gold. It is not +prettier, in reality, than a bit of brass: for it is Transylvanian gold; +and they say there is a foolish gnome in the mines there, who is always +wanting to live in the moon, and so alloys all the gold with a little +silver. I don't know how that may be: but the silver always <i>is</i> in the +gold; and if he does it, it's very provoking of him, for no gold is +woven so fine anywhere else.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> (<i>who has been looking through her magnifying glass</i>). But this is +not woven. This is all made of little triangles.</p> + +<p>L. Say 'patched,' then, if you must be so particular. But if you fancy +all those triangles, small as they are (and many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_49" id="Pg_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> of them are infinitely +small), made up again of rods, and those of grains, as we built our +great triangle of the beads, what word will you take for the +manufacture?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> There's no word—it is beyond words.</p> + +<p>L. Yes; and that would matter little, were it not beyond thoughts too. +But, at all events, this yellow leaf of dead gold, shed, not from the +ruined woodlands, but the ruined rocks, will help you to remember the +second kind of crystals, <i>Leaf</i>-crystals, or <i>Foliated</i> crystals; though +I show you the form in gold first only to make a strong impression on +you, for gold is not generally, or characteristically, crystallised in +leaves; the real type of foliated crystals is this thing, Mica; which if +you once feel well, and break well, you will always know again; and you +will often have occasion to know it, for you will find it everywhere, +nearly, in hill countries.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> If we break it well! May we break it?</p> + +<p>L. To powder, if you like.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Surrenders plate of brown mica to public investigation. +Third Interlude. It sustains severely philosophical +treatment at all hands.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie.</span> (<i>to whom the last fragments have descended</i>) Always leaves, +and leaves, and nothing but leaves, or white dust!</p> + +<p>L. That dust itself is nothing but finer leaves.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Shows them to</i> <span class="smcap">Florrie</span> <i>through magnifying glass.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> (<i>peeping over</i> <span class="smcap">Florrie's</span> <i>shoulder</i>). But then this bit under +the glass looks like that bit out of the glass! If we could break this +bit under the glass, what would it be like?</p> + +<p>L. It would be all leaves still.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> And then if we broke those again?</p> + +<p>L. All less leaves still.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>impatient</i>). And if we broke them again, and again, and again, +and again, and again?</p> + +<p>L. Well, I suppose you would come to a limit, if you could only see it. +Notice that the little flakes already differ somewhat from the large +ones: because I can bend them up and down, and they stay bent; while the +large flake, though it bent easily a little way, sprang back when you +let it go, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_50" id="Pg_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> broke, when you tried to bend it far. And a large mass +would not bend at all.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Would that leaf gold separate into finer leaves, in the same way?</p> + +<p>L. No; and therefore, as I told you, it is not a characteristic specimen +of a foliated crystallisation. The little triangles are portions of +solid crystals, and so they are in this, which looks like a black mica; +but you see it is made up of triangles like the gold, and stands, almost +accurately, as an intermediate link, in crystals, between mica and gold. +Yet this is the commonest, as gold the rarest, of metals.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Is it iron? I never saw iron so bright.</p> + +<p>L. It is rust of iron, finely crystallised: from its resemblance to +mica, it is often called micaceous iron.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> May we break this, too?</p> + +<p>L. No, for I could not easily get such another crystal; besides, it +would not break like the mica; it is much harder. But take the glass +again, and look at the fineness of the jagged edges of the triangles +where they lap over each other. The gold has the same: but you see them +better here, terrace above terrace, countless, and in successive angles, +like superb fortified bastions.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> But all foliated crystals are not made of triangles?</p> + +<p>L. Far from it: mica is occasionally so, but usually of hexagons; and +here is a foliated crystal made of squares, which will show you that the +leaves of the rock-land have their summer green, as well as their +autumnal gold.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie.</span> Oh! oh! oh! (<i>jumps for joy</i>).</p> + +<p>L. Did you never see a bit of green leaf before, Florrie?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie.</span> Yes, but never so bright as that, and not in a stone.</p> + +<p>L. If you will look at the leaves of the trees in sunshine after a +shower, you will find they are much brighter than that; and surely they +are none the worse for being on stalks instead of in stones?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie.</span> Yes, but then there are so many of them, one never looks, I +suppose.</p> + +<p>L. Now you have it, Florrie.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_51" id="Pg_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>sighing</i>). There are so many beautiful things we never see!</p> + +<p>L. You need not sigh for that, Violet; but I will tell you what we +should all sigh for,—that there are so many ugly things we never see.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> But we don't want to see ugly things!</p> + +<p>L. You had better say, 'We don't want to suffer them.' You ought to be +glad in thinking how much more beauty God has made, than human eyes can +ever see; but not glad in thinking how much more evil man has made, than +his own soul can ever conceive, much more than his hands can ever heal.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> I don't understand;—how is that like the leaves?</p> + +<p>L. The same law holds in our neglect of multiplied pain, as in our +neglect of multiplied beauty. Florrie jumps for joy at sight of half an +inch of a green leaf in a brown stone; and takes more notice of it than +of all the green in the wood: and you, or I, or any of us, would be +unhappy if any single human creature beside us were in sharp pain; but +we can read, at breakfast, day after day, of men being killed, and of +women and children dying of hunger, faster than the leaves strew the +brooks in Vallombrosa;—and then go out to play croquet, as if nothing +had happened.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> But we do not see the people being killed or dying.</p> + +<p>L. You did not see your brother, when you got the telegram the other +day, saying he was ill, May; but you cried for him and played no +croquet. But we cannot talk of these things now; and what is more, you +must let me talk straight on, for a little while; and ask no questions +till I've done: for we branch ('exfoliate,' I should say, +mineralogically) always into something else,—though that's my fault +more than yours; but I must go straight on now. You have got a distinct +notion, I hope, of leaf-crystals; and you see the sort of look they +have: you can easily remember that 'folium' is Latin for a leaf, and +that the separate flakes of mica, or any other such stones, are called +'folia;' but, because mica is the most characteristic of these stones, +other things that are like it in structure are called 'micas;' thus we +have Uran-mica, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_52" id="Pg_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> is the green leaf I showed you; and Copper-mica, +which is another like it, made chiefly of copper; and this foliated iron +is called 'micaceous iron.' You have then these two great orders, +Needle-crystals, made (probably) of grains in rows; and Leaf-crystals, +made (probably) of needles interwoven; now, lastly, there are crystals +of a third order, in heaps, or knots, or masses, which may be made, +either of leaves laid one upon another, or of needles bound like Roman +fasces; and mica itself, when it is well crystallised, puts itself into +such masses, as if to show us how others are made. Here is a brown +six-sided crystal, quite as beautifully chiselled at the sides as any +castle tower; but you see it is entirely built of folia of mica, one +laid above another, which break away the moment I touch the edge with my +knife. Now, here is another hexagonal tower, of just the same size and +colour, which I want you to compare with the mica carefully; but as I +cannot wait for you to do it just now, I must tell you quickly what main +differences to look for. First, you will feel it is far heavier than the +mica. Then, though its surface looks quite micaceous in the folia of it, +when you try them with the knife, you will find you cannot break them +away——</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> May I try?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, you mistrusting Katie. Here's my strong knife for you. +(<i>Experimental pause.</i> <span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>, <i>doing her best.</i>) You'll have that +knife shutting on your finger presently, Kate; and I don't know a girl +who would like less to have her hand tied up for a week.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span> (<i>who also does not like to be beaten—giving up the knife +despondently</i>). What <i>can</i> the nasty hard thing be?</p> + +<p>L. It is nothing but indurated clay, Kate: very hard set certainly, yet +not so hard as it might be. If it were thoroughly well crystallised, you +would see none of those micaceous fractures; and the stone would be +quite red and clear, all through.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> Oh, cannot you show us one?</p> + +<p>L. Egypt can, if you ask her; she has a beautiful one in the clasp of +her favourite bracelet.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> Why, that's a ruby!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_53" id="Pg_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. Well, so is that thing you've been scratching at.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> My goodness!</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Takes up the stone again, very delicately; and drops it. +General consternation.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. Never mind, Katie; you might drop it from the top of the house, and +do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and as +good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your faults, +like other people; and, if I were you, the next time I wanted to assert +anything energetically, I would assert it by 'my badness,' not 'my +goodness.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> Ah, now, it's too bad of you!</p> + +<p>L. Well, then, I'll invoke, on occasion, my 'too-badness.' But you may +as well pick up the ruby, now you have dropped it; and look carefully at +the beautiful hexagonal lines which gleam on its surface; and here is a +pretty white sapphire (essentially the same stone as the ruby), in which +you will see the same lovely structure, like the threads of the finest +white cobweb. I do not know what is the exact method of a ruby's +construction; but you see by these lines, what fine construction there +<i>is</i>, even in this hardest of stones (after the diamond), which usually +appears as a massive lump or knot. There is therefore no real +mineralogical distinction between needle crystals and knotted crystals, +but, practically, crystallised masses throw themselves into one of the +three groups we have been examining to-day; and appear either as +Needles, as Folia, or as Knots; when they are in needles (or fibres), +they make the stones or rocks formed out of them '<i>fibrous</i>;' when they +are in folia, they make them '<i>foliated</i>;' when they are in knots (or +grains), '<i>granular</i>.' Fibrous rocks are comparatively rare, in mass; +but fibrous minerals are innumerable; and it is often a question which +really no one but a young lady could possibly settle, whether one should +call the fibres composing them 'threads' or 'needles.' Here is +amianthus, for instance, which is quite as fine and soft as any cotton +thread you ever sewed with; and here is sulphide of bismuth, with +sharper points and brighter lustre than your finest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_54" id="Pg_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> needles have; and +fastened in white webs of quartz more delicate than your finest lace; +and here is sulphide of antimony, which looks like mere purple wool, but +it is all of purple needle crystals; and here is red oxide of copper +(you must not breathe on it as you look, or you may blow some of the +films of it off the stone), which is simply a woven tissue of scarlet +silk. However, these finer thread forms are comparatively rare, while +the bolder and needle-like crystals occur constantly; so that, I +believe, 'Needle-crystal' is the best word (the grand one is 'Acicular +crystal,' but Sibyl will tell you it is all the same, only less easily +understood; and therefore more scientific). Then the Leaf-crystals, as I +said, form an immense mass of foliated rocks; and the Granular crystals, +which are of many kinds, form essentially granular, or granitic and +porphyritic rocks; and it is always a point of more interest to me (and +I think will ultimately be to you), to consider the causes which force a +given mineral to take any one of these three general forms, than what +the peculiar geometrical limitations are, belonging to its own +crystals.<a name="FNanchor_150_150" id="FNanchor_150_150"></a><a href="#Footnote_150_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a> It is more interesting to me, for instance, to try and +find out why the red oxide of copper, usually crystallising in cubes or +octahedrons, makes itself exquisitely, out of its cubes, into this red +silk in one particular Cornish mine, than what are the absolutely +necessary angles of the octahedron, which is its common form. At all +events, that mathematical part of crystallography is quite beyond girls' +strength; but these questions of the various tempers and manners of +crystals are not only comprehensible by you, but full of the most +curious teaching for you. For in the fulfilment, to the best of their +power, of their adopted form under given circumstances, there are +conditions entirely resembling those of human virtue; and indeed +expressible under no term so proper as that of the Virtue, or Courage of +crystals:—which, if you are not afraid of the crystals making you +ashamed of yourselves, we will try to get some notion of, to-morrow. But +it will be a bye-lecture, and more about yourselves than the minerals, +Don't come unless you like.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_55" id="Pg_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> I'm sure the crystals will make us ashamed of ourselves; but we'll +come, for all that.</p> + +<p>L. Meantime, look well and quietly over these needle, or thread +crystals, and those on the other two tables, with magnifying glasses, +and see what thoughts will come into your little heads about them. For +the best thoughts are generally those which come without being forced, +one does not know how. And so I hope you will get through your wet day +patiently.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_150_150" id="Footnote_150_150"></a><a href="#FNanchor_150_150"><span class="label">[150]</span></a> Note iv.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_56" id="Pg_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE V.</h2> + +<h3><i>CRYSTAL VIRTUES.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>A quiet talk, in the afternoon, by the sunniest window of +the Drawing-room. Present</i>, <span class="smcap">Florrie</span>, <span class="smcap">Isabel</span>, <span class="smcap">May</span>, <span class="smcap">Lucilla</span>, +<span class="smcap">Kathleen</span>, <span class="smcap">Dora</span>, <span class="smcap">Mary</span>, <i>and some others, who have saved time +for the bye-Lecture.</i></p></div> + + +<p>L. So you have really come, like good girls, to be made ashamed of +yourselves?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>very meekly</i>). No, we needn't be made so; we always are.</p> + +<p>L. Well, I believe that's truer than most pretty speeches: but you know, +you saucy girl, some people have more reason to be so than others. Are +you sure everybody is, as well as you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The General Voice.</span> Yes, yes; everybody.</p> + +<p>L. What! Florrie ashamed of herself?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Florrie</span> <i>hides behind the curtain.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. And Isabel?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>hides under the table.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. And May?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">May</span> <i>runs into the corner behind the piano.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. And Lucilla?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Lucilla</span> <i>hides her face in her hands.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. Dear, dear; but this will never do. I shall have to tell you of the +faults of the crystals, instead of virtues, to put you in heart again.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span> (<i>coming out of her corner</i>). Oh! have the crystals faults, like us?</p> + +<p>L. Certainly, May. Their best virtues are shown in fighting their +faults. And some have a great many faults; and some are very naughty +crystals indeed.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span> (<i>from behind her curtain</i>). As naughty as me?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>peeping from under the table cloth</i>). Or me?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_57" id="Pg_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. Well, I don't know. They never forget their syntax, children, when +once they've been taught it. But I think some of them are, on the whole, +worse than any of you. Not that it's amiable of you to look so radiant, +all in a minute, on that account.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Oh! but it's so much more comfortable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Everybody seems to recover their spirits. Eclipse of</i> +<span class="smcap">Florrie</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>terminates.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. What kindly creatures girls are, after all, to their neighbours' +failings! I think you may be ashamed of yourselves indeed, now, +children! I can tell you, you shall hear of the highest crystalline +merits that I can think of, to-day: and I wish there were more of them; +but crystals have a limited, though a stern, code of morals; and their +essential virtues are but two;—the first is to be pure, and the second +to be well shaped.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Pure! Does that mean clear—transparent?</p> + +<p>L. No; unless in the case of a transparent substance. You cannot have a +transparent crystal of gold; but you may have a perfectly pure one.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> But you said it was the shape that made things be crystals; +therefore, oughtn't their shape to be their first virtue, not their +second?</p> + +<p>L. Right, you troublesome mousie. But I call their shape only their +second virtue, because it depends on time and accident, and things which +the crystal cannot help. If it is cooled too quickly, or shaken, it must +take what shape it can; but it seems as if, even then, it had in itself +the power of rejecting impurity, if it has crystalline life enough. Here +is a crystal of quartz, well enough shaped in its way; but it seems to +have been languid and sick at heart; and some white milky substance has +got into it, and mixed itself up with it, all through. It makes the +quartz quite yellow, if you hold it up to the light, and milky blue on +the surface. Here is another, broken into a thousand separate facets, +and out of all traceable shape; but as pure as a mountain spring. I like +this one best.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_58" id="Pg_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Audience.</span> So do I—and I—and I.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Would a crystallographer?</p> + +<p>L. I think so. He would find many more laws curiously exemplified in the +irregularly grouped but pure crystal. But it is a futile question, this +of first or second. Purity is in most cases a prior, if not a nobler, +virtue; at all events it is most convenient to think about it first.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But what ought we to think about it? Is there much to be +thought—I mean, much to puzzle one?</p> + +<p>L. I don't know what you call 'much.' It is a long time since I met with +anything in which there was little. There's not much in this, perhaps. +The crystal must be either dirty or clean,—and there's an end. So it is +with one's hands, and with one's heart—only you can wash your hands +without changing them, but not hearts, nor crystals. On the whole, while +you are young, it will be as well to take care that your hearts don't +want much washing; for they may perhaps need wringing also, when they +do.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Audience doubtful and uncomfortable.</i> <span class="smcap">Lucilla</span> <i>at last +takes courage.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh! but surely, sir, we cannot make our hearts clean?</p> + +<p>L. Not easily, Lucilla; so you had better keep them so when they are.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> When they are! But, sir—</p> + +<p>L. Well?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Sir—surely—are we not told that they are all evil?</p> + +<p>L. Wait a little, Lucilla; that is difficult ground you are getting +upon; and we must keep to our crystals, till at least we understand what +<i>their</i> good and evil consist in; they may help us afterwards to some +useful hints about our own. I said that their goodness consisted chiefly +in purity of substance, and perfectness of form: but those are rather +the <i>effects</i> of their goodness, than the goodness itself. The inherent +virtues of the crystals, resulting in these outer conditions, might +really seem to be best described in the words we should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_59" id="Pg_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> use respecting +living creatures—'force of heart' and steadiness of purpose.' There +seem to be in some crystals, from the beginning, an unconquerable purity +of vital power, and strength of crystal spirit. Whatever dead substance, +unacceptant of this energy, comes in their way, is either rejected, or +forced to take some beautiful subordinate form; the purity of the +crystal remains unsullied, and every atom of it bright with coherent +energy. Then the second condition is, that from the beginning of its +whole structure, a fine crystal seems to have determined that it will be +of a certain size and of a certain shape; it persists in this plan, and +completes it. Here is a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an +unusual form, and one which it might seem very difficult to build—a +pyramid with convex sides, composed of other minor pyramids. But there +is not a flaw in its contour throughout; not one of its myriads of +component sides but is as bright as a jeweller's facetted work (and far +finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp as +javelins; their edges will cut glass with a touch. Anything more +resolute, consummate, determinate in form, cannot be conceived. Here, on +the other hand, is a crystal of the same substance, in a perfectly +simple type of form—a plain six-sided prism; but from its base to its +point,—and it is nine inches long,—it has never for one instant made +up its mind what thickness it will have. It seems to have begun by +making itself as thick as it thought possible with the quantity of +material at command. Still not being as thick as it would like to be, it +has clumsily glued on more substance at one of its sides. Then it has +thinned itself, in a panic of economy; then puffed itself out again; +then starved one side to enlarge another; then warped itself quite out +of its first line. Opaque, rough-surfaced, jagged on the edge, distorted +in the spine, it exhibits a quite human image of decrepitude and +dishonour; but the worst of all the signs of its decay and helplessness, +is that half-way up, a parasite crystal, smaller, but just as sickly, +has rooted itself in the side of the larger one, eating out a cavity +round its root, and then growing backwards, or downwards, contrary to +the direction of the main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the least +difference in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_60" id="Pg_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> purity of substance between the first most noble stone, +and this ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of the last is in its +will, or want of will.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Oh, if we could but understand the meaning of it all!</p> + +<p>L. We can understand all that is good for us. It is just as true for us, +as for the crystal, that the nobleness of life depends on its +consistency,—clearness of purpose,—quiet and ceaseless energy. All +doubt, and repenting, and botching, and retouching, and wondering what +it will be best to do next, are vice, as well as misery.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> (<i>much wondering</i>). But must not one repent when one does wrong, +and hesitate when one can't see one's way?</p> + +<p>L. You have no business at all to do wrong; nor to get into any way that +you cannot see. Your intelligence should always be far in advance of +your act. Whenever you do not know what you are about, you are sure to +be doing wrong.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> Oh, dear, but I never know what I am about!</p> + +<p>L. Very true, Katie, but it is a great deal to know, if you know that. +And you find that you have done wrong afterwards; and perhaps some day +you may begin to know, or at least, think, what you are about.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> But surely people can't do very wrong if they don't know, can +they? I mean, they can't be very naughty. They can be wrong, like +Kathleen or me, when we make mistakes; but not wrong in the dreadful +way. I can't express what I mean; but there are two sorts of wrong are +there not?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, Isabel; but you will find that the great difference is between +kind and unkind wrongs, not between meant and unmeant wrong. Very few +people really mean to do wrong,—in a deep sense, none. They only don't +know what they are about. Cain did not mean to do wrong when he killed +Abel.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Isabel</span> <i>draws a deep breath, and opens her eyes very +wide.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. No, Isabel; and there are countless Cains among us now, who kill +their brothers by the score a day, not only for less provocation than +Cain had, but for <i>no</i> provocation,—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_61" id="Pg_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> merely for what they can make +of their bones,—yet do not think they are doing wrong in the least. +Then sometimes you have the business reversed, as over in America these +last years, where you have seen Abel resolutely killing Cain, and not +thinking he is doing wrong. The great difficulty is always to open +people's eyes: to touch their feelings, and break their hearts, is easy; +the difficult thing is to break their heads. What does it matter, as +long as they remain stupid, whether you change their feelings or not? +You cannot be always at their elbow to tell them what is right: and they +may just do as wrong as before, or worse; and their best intentions +merely make the road smooth for them,—you know where, children. For it +is not the place itself that is paved with them, as people say so often. +You can't pave the bottomless pit; but you may the road to it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> Well, but if people do as well as they can see how, surely that is +the right for them, isn't it?</p> + +<p>L. No, May, not a bit of it; right is right, and wrong is wrong. It is +only the fool who does wrong, and says he 'did it for the best.' And if +there's one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of +than another, it is fools. Their particular and chief way of saying +'There is no God' is this, of declaring that whatever their 'public +opinion' may be, is right: and that God's opinion is of no consequence.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> But surely nobody can always know what is right?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if you do what you see of it +to-day, you will see more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow. Here, for +instance, you children are at school, and have to learn French, and +arithmetic, and music, and several other such things. That is your +'right' for the present; the 'right' for us, your teachers, is to see +that you learn as much as you can, without spoiling your dinner, your +sleep, or your play; and that what you do learn, you learn well. You all +know when you learn with a will, and when you dawdle. There's no doubt +of conscience about that, I suppose?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> No; but if one wants to read an amusing book, instead of +learning one's lesson?</p> + +<p>L. You don't call that a 'question,' seriously, Violet? You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_62" id="Pg_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> are then +merely deciding whether you will resolutely do wrong or not.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But, in after life, how many fearful difficulties may arise, +however one tries to know or to do what is right!</p> + +<p>L. You are much too sensible a girl, Mary, to have felt that, whatever +you may have seen. A great many of young ladies' difficulties arise from +their falling in love with a wrong person: but they have no business to +let themselves fall in love, till they know he is the right one.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> How many thousands ought he to have a year?</p> + +<p>L. (<i>disdaining reply</i>). There are, of course, certain crises of fortune +when one has to take care of oneself, and mind shrewdly what one is +about. There is never any real doubt about the path, but you may have to +walk very slowly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has +authority over you?</p> + +<p>L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the guilt is +in the will: but you may any day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you +might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in such +cases being, that it is always unfortunate <i>you</i> who are poisoned, and +not the person who gives you the dose. It is a very strange law, but it +<i>is</i> a law. Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal +operation of arsenic. She never troubles herself to ask who gave it you. +So also you may be starved to death, morally as well as physically, by +other people's faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting +here to-day;—do you think that your goodness comes all by your own +contriving? or that you are gentle and kind because your dispositions +are naturally more angelic than those of the poor girls who are playing, +with wild eyes, on the dustheaps in the alleys of our great towns; and +who will one day fill their prisons,—or, better, their graves? Heaven +only knows where they, and we who have cast them there, shall stand at +last. But the main judgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us, +'Did you keep a good heart through it?' What you were, others may answer +for;—what you tried to be, you must answer for, yourself. Was the heart +pure and true—tell us that?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_63" id="Pg_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>And so we come back to your sorrowful question, Lucilla, which I put +aside a little ago. You would be afraid to answer that your heart <i>was</i> +pure and true, would not you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Yes, indeed, sir.</p> + +<p>L. Because you have been taught that it is all evil—'only evil +continually.' Somehow, often as people say that, they never seem, to me, +to believe it? Do you really believe it?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Yes, sir; I hope so.</p> + +<p>L. That you have an entirely bad heart?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla</span> (<i>a little uncomfortable at the substitution of the monosyllable +for the dissyllable, nevertheless persisting in her orthodoxy</i>). Yes, +sir.</p> + +<p>L. Florrie, I am sure you are tired; I never like you to stay when you +are tired; but, you know, you must not play with the kitten while we're +talking.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie.</span> Oh! but I'm not tired; and I'm only nursing her. She'll be +asleep in my lap directly.</p> + +<p>L. Stop! that puts me in mind of something I had to show you, about +minerals that are like hair. I want a hair out of Tittie's tail.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Florrie</span> (<i>quite rude, in her surprise, even to the point of repeating +expressions</i>). Out of Tittie's tail!</p> + +<p>L. Yes; a brown one: Lucilla, you can get at the tip of it nicely, under +Florrie's arm; just pull one out for me.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh! but, sir, it will hurt her so!</p> + +<p>L. Never mind; she can't scratch you while Florrie is holding her. Now +that I think of it, you had better pull out two.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> But then she may scratch Florrie! and it will hurt her so, sir! +if you only want brown hairs, wouldn't two of mine do?</p> + +<p>L. Would you really rather pull out your own than Tittie's?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh, of course, if mine will do.</p> + +<p>L. But that's very wicked, Lucilla!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Wicked, sir?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; if your heart was not so bad, you would much rather pull all the +cat's hairs out, than one of your own.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh! but sir, I didn't mean bad, like that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_64" id="Pg_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. I believe, if the truth were told, Lucilla, you would like to tie a +kettle to Tittie's tail, and hunt her round the playground.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Indeed, I should not, sir.</p> + +<p>L. That's not true, Lucilla; you know it cannot be.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Sir?</p> + +<p>L. Certainly it is not;—how can you possibly speak any truth out of +such a heart as you have? It is wholly deceitful.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh! no, no; I don't mean that way; I don't mean that it makes +me tell lies, quite out.</p> + +<p>L. Only that it tells lies within you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Yes.</p> + +<p>L. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, and say so; and I may +trust the outside of your heart; but within, it is all foul and false. +Is that the way?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> I suppose so: I don't understand it, quite.</p> + +<p>L. There is no occasion for understanding it; but do you feel it? Are +you sure that your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately +wicked?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla</span> (<i>much relieved by finding herself among phrases with which she +is acquainted</i>). Yes, sir. I'm sure of that.</p> + +<p>L. (<i>pensively</i>). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> So am I, indeed.</p> + +<p>L. What are you sorry with, Lucilla?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Sorry with, sir?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; I mean, where do you feel sorry? in your feet?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla</span> (<i>laughing a little</i>). No, sir, of course.</p> + +<p>L. In your shoulders, then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> No, sir.</p> + +<p>L. You are sure of that? Because, I fear, sorrow in the shoulders would +not be worth much.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> I suppose I feel it in my heart, if I really am sorry.</p> + +<p>L. If you really are! Do you mean to say that you are sure you are +utterly wicked, and yet do not care?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> No, indeed; I have cried about it often.</p> + +<p>L. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Yes, when the sorrow is worth anything.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_65" id="Pg_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere else but there. It is not +the crystalline lens of your eyes which is sorry, when you cry?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> No, sir, of course.</p> + +<p>L. Then, have you two hearts; one of which is wicked, and the other +grieved? or is one side of it sorry for the other side?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla</span> (<i>weary of cross-examination, and a little vexed</i>). Indeed, sir, +you know I can't understand it; but you know how it is written—'another +law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.'</p> + +<p>L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but I do not see that it will +help us to know that, if we neither understand what is written, nor feel +it. And you will not get nearer to the meaning of one verse, if, as soon +as you are puzzled by it, you escape to another, introducing three new +words—'law,' 'members,' and 'mind'; not one of which you at present +know the meaning of; and respecting which, you probably never will be +much wiser; since men like Montesquieu and Locke have spent great part +of their lives in endeavouring to explain two of them.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh! please, sir, ask somebody else.</p> + +<p>L. If I thought anyone else could answer better than you, Lucilla, I +would; but suppose I try, instead, myself, to explain your feelings to +you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Oh, yes; please do.</p> + +<p>L. Mind, I say your 'feelings,' not your 'belief.' For I cannot +undertake to explain anybody's beliefs. Still I must try a little, +first, to explain the belief also, because I want to draw it to some +issue. As far as I understand what you say, or any one else, taught as +you have been taught, says, on this matter,—you think that there is an +external goodness, a whited-sepulchre kind of goodness, which appears +beautiful outwardly, but is within full of uncleanness: a deep secret +guilt, of which we ourselves are not sensible; and which can only be +seen by the Maker of us all. (<i>Approving murmurs from audience.</i>)</p> + +<p>L. Is it not so with the body as well as the soul?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Looked notes of interrogation.</i>)</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_66" id="Pg_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful thing?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Grave faces, signifying 'Certainly not,' and 'What +next?'</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. And if you all could see in each other, with clear eyes, whatever God +sees beneath those fair faces of yours, you would not like it?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Murmured 'No's.'</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. Nor would it be good for you?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Silence.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. The probability being that what God does not allow you to see, He +does not wish you to see; nor even to think of?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Silence prolonged.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. It would not at all be good for you, for instance, whenever you were +washing your faces, and braiding your hair, to be thinking of the shapes +of the jawbones, and of the cartilage of the nose, and of the jagged +sutures of the scalp?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Resolutely whispered No's.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. Still less, to see through a clear glass the daily processes of +nourishment and decay?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>No.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. Still less if instead of merely inferior and preparatory conditions +of structure, as in the skeleton,—or inferior offices of structure, as +in operations of life and death,—there were actual disease in the body; +ghastly and dreadful. You would try to cure it; but having taken such +measures as were necessary, you would not think the cure likely to be +promoted by perpetually watching the wounds, or thinking of them. On the +contrary, you would be thankful for every moment of forgetfulness: as, +in daily health, you must be thankful that your Maker has veiled +whatever is fearful in your frame under a sweet and manifest beauty; and +has made it your duty, and your only safety, to rejoice in that, both in +yourself and in others:—not indeed concealing, or refusing to believe +in sickness, if it come; but never dwelling on it.</p> + +<p>Now, your wisdom and duty touching soul-sickness are just the same. +Ascertain clearly what is wrong with you; and so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_67" id="Pg_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> far as you know any +means of mending it, take those means, and have done: when you are +examining yourself, never call yourself merely a 'sinner,' that is very +cheap abuse; and utterly useless. You may even get to like it, and be +proud of it. But call yourself a liar, a coward, a sluggard, a glutton, +or an evil-eyed jealous wretch, if you indeed find yourself to be in any +wise any of these. Take steady means to check yourself in whatever fault +you have ascertained, and justly accused yourself of. And as soon as you +are in active way of mending, you will be no more inclined to moan over +an undefined corruption. For the rest, you will find it less easy to +uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of +your faults; still less of others' faults: in every person who comes +near you, look for what is good and strong: honour that; rejoice in it; +and, as you can, try to imitate it: and your faults will drop off, like +dead leaves, when their time comes. If, on looking back, your whole life +should seem rugged as a palm tree stem; still, never mind, so long as it +has been growing; and has its grand green shade of leaves, and weight of +honied fruit, at top. And even if you cannot find much good in yourself +at last, think that it does not much matter to the universe either what +you were, or are; think how many people are noble, if you cannot be; and +rejoice in <i>their</i> nobleness. An immense quantity of modern confession +of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism; which will rather +gloat over its own evil, than lose the centralisation of its interest in +itself.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But then, if we ought to forget ourselves so much, how did the old +Greek proverb 'Know thyself' come to be so highly esteemed?</p> + +<p>L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and the +sun's;—but do you think you can know yourself by looking <i>into</i> +yourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking <i>out</i> of +yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare your own +interests with those of others; try to understand what you appear to +them, as well as what they appear to you; and judge of yourselves, in +all things, relatively and subordinately; not positively:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_68" id="Pg_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> starting +always with a wholesome conviction of the probability that there is +nothing particular about you. For instance, some of you perhaps think +you can write poetry. Dwell on your own feelings and doings:—and you +will soon think yourselves Tenth Muses; but forget your own feelings; +and try, instead, to understand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante: and +you will soon begin to feel yourselves very foolish girls—which is much +like the fact.</p> + +<p>So, something which befalls you may seem a great misfortune;—you +meditate over its effects on you personally; and begin to think that it +is a chastisement, or a warning, or a this or that or the other of +profound significance; and that all the angels in heaven have left their +business for a little while, that they may watch its effects on your +mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence of your fancy; examine a +little what misfortunes, greater a thousandfold, are happening, every +second, to twenty times worthier persons: and your self-consciousness +will change into pity and humility; and you will know yourself, so far +as to understand that 'there hath nothing taken thee but what is common +to man.'</p> + +<p>Now, Lucilla, these are the practical conclusions which any person of +sense would arrive at, supposing the texts which relate to the inner +evil of the heart were as many, and as prominent, as they are often +supposed to be by careless readers. But the way in which common people +read their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought +hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said), over and +over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What fruit stuck to their +spines, they carried off, and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll +themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks +to their own spines is Scripture; and that nothing else is. But you can +only get the skins of the texts that way. If you want their juice, you +must press them in cluster. Now, the clustered texts about the human +heart, insist, as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, +but on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones. 'A +good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that +which is good; and an evil man, out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_69" id="Pg_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> the evil treasure, bringeth +forth that which is evil.' 'They on the rock are they which, in an +honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it.' 'Delight thyself +in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.' 'The +wicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him that is +upright in heart.' And so on; they are countless, to the same effect. +And, for all of us, the question is not at all to ascertain how much or +how little corruption there is in human nature; but to ascertain +whether, out of all the mass of that nature, we are of the sheep or the +goat breed; whether we are people of upright heart, being shot at, or +people of crooked heart, shooting. And, of all the texts bearing on the +subject, this, which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one +you have chiefly to hold in mind. 'Keep thy heart with all diligence, +for out of it are the issues of life.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> And yet, how inconsistent the texts seem!</p> + +<p>L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the universe is bound to look +consistent to a girl of fifteen? Look up at your own room window;—you +can just see it from where you sit. I'm glad that it is left open, as it +ought to be, in so fine a day. But do you see what a black spot it +looks, in the sunlighted wall?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Yes, it looks as black as ink.</p> + +<p>L. Yet you know it is a very bright room when you are inside of it; +quite as bright as there is any occasion for it to be, that its little +lady may see to keep it tidy. Well, it is very probable, also, that if +you could look into your heart from the sun's point of view, it might +appear a very black hole indeed; nay, the sun may sometimes think good +to tell you that it looks so to Him; but He will come into it, and make +it very cheerful for you, for all that, if you don't put the shutters +up. And the one question for <i>you</i>, remember, is not 'dark or light?' +but 'tidy or untidy?' Look well to your sweeping and garnishing; and be +sure it is only the banished spirit, or some of the seven wickeder ones +at his back, who will still whisper to you that it is all black.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_70" id="Pg_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE VI.</h2> + +<h3><i>CRYSTAL QUARRELS.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Full conclave, in Schoolroom. There has been a game at +crystallisation in the morning, of which various account has +to be rendered. In particular, everybody has to explain why +they were always where they were not intended to be.</i></p></div> + + +<p>L. (<i>having received and considered the report</i>). You have got on pretty +well, children: but you know these were easy figures you have been +trying. Wait till I have drawn you out the plans of some crystals of +snow!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> I don't think those will be the most difficult:—they are so +beautiful that we shall remember our places better; and then they are +all regular, and in stars: it is those twisty oblique ones we are afraid +of.</p> + +<p>L. Read Carlyle's account of the battle of Leuthen, and learn +Freidrich's 'oblique order.' You will 'get it done for once, I think, +provided you <i>can</i> march as a pair of compasses would.' But remember, +when you can construct the most difficult single figures, you have only +learned half the game—nothing so much as the half, indeed, as the +crystals themselves play it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Indeed; what else is there?</p> + +<p>L. It is seldom that any mineral crystallises alone. Usually two or +three, under quite different crystalline laws, form together. They do +this absolutely without flaw or fault, when they are in fine temper: and +observe what this signifies. It signifies that the two, or more, +minerals of different natures agree, somehow, between themselves, how +much space each will want;—agree which of them shall give away to the +other at their junction; or in what measure each will accommodate itself +to the other's shape! And then each takes its permitted shape, and +allotted share of space; yielding, or being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_71" id="Pg_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> yielded to, as it builds, +till each crystal has fitted itself perfectly and gracefully to its +differently-natured neighbour. So that, in order to practise this, in +even the simplest terms, you must divide into two parties, wearing +different colours; each must choose a different figure to construct; and +you must form one of these figures through the other, both going on at +the same time.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> I think <i>we</i> may, perhaps, manage it; but I cannot at all +understand how the crystals do. It seems to imply so much preconcerting +of plan, and so much giving way to each other, as if they really were +living.</p> + +<p>L. Yes, it implies both concurrence and compromise, regulating all +wilfulness of design: and, more curious still, the crystals do <i>not</i> +always give way to each other. They show exactly the same varieties of +temper that human creatures might. Sometimes they yield the required +place with perfect grace and courtesy; forming fantastic, but +exquisitely finished groups: and sometimes they will not yield at all; +but fight furiously for their places, losing all shape and honour, and +even their own likeness, in the contest.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But is not that wholly wonderful? How is it that one never sees it +spoken of in books?</p> + +<p>L. The scientific men are all busy in determining the constant laws +under which the struggle takes place; these indefinite humours of the +elements are of no interest to them. And unscientific people rarely give +themselves the trouble of thinking at all when they look at stones. Not +that it is of much use to think; the more one thinks, the more one is +puzzled.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Surely it is more wonderful than anything in botany?</p> + +<p>L. Everything has its own wonders; but, given the nature of the plant, +it is easier to understand what a flower will do, and why it does it, +than, given anything we as yet know of stone-nature, to understand what +a crystal will do, and why it does it. You at once admit a kind of +volition and choice, in the flower, but we are not accustomed to +attribute anything of the kind to the crystal. Yet there is, in reality, +more likeness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_72" id="Pg_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> to some conditions of human feeling among stones than +among plants. There is a far greater difference between kindly-tempered +and ill-tempered crystals of the same mineral, than between any two +specimens of the same flower: and the friendships and wars of crystals +depend more definitely and curiously on their varieties of disposition, +than any associations of flowers. Here, for instance, is a good garnet, +living with good mica; one rich red, and the other silver white: the +mica leaves exactly room enough for the garnet to crystallise +comfortably in; and the garnet lives happily in its little white house; +fitted to it, like a pholas in its cell. But here are wicked garnets +living with wicked mica. See what ruin they make of each other! You +cannot tell which is which; the garnets look like dull red stains on the +crumbling stone. By the way, I never could understand, if St. Gothard is +a real saint, why he can't keep his garnets in better order. These are +all under his care; but I suppose there are too many of them for him to +look after. The streets of Airolo are paved with them.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> Paved with garnets?</p> + +<p>L. With mica-slate and garnets; I broke this bit out of a paving stone. +Now garnets and mica are natural friends, and generally fond of each +other; but you see how they quarrel when they are ill brought up. So it +is always. Good crystals are friendly with almost all other good +crystals, however little they chance to see of each other, or however +opposite their habits may be; while wicked crystals quarrel with one +another, though they may be exactly alike in habits, and see each other +continually. And of course the wicked crystals quarrel with the good +ones.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Then do the good ones get angry?</p> + +<p>L. No, never: they attend to their own work and life; and live it as +well as they can, though they are always the sufferers. Here, for +instance, is a rock-crystal of the purest race and finest temper, who +was born, unhappily for him, in a bad neighbourhood, near Beaufort in +Savoy; and he has had to fight with vile calcareous mud all his life. +See here, when he was but a child, it came down on him, and nearly +buried him; a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_73" id="Pg_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> weaker crystal would have died in despair; but he only +gathered himself together, like Hercules against the serpents, and threw +a layer of crystal over the clay; conquered it,—imprisoned it,—and +lived on. Then, when he was a little older, came more clay; and poured +itself upon him here, at the side; and he has laid crystal over that, +and lived on, in his purity. Then the clay came on at his angles, and +tried to cover them, and round them away; but upon that he threw out +buttress-crystals at his angles, all as true to his own central line as +chapels round a cathedral apse; and clustered them round the clay; and +conquered it again. At last the clay came on at his summit, and tried to +blunt his summit; but he could not endure that for an instant; and left +his flanks all rough, but pure; and fought the clay at his crest, and +built crest over crest, and peak over peak, till the clay surrendered at +last; and here is his summit, smooth and pure, terminating a pyramid of +alternate clay and crystal, half a foot high!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Oh, how nice of him! What a dear, brave crystal! But I can't bear +to see his flanks all broken, and the clay within them.</p> + +<p>L. Yes; it was an evil chance for him, the being born to such +contention; there are some enemies so base that even to hold them +captive is a kind of dishonour. But look, here has been quite a +different kind of struggle: the adverse power has been more orderly, and +has fought the pure crystal in ranks as firm as its own. This is not +mere rage and impediment of crowded evil: here is a disciplined +hostility; army against army.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Oh, but this is much more beautiful!</p> + +<p>L. Yes, for both the elements have true virtue in them; it is a pity +they are at war, but they war grandly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But is this the same clay as in the other crystal?</p> + +<p>L. I used the word clay for shortness. In both, the enemy is really +limestone; but in the first, disordered, and mixed with true clay; +while, here, it is nearly pure, and crystallises into its own primitive +form, the oblique six-sided one, which you know: and out of these it +makes regiments; and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_74" id="Pg_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> squares of the regiments, and so charges the +rock crystal literally in square against column.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Please, please, let me see. And what does the rock crystal do?</p> + +<p>L. The rock crystal seems able to do nothing. The calcite cuts it +through at every charge. Look here,—and here! The loveliest crystal in +the whole group is hewn fairly into two pieces.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Oh, dear; but is the calcite harder than the crystal then?</p> + +<p>L. No, softer. Very much softer.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But then, how can it possibly cut the crystal?</p> + +<p>L. It did not really cut it, though it passes through it. The two were +formed together, as I told you; but no one knows how. Still, it is +strange that this hard quartz has in all cases a good-natured way with +it, of yielding to everything else. All sorts of soft things make nests +for themselves in it; and it never makes a nest for itself in anything. +It has all the rough outside work; and every sort of cowardly and weak +mineral can shelter itself within it. Look; these are hexagonal plates +of mica; if they were outside of this crystal they would break, like +burnt paper; but they are inside of it,—nothing can hurt them,—the +crystal has taken them into its very heart, keeping all their delicate +edges as sharp as if they were under water, instead of bathed in rock. +Here is a piece of branched silver: you can bend it with a touch of your +finger, but the stamp of its every fibre is on the rock in which it lay, +as if the quartz had been as soft as wool.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Oh, the good, good quartz! But does it never get inside of +anything?</p> + +<p>L. As it is a little Irish girl who asks, I may perhaps answer, without +being laughed at, that it gets inside of itself sometimes. But I don't +remember seeing quartz make a nest for itself in anything else.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Please, there was something I heard you talking about, last +term, with Miss Mary. I was at my lessons, but I heard something about +nests; and I thought it was birds'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_75" id="Pg_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> nests; and I couldn't help +listening; and then, I remember, it was about 'nests of quartz in +granite.' I remember, because I was so disappointed!</p> + +<p>L. Yes, mousie, you remember quite rightly; but I can't tell you about +those nests to-day, nor perhaps to-morrow: but there's no contradiction +between my saying then, and now; I will show you that there is not, some +day. Will you trust me meanwhile?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Won't I!</p> + +<p>L. Well, then, look, lastly, at this piece of courtesy in quartz; it is +on a small scale, but wonderfully pretty. Here is nobly born quartz +living with a green mineral, called epidote; and they are immense +friends. Now, you see, a comparatively large and strong quartz-crystal, +and a very weak and slender little one of epidote, have begun to grow, +close by each other, and sloping unluckily towards each other, so that +they at last meet. They cannot go on growing together; the quartz +crystal is five times as thick, and more than twenty times as +strong,<a name="FNanchor_151_151" id="FNanchor_151_151"></a><a href="#Footnote_151_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> as the epidote; but he stops at once, just in the very +crowning moment of his life, when he is building his own summit! He lets +the pale little film of epidote grow right past him; stopping his own +summit for it; and he never himself grows any more.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span> (<i>after some silence of wonder</i>). But is the quartz <i>never</i> wicked +then?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, but the wickedest quartz seems good-natured, compared to other +things. Here are two very characteristic examples; one is good quartz, +living with good pearlspar, and the other, wicked quartz, living with +wicked pearlspar. In both, the quartz yields to the soft carbonate of +iron: but, in the first place, the iron takes only what it needs of +room; and is inserted into the planes of the rock crystal with such +precision, that you must break it away before you can tell whether it +really penetrates the quartz or not; while the crystals of iron are +perfectly formed, and have a lovely bloom on their surface besides. But +here, when the two minerals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_76" id="Pg_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> quarrel, the unhappy quartz has all its +surfaces jagged and torn to pieces; and there is not a single iron +crystal whose shape you can completely trace. But the quartz has the +worst of it, in both instances.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> Might we look at that piece of broken quartz again, with the +weak little film across it? it seems such a strange lovely thing, like +the self-sacrifice of a human being.</p> + +<p>L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not a lovely thing, Violet. It +is often a necessary and noble thing; but no form nor degree of suicide +can be ever lovely.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> But self-sacrifice is not suicide!</p> + +<p>L. What is it then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> Giving up one's self for another.</p> + +<p>L. Well; and what do you mean by 'giving up one's self?'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, one's time, one's +happiness, and so on, to make others happy.</p> + +<p>L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Violet, who expects you to make +him happy in that way.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>hesitating</i>). In what way?</p> + +<p>L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing your feelings, and +happiness.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> No, no, I don't mean that; but you know, for other people, one +must.</p> + +<p>L. For people who don't love you, and whom you know nothing about? Be it +so; but how does this 'giving up' differ from suicide then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> Why, giving up one's pleasures is not killing one's self?</p> + +<p>L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice, but +self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the +pleasure of walking, your foot will wither; you may as well cut it off: +if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable +to bear the light; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself +is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and you will soon +slay.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> But why do you make me think of that verse then about the foot +and the eye?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_77" id="Pg_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. You are indeed commanded to cut off and to pluck out, if foot or eye +offend you; but why <i>should</i> they offend you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> I don't know; I never quite understood that.</p> + +<p>L. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be well understood if it is +to be well obeyed! When Helen sprained her ancle the other day, you saw +how strongly it had to be bandaged: that is to say, prevented from all +work, to recover it. But the bandage was not 'lovely.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> No, indeed.</p> + +<p>L. And if her foot had been crushed, or diseased, or snake-bitten, +instead of sprained, it might have been needful to cut it off. But the +amputation would not have been 'lovely.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> No.</p> + +<p>L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and betray you—if the light +that is in you be darkness, and your feet run into mischief, or are +taken in the snare,—it is indeed time to pluck out, and cut off, I +think: but, so crippled, you can never be what you might have been +otherwise. You enter into life, at best, halt or maimed; and the +sacrifice is not beautiful, though necessary.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>after a pause</i>). But when one sacrifices one's self for others?</p> + +<p>L. Why not rather others for you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> Oh! but I couldn't bear that.</p> + +<p>L. Then why should they bear it?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>bursting in, indignant</i>). And Thermopylæ, and Protesilaus, and +Marcus Curtius, and Arnold de Winkelried, and Iphigenia, and Jephthah's +daughter?</p> + +<p>L. (<i>sustaining the indignation unmoved</i>). And the Samaritan woman's +son?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Which Samaritan woman's?</p> + +<p>L. Read 2 Kings vi. 29.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>obeys</i>). How horrid! As if we meant anything like that!</p> + +<p>L. You don't seem to me to know in the least what you do mean, children. +What practical difference is there between 'that,' and what you are +talking about? The Samaritan children had no voice of their own in the +business, it is true; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_78" id="Pg_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> neither had Iphigenia: the Greek girl was +certainly neither boiled, nor eaten; but that only makes a difference in +the dramatic effect; not in the principle.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>biting her lip</i>). Well, then, tell us what we ought to mean. As +if you didn't teach it all to us, and mean it yourself, at this moment, +more than we do, if you wouldn't be tiresome!</p> + +<p>L. I mean, and have always meant, simply this, Dora;—that the will of +God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's happiness, and +life; not by each other's misery, or death. I made you read that verse +which so shocked you just now, because the relations of parent and child +are typical of all beautiful human help. A child may have to die for its +parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for +them;—that, not by its sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its +force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; and as the +arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations. +Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not +intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves +for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which +turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the +thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named +as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a +virtue in mere suffering, as such; and foolishly to hope that good may +be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the stamp +of evil, that we may avoid it,—that they accept pain and defeat as if +these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their +defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their +enemies than to them. The one thing that a good man has to do, and to +see done, is justice; he is neither to slay himself nor others +causelessly: so far from denying himself, since he is pleased by good, +he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure accomplished. And I only wish +there were strength, fidelity, and sense enough, among the good +Englishmen of this day, to render it possible for them to band together +in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_79" id="Pg_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> heart and hand, the +doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And +finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for +much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of +character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases. +Nothing is really well done, which it costs you pain to do.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> But surely, sir, you are always pleased with us when we try to +please others, and not ourselves?</p> + +<p>L. My dear child, in the daily course and discipline of right life, we +must continually and reciprocally submit and surrender in all kind and +courteous and affectionate ways: and these submissions and ministries to +each other, of which you all know (none better) the practice and the +preciousness, are as good for the yielder as the receiver: they +strengthen and perfect as much as they soften and refine. But the real +sacrifice of all our strength, or life, or happiness to others (though +it may be needed, and though all brave creatures hold their lives in +their hand, to be given, when such need comes, as frankly as a soldier +gives his life in battle), is yet always a mournful and momentary +necessity; not the fulfilment of the continuous law of being. +Self-sacrifice which is sought after, and triumphed in, is usually +foolish; and calamitous in its issue: and by the sentimental +proclamation and pursuit of it, good people have not only made most of +their own lives useless, but the whole framework of their religion so +hollow, that at this moment, while the English nation, with its lips, +pretends to teach every man to 'love his neighbour as himself,' with its +hands and feet it clutches and tramples like a wild beast; and +practically lives, every soul of it that can, on other people's labour. +Briefly, the constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain +his own powers and special gifts; and to strengthen them for the help of +others. Do you think Titian would have helped the world better by +denying himself, and not painting; or Casella by denying himself, and +not singing? The real virtue is to be ready to sing the moment people +ask us; as he was, even in purgatory. The very word 'virtue' means not +'conduct' but 'strength,' vital energy in the heart. Were not you +reading about that group of words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_80" id="Pg_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> beginning with V,—vital, virtuous, +vigorous, and so on,—in Max Muller, the other day, Sibyl? Can't you +tell the others about it?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> No, I can't; will you tell us, please?</p> + +<p>L. Not now, it is too late. Come to me some idle time to-morrow, and +I'll tell you about it, if all's well. But the gist of it is, children, +that you should at least know two Latin words; recollect that 'mors' +means death and delaying; and 'vita' means life and growing: and try +always, not to mortify yourselves, but to vivify yourselves.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> But, then, are we not to mortify our earthly affections? and +surely we are to sacrifice ourselves, at least in God's service, if not +in man's?</p> + +<p>L. Really, Violet, we are getting too serious. I've given you enough +ethics for one talk, I think! Do let us have a little play. Lily, what +were you so busy about, at the ant-hill in the wood, this morning?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Oh, it was the ants who were busy, not I; I was only trying to +help them a little.</p> + +<p>L. And they wouldn't be helped, I suppose?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> No, indeed. I can't think why ants are always so tiresome, when +one tries to help them! They were carrying bits of stick, as fast as +they could, through a piece of grass; and pulling and pushing, <i>so</i> +hard; and tumbling over and over,—it made one quite pity them; so I +took some of the bits of stick, and carried them forward a little, where +I thought they wanted to put them; but instead of being pleased, they +left them directly, and ran about looking quite angry and frightened; +and at last ever so many of them got up my sleeves, and bit me all over, +and I had to come away.</p> + +<p>L. I couldn't think what you were about. I saw your French grammar lying +on the grass behind you, and thought perhaps you had gone to ask the +ants to hear you a French verb.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Ah! but you didn't, though!</p> + +<p>L. Why not, Isabel? I knew, well enough, Lily couldn't learn that verb +by herself.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> No; but the ants couldn't help her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_81" id="Pg_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. Are you sure the ants could not have helped you, Lily?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span> (<i>thinking</i>). I ought to have learned something from them, perhaps.</p> + +<p>L. But none of them left their sticks to help you through the irregular +verb?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> No, indeed. (<i>Laughing, with some others.</i>)</p> + +<p>L. What are you laughing at, children? I cannot see why the ants should +not have left their tasks to help Lily in her's,—since here is Violet +thinking she ought to leave <i>her</i> tasks, to help God in His. Perhaps, +however, she takes Lily's more modest view, and thinks only that 'He +ought to learn something from her.'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Tears in</i> <span class="smcap">Violet's</span> <i>eyes.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>scarlet</i>). It's too bad—it's a shame:—poor Violet!</p> + +<p>L. My dear children, there's no reason why one should be so red, and the +other so pale, merely because you are made for a moment to feel the +absurdity of a phrase which you have been taught to use, in common with +half the religious world. There is but one way in which man can ever +help God—that is, by letting God help him: and there is no way in which +his name is more guiltily taken in vain, than by calling the abandonment +of our own work, the performance of His.</p> + +<p>God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to +be employed; and that employment is truly 'our Father's business.' He +chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if +they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and +sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or +puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, +whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not +happy ourselves. Now, away with you, children; and be as happy as you +can. And when you cannot, at least don't plume yourselves upon pouting.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_151_151" id="Footnote_151_151"></a><a href="#FNanchor_151_151"><span class="label">[151]</span></a> Quartz is not much harder than epidote; the strength is +only supposed to be in some proportion to the squares of the diameters.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_82" id="Pg_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE VII.</h2> + +<h3><i>HOME VIRTUES.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>By the fireside, in the Drawing-room. Evening.</i></p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Now, the curtains are drawn, and the fire's bright and here's your +arm-chair—and you're to tell us all about what you promised.</p> + +<p>L. All about what?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> All about virtue.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> Yes, and about the words that begin with V.</p> + +<p>L. I heard you singing about a word that begins with V, in the +playground, this morning, Miss Katie.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen.</span> Me singing?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> Oh tell us—tell us.</p> + +<p>L. 'Vilikens and his——'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kathleen</span> (<i>stopping his mouth</i>). Oh! please don't. Where were you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> I'm sure I wish I had known where he was! We lost him among the +rhododendrons, and I don't know where he got to; oh, you +naughty—naughty—(<i>climbs on his knee</i>).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Now, Isabel, we really want to talk.</p> + +<p>L. <i>I</i> don't.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Oh, but you must. You promised, you know.</p> + +<p>L. Yes, if all was well; but all's ill. I'm tired, and cross; and I +won't.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> You're not a bit tired, and you're not crosser than two sticks; +and we'll make you talk, if you were crosser than six. Come here, Egypt; +and get on the other side of him.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Egypt</span> <i>takes up a commanding position near the +hearth-brush.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>reviewing her forces</i>). Now, Lily, come and sit on the rug in +front.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Lily</span> <i>does as she is bid.</i>)</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_83" id="Pg_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. (<i>seeing he has no chance against the odds</i>.) Well, well; but I'm +really tired. Go and dance a little, first; and let me think.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. No; you mustn't think. You will be wanting to make us think next; +that will be tiresome.</p> + +<p>L. Well, go and dance first, to get quit of thinking; and then I'll talk +as long as you like.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Oh, but we can't dance to-night. There isn't time; and we want to +hear about virtue.</p> + +<p>L. Let me see a little of it first. Dancing is the first of girl's +virtues.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Indeed! And the second?</p> + +<p>L. Dressing.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. Now, you needn't say that! I mended that tear the first thing +before breakfast this morning.</p> + +<p>L. I cannot otherwise express the ethical principle, Egypt; whether you +have mended your gown or not.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Now don't be tiresome. We really must hear about virtue, please; +seriously.</p> + +<p>L. Well. I'm telling you about it, as fast as I can.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. What! the first of girls' virtues is dancing?</p> + +<p>L. More accurately, it is wishing to dance, and not wishing to tease, +nor hear about virtue.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">Egypt</span>). Isn't he cross?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. How many balls must we go to in the season, to be perfectly +virtuous?</p> + +<p>L. As many as you can without losing your colour. But I did not say you +should wish to go to balls. I said you should be always wanting to +dance.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. So we do; but everybody says it is very wrong.</p> + +<p>L. Why, Egypt, I thought—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'There was a lady once,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That would not be a queen,—that would she not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all the mud in Egypt.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>You were complaining the other day of having to go out a great deal +oftener than you liked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_84" id="Pg_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt.</span> Yes, so I was; but then, it isn't to dance. There's no room to +dance: it's—(<i>Pausing to consider what it is for</i>).</p> + +<p>L. It is only to be seen, I suppose. Well, there's no harm in that. +Girls ought to like to be seen.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>her eyes flashing</i>). Now, you don't mean that; and you're too +provoking; and we won't dance again, for a month.</p> + +<p>L. It will answer every purpose of revenge, Dora, if you only banish me +to the library; and dance by yourselves: but I don't think Jessie and +Lily will agree to that. You like me to see you dancing, don't you Lily?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Yes, certainly,—when we do it rightly.</p> + +<p>L. And besides, Miss Dora, if young ladies really do not want to be +seen, they should take care not to let their eyes flash when they +dislike what people say; and, more than that, it is all nonsense from +beginning to end, about not wanting to be seen. I don't know any more +tiresome flower in the borders than your especially 'modest' snowdrop; +which one always has to stoop down and take all sorts of tiresome +trouble with, and nearly break its poor little head off, before you can +see it; and then, half of it is not worth seeing. Girls should be like +daisies; nice and white, with an edge of red, if you look close; making +the ground bright wherever they are; knowing simply and quietly that +they do it, and are meant to do it, and that it would be very wrong if +they didn't do it. Not want to be seen, indeed! How long were you in +doing your back hair, this afternoon, Jessie?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Jessie</span> <i>not immediately answering</i>, <span class="smcap">Dora</span> <i>comes to her +assistance.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Not above three-quarters of an hour, I think, Jess?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie</span> (<i>putting her finger up</i>). Now, Dorothy, <i>you</i> needn't talk, you +know!</p> + +<p>L. I know she needn't, Jessie; I shall ask her about those dark plaits +presently. (<span class="smcap">Dora</span> <i>looks round to see if there is any way open for +retreat.</i>) But never mind; it was worth the time, whatever it was; and +nobody will ever mistake that golden wreath for a chignon; but if you +don't want it to be seen, you had better wear a cap.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_85" id="Pg_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie.</span> Ah, now, are you really going to do nothing but play? And we all +have been thinking, and thinking, all day; and hoping you would tell us +things; and now—!</p> + +<p>L. And now I am telling you things, and true things, and things good for +you; and you won't believe me. You might as well have let me go to sleep +at once, as I wanted to.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Endeavours again to make himself comfortable.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Oh, no, no, you sha'n't go to sleep, you naughty—Kathleen, come +here.</p> + +<p>L. (<i>knowing what he has to expect if</i> <span class="smcap">Kathleen</span> <i>comes</i>). Get away, +Isabel, you're too heavy. (<i>Sitting up.</i>) What have I been saying?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> I do believe he has been asleep all the time! You never heard +anything like the things you've been saying.</p> + +<p>L. Perhaps not. If you have heard them, and anything like them, it is +all I want.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt.</span> Yes, but we don't understand, and you know we don't; and we want +to.</p> + +<p>L. What did I say first?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> That the first virtue of girls was wanting to go to balls.</p> + +<p>L. I said nothing of the kind.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie.</span> 'Always wanting to dance,' you said.</p> + +<p>L. Yes, and that's true. Their first virtue is to be intensely +happy;—so happy that they don't know what to do with themselves for +happiness,—and dance, instead of walking. Don't you recollect 'Louisa,'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'No fountain from a rocky cave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">E'er tripped with foot so free;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She seemed as happy as a wave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That dances on the sea.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A girl is always like that, when everything's right with her.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet.</span> But, surely, one must be sad sometimes?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, Violet; and dull sometimes, and stupid sometimes, and cross +sometimes. What must be, must; but it is always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_86" id="Pg_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> either our own fault, +or somebody else's. The last and worst thing that can be said of a +nation is, that it has made its young girls sad, and weary.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span>. But I am sure I have heard a great many good people speak against +dancing?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, May; but it does not follow they were wise as well as good. I +suppose they think Jeremiah liked better to have to write Lamentations +for his people, than to have to write that promise for them, which +everybody seems to hurry past, that they may get on quickly to the verse +about Rachel weeping for her children; though the verse they pass is the +counter-blessing to that one: 'Then shall the virgin rejoice in the +dance; and both young men and old together; and I will turn their +mourning into joy.'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The children get very serious, but look at each other, as +if pleased.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. They understand now: but, do you know what you said next?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; I was not more than half asleep. I said their second virtue was +dressing.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Well! what did you mean by that?</p> + +<p>L. What do <i>you</i> mean by dressing?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Wearing fine clothes.</p> + +<p>L. Ah! there's the mistake. <i>I</i> mean wearing plain ones.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Yes, I daresay! but that's not what girls understand by dressing, +you know.</p> + +<p>L. I can't help that. If they understand by dressing, buying dresses, +perhaps they also understand by drawing, buying pictures. But when I +hear them say they can draw, I understand that they can make a drawing; +and when I hear them say they can dress, I understand that they can make +a dress and—which is quite as difficult—wear one.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I'm not sure about the making; for the wearing, we can all wear +them—out, before anybody expects it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span> (<i>aside, to</i> L., <i>piteously</i>). Indeed I have mended that torn +flounce quite neatly; look if I haven't!</p> + +<p>L. (<i>aside, to</i> <span class="smcap">Egypt</span>). All right; don't be afraid. (<i>Aloud to</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_87" id="Pg_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> <span class="smcap">Dora</span>.) +Yes, doubtless; but you know that is only a slow way of <i>un</i>dressing.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Then, we are all to learn dress-making, are we?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; and always to dress yourselves beautifully—not finely, unless +on occasion; but then very finely and beautifully too. Also, you are to +dress as many other people as you can; and to teach them how to dress, +if they don't know; and to consider every ill-dressed woman or child +whom you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace; and to get at them, +somehow, until everybody is as beautifully dressed as birds.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Silence; the children drawing their breaths hard, as if +they had come from under a shower bath.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L (<i>seeing objections begin to express themselves in the eyes</i>). Now you +needn't say you can't; for you can: and it's what you were meant to do, +always; and to dress your houses, and your gardens, too; and to do very +little else, I believe, except singing; and dancing, as we said, of +course; and—one thing more.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Our third and last virtue, I suppose?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; on Violet's system of triplicities.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Well, we are prepared for anything now. What is it?</p> + +<p>L. Cooking.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Cardinal, indeed! If only Beatrice were here with her seven +handmaids, that she might see what a fine eighth we had found for her!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. And the interpretation? What does 'cooking' mean?</p> + +<p>L. It means the knowledge of Medea, and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of +Helen, and of Rebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge +of all herbs, and fruits, and balms, and spices; and of all that is +healing and sweet in fields and groves, and savoury in meats; it means +carefulness, and inventiveness, and watchfulness, and willingness, and +readiness of appliance; it means the economy of your great-grandmothers, +and the science of modern chemists; it means much tasting, and no +wasting; it means English thoroughness, and French art, and Arabian +hospitality; and it means, in fine, that you are to be perfectly and +always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_88" id="Pg_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> 'ladies'—'loaf-givers;' and, as you are to see, imperatively +that everybody has something pretty to put on,—so you are to see, yet +more imperatively, that everybody has something nice to eat.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Another pause, and long drawn breath.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>slowly recovering herself</i>) <i>to</i> <span class="smcap">Egypt</span>. We had better have let +him go to sleep, I think, after all!</p> + +<p>L. You had better let the younger ones go to sleep now: for I haven't +half done.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>panic-struck</i>). Oh! please, please! just one quarter of an +hour.</p> + +<p>L. No, Isabel; I cannot say what I've got to say, in a quarter of an +hour; and it is too hard for you, besides:—you would be lying awake, +and trying to make it out, half the night. That will never do.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh, please!</p> + +<p>L. It would please me exceedingly, mousie: but there are times when we +must both be displeased; more's the pity. Lily may stay for half an +hour, if she likes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. I can't; because Isey never goes to sleep, if she is waiting for +me to come.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span>. Oh, yes, Lily; I'll go to sleep to-night, I will, indeed.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. Yes, it's very likely, Isey, with those fine round eyes! (<i>To</i> L.) +You'll tell me something of what you've been saying, to-morrow, won't +you?</p> + +<p>L. No, I won't, Lily. You must choose. It's only in Miss Edgeworth's +novels that one can do right, and have one's cake and sugar afterwards, +as well (not that I consider the dilemma, to-night, so grave).</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Lily</span>, <i>sighing, takes</i> <span class="smcap">Isabel</span>'s <i>hand.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>Yes, Lily dear, it will be better, in the outcome of it, so, than if you +were to hear all the talks that ever were talked, and all the stories +that ever were told. Good night.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The door leading to the condemned cells of the Dormitory +closes on</i> <span class="smcap">Lily, Isabel, Florrie</span>, <i>and other diminutive and +submissive victims.</i>)</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_89" id="Pg_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie</span> (<i>after a pause</i>). Why, I thought you were so fond of Miss +Edgeworth!</p> + +<p>L. So I am; and so you ought all to be. I can read her over and over +again, without ever tiring; there's no one whose every page is so full, +and so delightful; no one who brings you into the company of pleasanter +or wiser people; no one who tells you more truly how to do right. And it +is very nice, in the midst of a wild world, to have the very ideal of +poetical justice done always to one's hand:—to have everybody found +out, who tells lies; and everybody decorated with a red riband, who +doesn't; and to see the good Laura, who gave away her half sovereign, +receiving a grand ovation from an entire dinner party disturbed for the +purpose; and poor, dear, little Rosamond, who chooses purple jars +instead of new shoes, left at last without either her shoes or her +bottle. But it isn't life: and, in the way children might easily +understand it, it isn't morals.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jessie</span>. How do you mean we might understand it?</p> + +<p>L. You might think Miss Edgeworth meant that the right was to be done +mainly because one was always rewarded for doing it. It is an injustice +to her to say that: her heroines always do right simply for its own +sake, as they should; and her examples of conduct and motive are wholly +admirable. But her representation of events is false and misleading. Her +good characters never are brought into the deadly trial of +goodness,—the doing right, and suffering for it, quite finally. And +that is life, as God arranges it. 'Taking up one's cross' does not at +all mean having ovations at dinner parties, and being put over everybody +else's head.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. But what <i>does</i> it mean then? That is just what we couldn't +understand, when you were telling us about not sacrificing ourselves, +yesterday.</p> + +<p>L. My dear, it means simply that you are to go the road which you see to +be the straight one; carrying whatever you find is given you to carry, +as well and stoutly as you can; without making faces, or calling people +to come and look at you. Above all, you are neither to load, nor unload, +yourself; nor cut your cross to your own liking. Some people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_90" id="Pg_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> think it +would be better for them to have it large; and many, that they could +carry it much faster if it were small; and even those who like it +largest are usually very particular about its being ornamental, and made +of the best ebony. But all that you have really to do is to keep your +back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it—above +all, not to boast of what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of +'virtue' is in that straightness of back. Yes; you may laugh, children, +but it is. You know I was to tell about the words that began with V. +Sibyl, what does 'virtue' mean, literally?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Does it mean courage?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; but a particular kind of courage. It means courage of the nerve; +vital courage. That first syllable of it, if you look in Max Müller, you +will find really means 'nerve,' and from it come 'vis,' and 'vir,' and +'virgin' (through vireo), and the connected word 'virga'—'a rod;'—the +green rod, or springing bough of a tree, being the type of perfect human +strength, both in the use of it in the Mosaic story, when it becomes a +serpent, or strikes the rock; or when Aaron's bears its almonds; and in +the metaphorical expressions, the 'Rod out of the stem of Jesse,' and +the 'Man whose name is the Branch,' and so on. And the essential idea of +real virtue is that of a vital human strength, which instinctively, +constantly, and without motive, does what is right. You must train men +to this by habit, as you would the branch of a tree; and give them +instincts and manners (or morals) of purity, justice, kindness, and +courage. Once rightly trained, they act as they should, irrespectively +of all motive, of fear, or of reward. It is the blackest sign of +putrescence in a national religion, when men speak as if it were the +only safeguard of conduct; and assume that, but for the fear of being +burned, or for the hope of being rewarded, everybody would pass their +lives in lying, stealing, and murdering. I think quite one of the +notablest historical events of this century (perhaps the very +notablest), was that council of clergymen, horror-struck at the idea of +any diminution in our dread of hell, at which the last of English<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_91" id="Pg_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +clergymen whom one would have expected to see in such a function, rose +as the devil's advocate; to tell us how impossible it was we could get +on without him.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>after a pause</i>). But, surely, if people weren't +afraid—(<i>hesitates again</i>).</p> + +<p>L. They should be afraid of doing wrong, and of that only, my dear. +Otherwise, if they only don't do wrong for fear of being punished, they +<i>have</i> done wrong in their hearts, already.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span>. Well, but surely, at least one ought to be afraid of displeasing +God; and one's desire to please Him should be one's first motive?</p> + +<p>L. He never would be pleased with us, if it were, my dear. When a father +sends his son out into the world—suppose as an apprentice—fancy the +boy's coming home at night, and saying, 'Father, I could have robbed the +till to-day; but I didn't, because I thought you wouldn't like it.' Do +you think the father would be particularly pleased?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Violet</span> <i>is silent.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>He would answer, would he not, if he were wise and good, 'My boy, though +you had no father, you must not rob tills'? And nothing is ever done so +as really to please our Great Father, unless we would also have done it, +though we had had no Father to know of it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>after long pause</i>). But, then, what continual threatenings, and +promises of reward there are!</p> + +<p>L. And how vain both! with the Jews, and with all of us. But the fact +is, that the threat and promise are simply statements of the Divine law, +and of its consequences. The fact is truly told you,—make what use you +may of it: and as collateral warning, or encouragement, or comfort, the +knowledge of future consequences may often be helpful to us; but helpful +chiefly to the better state when we can act without reference to them. +And there's no measuring the poisoned influence of that notion of future +reward on the mind of Christian Europe, in the early ages. Half the +monastic system rose out of that, acting on the occult pride and +ambition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_92" id="Pg_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> of good people (as the other half of it came of their follies +and misfortunes). There is always a considerable quantity of pride, to +begin with, in what is called 'giving one's self to God.' As if one had +ever belonged to anybody else!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> But, surely, great good has come out of the monastic system—our +books,—our sciences—all saved by the monks?</p> + +<p>L. Saved from what, my dear? From the abyss of misery and ruin which +that false Christianity allowed the whole active world to live in. When +it had become the principal amusement, and the most admired art, of +Christian men, to cut one another's throats, and burn one another's +towns; of course the few feeble or reasonable persons left, who desired +quiet, safety, and kind fellowship, got into cloisters; and the +gentlest, thoughtfullest, noblest men and women shut themselves up, +precisely where they could be of least use. They are very fine things, +for us painters, now,—the towers and white arches upon the tops of the +rocks; always in places where it takes a day's climbing to get at them; +but the intense tragi-comedy of the thing, when one thinks of it, is +unspeakable. All the good people of the world getting themselves hung up +out of the way of mischief, like Bailie Nicol Jarvie;—poor little +lambs, as it were, dangling there for the sign of the Golden Fleece; or +like Socrates in his basket in the 'Clouds'! (I must read you that bit +of Aristophanes again, by the way.) And believe me, children, I am no +warped witness, as far as regards monasteries; or if I am, it is in +their favour. I have always had a strong leaning that way; and have +pensively shivered with Augustines at St. Bernard; and happily made hay +with Franciscans at Fesolé; and sat silent with Carthusians in their +little gardens, south of Florence; and mourned through many a day-dream, +at Melrose and Bolton. But the wonder is always to me, not how much, but +how little, the monks have, on the whole, done, with all that leisure, +and all that goodwill! What nonsense monks characteristically +wrote;—what little progress they made in the sciences to which they +devoted themselves as a duty,—medicine especially;—and, last and +worst, what depths of degradation they can sometimes see one another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_93" id="Pg_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +and the population round them, sink into; without either doubting their +system, or reforming it!</p> + +<p>(<i>Seeing questions rising to lips.</i>) Hold your little tongues, children; +it's very late, and you'll make me forget what I've to say. Fancy +yourselves in pews, for five minutes. There's one point of possible good +in the conventual system, which is always attractive to young girls; and +the idea is a very dangerous one;—the notion of a merit, or exalting +virtue, consisting in a habit of meditation on the 'things above,' or +things of the next world. Now it is quite true, that a person of +beautiful mind, dwelling on whatever appears to them most desirable and +lovely in a possible future will not only pass their time pleasantly, +but will even acquire, at last, a vague and wildly gentle charm of +manner and feature, which will give them an air of peculiar sanctity in +the eyes of others. Whatever real or apparent good there may be in this +result, I want you to observe, children, that we have no real authority +for the reveries to which it is owing. We are told nothing distinctly of +the heavenly world; except that it will be free from sorrow, and pure +from sin. What is said of pearl gates, golden floors, and the like, is +accepted as merely figurative by religious enthusiasts themselves; and +whatever they pass their time in conceiving, whether of the happiness of +risen souls, of their intercourse, or of the appearance and employment +of the heavenly powers, is entirely the product of their own +imagination; and as completely and distinctly a work of fiction, or +romantic invention, as any novel of Sir Walter Scott's. That the romance +is founded on religious theory or doctrine;—that no disagreeable or +wicked persons are admitted into the story;—and that the inventor +fervently hopes that some portion of it may hereafter come true, does +not in the least alter the real nature of the effort or enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Now, whatever indulgence may be granted to amiable people for pleasing +themselves in this innocent way, it is beyond question, that to seclude +themselves from the rough duties of life, merely to write religious +romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream them, without taking so +much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_94" id="Pg_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> trouble as is implied in writing, ought not to be received as an +act of heroic virtue. But, observe, even in admitting thus much, I have +assumed that the fancies are just and beautiful, though fictitious. Now, +what right have any of us to assume that our own fancies will assuredly +be either the one or the other? That they delight us, and appear lovely +to us, is no real proof of its not being wasted time to form them: and +we may surely be led somewhat to distrust our judgment of them by +observing what ignoble imaginations have sometimes sufficiently, or even +enthusiastically, occupied the hearts of others. The principal source of +the spirit of religious contemplation is the East; now I have here in my +hand a Byzantine image of Christ, which, if you will look at it +seriously, may, I think, at once and for ever render you cautious in the +indulgence of a merely contemplative habit of mind. Observe, it is the +fashion to look at such a thing only as a piece of barbarous art; that +is the smallest part of its interest. What I want you to see, is the +baseness and falseness of a religious state of enthusiasm, in which such +a work could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a figure, with two +small round black beads for eyes; a gilded face, deep cut into horrible +wrinkles; an open gash for a mouth, and a distorted skeleton for a body, +wrapped about, to make it fine, with striped enamel of blue and +gold;—that such a figure, I say, should ever have been thought helpful +towards the conception of a Redeeming Deity, may make you, I think, very +doubtful, even of the Divine approval,—much more of the Divine +inspiration,—of religious reverie in general. You feel, doubtless, that +your own idea of Christ would be something very different from this; but +in what does the difference consist? Not in any more divine authority in +your imagination; but in the intellectual work of six intervening +centuries; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has refined this crude +conception for you, and filled you, partly with an innate sensation, +partly with an acquired knowledge, of higher forms,—which render this +Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you, as it was pleasing to its maker. +More is required to excite your fancy; but your fancy is of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_95" id="Pg_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> no more +authority than his was: and a point of national art-skill is quite +conceivable, in which the best we can do now will be as offensive to the +religious dreamers of the more highly cultivated time, as this Byzantine +crucifix is to you.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But surely, Angelico will always retain his power over everybody?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, I should think, always; as the gentle words of a child will: but +you would be much surprised, Mary, if you thoroughly took the pains to +analyse, and had the perfect means of analysing, that power of +Angelico,—to discover its real sources. Of course it is natural, at +first, to attribute it to the pure religious fervour by which he was +inspired; but do you suppose Angelico was really the only monk, in all +the Christian world of the middle ages, who laboured, in art, with a +sincere religious enthusiasm?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> No, certainly not.</p> + +<p>L. Anything more frightful, more destructive of all religious faith +whatever, than such a supposition, could not be. And yet, what other +monk ever produced such work? I have myself examined carefully upwards +of two thousand illuminated missals, with especial view to the discovery +of any evidence of a similar result upon the art, from the monkish +devotion; and utterly in vain.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But then, was not Fra Angelico a man of entirely separate and +exalted genius?</p> + +<p>L. Unquestionably; and granting him to be that, the peculiar phenomenon +in his art is, to me, not its loveliness, but its weakness. The effect +of 'inspiration,' had it been real, on a man of consummate genius, +should have been, one would have thought, to make everything that he did +faultless and strong, no less than lovely. But of all men, deserving to +be called 'great,' Fra Angelico permits to himself the least pardonable +faults, and the most palpable follies. There is evidently within him a +sense of grace, and power of invention, as great as Ghiberti's:—we are +in the habit of attributing those high qualities to his religious +enthusiasm; but, if they were produced by that enthusiasm in him, they +ought to be produced by the same feelings in others; and we see they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_96" id="Pg_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +are not. Whereas, comparing him with contemporary great artists, of +equal grace and invention, one peculiar character remains notable in +him—which, logically, we ought therefore to attribute to the religious +fervour;—and that distinctive character is, the contented indulgence of +his own weaknesses, and perseverance in his own ignorances.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But that's dreadful! And what <i>is</i> the source of the peculiar +charm which we all feel in his work?</p> + +<p>L. There are many sources of it, Mary; united and seeming like one. You +would never feel that charm but in the work of an entirely good man; be +sure of that; but the goodness is only the recipient and modifying +element, not the creative one. Consider carefully what delights you in +any original picture of Angelico's. You will find, for one minor thing, +an exquisite variety and brightness of ornamental work. That is not +Angelico's inspiration. It is the final result of the labour and thought +of millions of artists, of all nations; from the earliest Egyptian +potters downwards—Greeks, Byzantines, Hindoos, Arabs, Gauls, and +Northmen—all joining in the toil; and consummating it in Florence, in +that century, with such embroidery of robe and inlaying of armour as had +never been seen till then; nor, probably, ever will be seen more. +Angelico merely takes his share of this inheritance, and applies it in +the tenderest way to subjects which are peculiarly acceptant of it. But +the inspiration, if it exist anywhere, flashes on the knight's shield +quite as radiantly as on the monk's picture. Examining farther into the +sources of your emotion in the Angelico work, you will find much of the +impression of sanctity dependent on a singular repose and grace of +gesture, consummating itself in the floating, flying, and above all, in +the dancing groups. That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is only a +peculiarly tender use of systems of grouping which had been long before +developed by Giotto, Memmi, and Orcagna; and the real root of it all is +simply—What do you think, children? The beautiful dancing of the +Florentine maidens!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>indignant again</i>). Now, I wonder what next! Why not say it all +depended on Herodias' daughter, at once?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_97" id="Pg_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. Yes; it is certainly a great argument against singing, that there +were once sirens.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Well, it may be all very fine and philosophical, but shouldn't I +just like to read you the end of the second volume of 'Modern Painters'!</p> + +<p>L. My dear, do you think any teacher could be worth your listening to, +or anybody else's listening to, who had learned nothing, and altered his +mind in nothing, from seven and twenty to seven and forty? But that +second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great +advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is +the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle +pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you +also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and +judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the +virtues of what you love: else you might come to love both alike; or +even the weaknesses without the virtues. You might end by liking +Overbeck and Cornelius as well as Angelico. However, I have perhaps been +leaning a little too much to the merely practical side of things, in +to-night's talk; and you are always to remember, children, that I do not +deny, though I cannot affirm, the spiritual advantages resulting, in +certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie, and from the other +practices of saints and anchorites. The evidence respecting them has +never yet been honestly collected, much less dispassionately examined: +but assuredly, there is in that direction a probability, and more than a +probability, of dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the +practice of an active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The hope of +attaining a higher religious position, which induces us to encounter, +for its exalted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is often, as I +said, founded more on pride than piety; and those who, in modest +usefulness, have accepted what seemed to them here the lowliest place in +the kingdom of their Father, are not, I believe, the least likely to +receive hereafter the command, then unmistakable, 'Friend, go up +higher.'</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_98" id="Pg_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE VIII.</h2> + +<h3><i>CRYSTAL CAPRICE.</i></h3> + +<h4><i>Formal Lecture in Schoolroom, after some practical examination of +minerals.</i></h4> + + +<p>L. We have seen enough, children, though very little of what might be +seen if we had more time, of mineral structures produced by visible +opposition, or contest among elements; structures of which the variety, +however great, need not surprise us: for we quarrel, ourselves, for many +and slight causes;—much more, one should think, may crystals, who can +only feel the antagonism, not argue about it. But there is a yet more +singular mimicry of our human ways in the varieties of form which appear +owing to no antagonistic force; but merely to the variable humour and +caprice of the crystals themselves: and I have asked you all to come +into the schoolroom to-day, because, of course, this is a part of the +crystal mind which must be peculiarly interesting to a feminine +audience. (<i>Great symptoms of disapproval on the part of said +audience.</i>) Now, you need not pretend that it will not interest you; why +should it not? It is true that we men are never capricious; but that +only makes us the more dull and disagreeable. You, who are crystalline +in brightness, as well as in caprice, charm infinitely, by infinitude of +change. (<i>Audible murmurs of 'Worse and worse!' 'As if we could be got +over that way!' &c. The</i> <span class="smcap">Lecturer</span>, <i>however, observing the expression of +the features to be more complacent, proceeds.</i>) And the most curious +mimicry, if not of your changes of fashion, at least of your various +modes (in healthy periods) of national costume, takes place among the +crystals of different countries. With a little experience, it is quite +possible to say at a glance, in what districts certain crystals have +been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_99" id="Pg_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> found; and although, if we had knowledge extended and accurate +enough, we might of course ascertain the laws and circumstances which +have necessarily produced the form peculiar to each locality, this would +be just as true of the fancies of the human mind. If we could know the +exact circumstances which affect it, we could foretell what now seems to +us only caprice of thought, as well as what now seems to us only caprice +of crystal: nay, so far as our knowledge reaches, it is on the whole +easier to find some reason why the peasant girls of Berne should wear +their caps in the shape of butterflies; and the peasant girls of Munich +their's in the shape of shells, than to say why the rock-crystals of +Dauphiné should all have their summits of the shape of lip-pieces of +flageolets, while those of St. Gothard are symmetrical; or why the fluor +of Chamouni is rose-coloured, and in octahedrons, while the fluor of +Weardale is green, and in cubes. Still farther removed is the hope, at +present, of accounting for minor differences in modes of grouping and +construction. Take, for instance, the caprices of this single mineral, +quartz;—variations upon a single theme. It has many forms; but see what +it will make out of this <i>one</i>, the six-sided prism. For shortness' +sake, I shall call the body of the prism its 'column,' and the pyramid +at the extremities its 'cap.' Now, here, first you have a straight +column, as long and thin as a stalk of asparagus, with two little caps +at the ends; and here you have a short thick column, as solid as a +haystack, with two fat caps at the ends; and here you have two caps +fastened together, and no column at all between them! Then here is a +crystal with its column fat in the middle, and tapering to a little cap; +and here is one stalked like a mushroom, with a huge cap put on the top +of a slender column! Then here is a column built wholly out of little +caps, with a large smooth cap at the top. And here is a column built of +columns and caps; the caps all truncated about half way to their points. +And in both these last, the little crystals are set anyhow, and build +the large one in a disorderly way; but here is a crystal made of columns +and truncated caps, set in regular terraces all the way up.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_100" id="Pg_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But are not these, groups of crystals, rather than one crystal?</p> + +<p>L. What do you mean by a group, and what by one crystal?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>audibly aside, to</i> <span class="smcap">Mary</span>, <i>who is brought to pause</i>). You know you +are never expected to answer, Mary.</p> + +<p>L. I'm sure this is easy enough. What do you mean by a group of people?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Three or four together, or a good many together, like the caps in +these crystals.</p> + +<p>L. But when a great many persons get together they don't take the shape +of one person?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Mary</span> <i>still at pause.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> No, because they can't; but, you know the crystals can; so why +shouldn't they?</p> + +<p>L. Well, they don't; that is to say, they don't always, nor even often. +Look here, Isabel.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> What a nasty ugly thing!</p> + +<p>L. I'm glad you think it so ugly. Yet it is made of beautiful crystals; +they are a little grey and cold in colour, but most of them are clear.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> But they're in such horrid, horrid disorder!</p> + +<p>L. Yes; all disorder is horrid, when it is among things that are +naturally orderly. Some little girl's rooms are naturally <i>dis</i>orderly, +I suppose; or I don't know how they could live in them, if they cry out +so when they only see quartz crystals in confusion.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Oh! but how come they to be like that?</p> + +<p>L. You may well ask. And yet you will always hear people talking as if +they thought order more wonderful than disorder! It <i>is</i> wonderful—as +we have seen; but to me, as to you, child, the supremely wonderful thing +is that nature should ever be ruinous or wasteful, or deathful! I look +at this wild piece of crystallisation with endless astonishment.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Where does it come from?</p> + +<p>L. The Tête Noire of Chamonix. What makes it more strange is that it +should be in a vein of fine quartz rock. If it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_101" id="Pg_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> were in a mouldering +rock, it would be natural enough; but in the midst of so fine substance, +here are the crystals tossed in a heap; some large, myriads small +(almost as small as dust), tumbling over each other like a terrified +crowd, and glued together by the sides, and edges, and backs, and heads; +some warped, and some pushed out and in, and all spoiled and each +spoiling the rest.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> And how flat they all are!</p> + +<p>L. Yes; that's the fashion at the Tête Noire.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But surely this is ruin, not caprice?</p> + +<p>L. I believe it is in great part misfortune; and we will examine these +crystal troubles in next lecture. But if you want to see the +gracefullest and happiest caprices of which dust is capable, you must go +to the Hartz; not that I ever mean to go there myself, for I want to +retain the romantic feeling about the name; and I have done myself some +harm already by seeing the monotonous and heavy form of the Brocken from +the suburbs of Brunswick. But whether the mountains be picturesque or +not, the tricks which the goblins (as I am told) teach the crystals in +them, are incomparably pretty. They work chiefly on the mind of a +docile, bluish coloured, carbonate of lime; which comes out of a grey +limestone. The goblins take the greatest possible care of its education, +and see that nothing happens to it to hurt its temper; and when it may +be supposed to have arrived at the crisis which is, to a well brought up +mineral, what presentation at court is to a young lady—after which it +is expected to set fashions—there's no end to its pretty ways of +behaving. First it will make itself into pointed darts as fine as +hoar-frost; here, it is changed into a white fur as fine as silk; here +into little crowns and circlets, as bright as silver; as if for the +gnome princesses to wear; here it is in beautiful little plates, for +them to eat off; presently it is in towers which they might be +imprisoned in; presently in caves and cells, where they may make +nun-gnomes of themselves, and no gnome ever hear of them more; here is +some of it in sheaves, like corn; here, some in drifts, like snow; here, +some in rays, like stars: and, though these are, all of them, +necessarily, shapes that the mineral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_102" id="Pg_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> takes in other places, they are +all taken here with such a grace that you recognise the high caste and +breeding of the crystals wherever you meet them; and know at once they +are Hartz-born.</p> + +<p>Of course, such fine things as these are only done by crystals which are +perfectly good, and good-humoured; and of course, also, there are +ill-humoured crystals who torment each other, and annoy quieter +crystals, yet without coming to anything like serious war. Here (for +once) is some ill-disposed quartz, tormenting a peaceable octahedron of +fluor, in mere caprice. I looked at it the other night so long, and so +wonderingly, just before putting my candle out, that I fell into another +strange dream. But you don't care about dreams.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> No; we didn't, yesterday; but you know we are made up of caprice; +so we do, to-day: and you must tell it us directly.</p> + +<p>L. Well, you see, Neith and her work were still much in my mind; and +then, I had been looking over these Hartz things for you, and thinking +of the sort of grotesque sympathy there seemed to be in them with the +beautiful fringe and pinnacle work of Northern architecture. So, when I +fell asleep, I thought I saw Neith and St. Barbara talking together.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> But what had St. Barbara to do with it?<a name="FNanchor_152_152" id="FNanchor_152_152"></a><a href="#Footnote_152_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p> + +<p>L. My dear, I am quite sure St. Barbara is the patroness of good +architects: not St. Thomas, whatever the old builders thought. It might +be very fine, according to the monks' notions, in St. Thomas, to give +all his employer's money away to the poor: but breaches of contract are +bad foundations; and I believe, it was not he, but St. Barbara, who +overlooked the work in all the buildings you and I care about. However +that may be, it was certainly she whom I saw in my dream with Neith. +Neith was sitting weaving, and I thought she looked sad, and threw her +shuttle slowly; and St. Barbara was standing at her side, in a stiff +little gown, all ins and outs, and angles; but so bright with embroidery +that it dazzled me whenever she moved; the train of it was just like a +heap of broken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_103" id="Pg_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> jewels, it was so stiff, and full of corners, and so +many-coloured, and bright. Her hair fell over her shoulders in long, +delicate waves, from under a little three pinnacled crown, like a tower. +She was asking Neith about the laws of architecture in Egypt and Greece; +and when Neith told her the measures of the pyramids, St. Barbara said +she thought they would have been better three-cornered: and when Neith +told her the measures of the Parthenon, St. Barbara said she thought it +ought to have had two transepts. But she was pleased when Neith told her +of the temple of the dew, and of the Caryan maidens bearing its frieze: +and then she thought that perhaps Neith would like to hear what sort of +temples she was building herself, in the French valleys, and on the +crags of the Rhine. So she began gossiping, just as one of you might to +an old lady: and certainly she talked in the sweetest way in the world +to Neith; and explained to her all about crockets and pinnacles: and +Neith sat, looking very grave; and always graver as St. Barbara went on; +till at last, I'm sorry to say, St. Barbara lost her temper a little.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span> (<i>very grave herself</i>). 'St. Barbara?'</p> + +<p>L. Yes, May. Why shouldn't she? It was very tiresome of Neith to sit +looking like that.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> But, then, St. Barbara was a saint!</p> + +<p>L. What's that, May?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> A saint! A saint is—I am sure you know!</p> + +<p>L. If I did, it would not make me sure that you knew too, May: but I +don't.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Violet</span> (<i>expressing the incredulity of the audience</i>). Oh,—sir!</p> + +<p>L. That is to say, I know that people are called saints who are supposed +to be better than others: but I don't know how much better they must be, +in order to be saints; nor how nearly anybody may be a saint, and yet +not be quite one; nor whether everybody who is called a saint was one; +nor whether everybody who isn't called a saint, isn't one.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>General silence; the audience feeling themselves on the +verge of the Infinities—and a little shocked—and much +puzzled by so many questions at once.</i>)</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_104" id="Pg_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. Besides, did you never hear that verse about being 'called to be +saints'?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May</span> (<i>repeats Rom.</i> i. 7.)</p> + +<p>L. Quite right, May. Well, then, who are called to be that? People in +Rome only?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> Everybody, I suppose, whom God loves.</p> + +<p>L. What! little girls as well as other people?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> All grown-up people, I mean.</p> + +<p>L. Why not little girls? Are they wickeder when they are little?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> Oh, I hope not.</p> + +<p>L. Why not little girls, then?</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Pause.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Because, you know, we can't be worth anything if we're ever so +good;—I mean, if we try to be ever so good; and we can't do difficult +things—like saints.</p> + +<p>L. I am afraid, my dear, that old people are not more able or willing +for their difficulties than you children are for yours. All I can say +is, that if ever I see any of you, when you are seven or eight and +twenty, knitting your brows over any work you want to do or to +understand, as I saw you, Lily, knitting your brows over your slate this +morning, I should think you very noble women. But—to come back to my +dream—St. Barbara <i>did</i> lose her temper a little; and I was not +surprised. For you can't think how provoking Neith looked, sitting there +just like a statue of sandstone; only going on weaving, like a machine; +and never quickening the cast of her shuttle; while St. Barbara was +telling her so eagerly all about the most beautiful things, and +chattering away, as fast as bells ring on Christmas Eve, till she saw +that Neith didn't care; and then St. Barbara got as red as a rose, and +stopped, just in time;—or I think she would really have said something +naughty.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Oh, please, but didn't Neith say anything then?</p> + +<p>L. Yes. She said, quite quietly, 'It may be very pretty, my love; but it +is all nonsense.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Oh dear, oh dear; and then?</p> + +<p>L. Well; then I was a little angry myself, and hoped St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_105" id="Pg_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> Barbara would +be quite angry; but she wasn't. She bit her lips first; and then gave a +great sigh—such a wild, sweet sigh—and then she knelt down and hid her +face on Neith's knees. Then Neith smiled a little, and was moved.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> Oh, I am so glad!</p> + +<p>L. And she touched St. Barbara's forehead with a flower of white lotus; +and St. Barbara sobbed once or twice, and then said: 'If you only could +see how beautiful it is, and how much it makes people feel what is good +and lovely; and if you could only hear the children singing in the Lady +chapels!' And Neith smiled,—but still sadly,—and said, 'How do you +know what I have seen, or heard, my love? Do you think all those vaults +and towers of yours have been built without me? There was not a pillar +in your Giotto's Santa Maria del Fiore which I did not set true by my +spearshaft as it rose. But this pinnacle and flame work which has set +your little heart on fire, is all vanity; and you will see what it will +come to, and that soon; and none will grieve for it more than I. And +then every one will disbelieve your pretty symbols and types. Men must +be spoken simply to, my dear, if you would guide them kindly, and long.' +But St. Barbara answered, that, 'Indeed she thought every one liked her +work,' and that 'the people of different towns were as eager about their +cathedral towers as about their privileges or their markets;' and then +she asked Neith to come and build something with her, wall against +tower; and 'see whether the people will be as much pleased with your +building as with mine.' But Neith answered, 'I will not contend with +you, my dear. I strive not with those who love me; and for those who +hate me, it is not well to strive with me, as weaver Arachne knows. And +remember, child, that nothing is ever done beautifully, which is done in +rivalship; nor nobly, which is done in pride.'</p> + +<p>Then St. Barbara hung her head quite down, and said she was very sorry +she had been so foolish; and kissed Neith; and stood thinking a minute: +and then her eyes got bright again, and she said, she would go directly +and build a chapel with five windows in it; four for the four cardinal +virtues,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_106" id="Pg_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> and one for humility, in the middle, bigger than the rest. And +Neith very nearly laughed quite out, I thought; certainly her beautiful +lips lost all their sternness for an instant; then she said, 'Well, +love, build it, but do not put so many colours into your windows as you +usually do; else no one will be able to see to read, inside: and when it +is built, let a poor village priest consecrate it, and not an +archbishop.' St. Barbara started a little, I thought, and turned as if +to say something; but changed her mind, and gathered up her train, and +went out. And Neith bent herself again to her loom, in which she was +weaving a web of strange dark colours, I thought; but perhaps it was +only after the glittering of St. Barbara's embroidered train: and I +tried to make out the figures in Neith's web, and confused myself among +them, as one always does in dreams; and then the dream changed +altogether, and I found myself, all at once, among a crowd of little +Gothic and Egyptian spirits, who were quarrelling: at least the Gothic +ones were trying to quarrel; for the Egyptian ones only sat with their +hands on their knees, and their aprons sticking out very stiffly; and +stared. And after a while I began to understand what the matter was. It +seemed that some of the troublesome building imps, who meddle and make +continually, even in the best Gothic work, had been listening to St. +Barbara's talk with Neith; and had made up their minds that Neith had no +workpeople who could build against them. They were but dull imps, as you +may fancy by their thinking that; and never had done much, except +disturbing the great Gothic building angels at their work, and playing +tricks to each other; indeed, of late they had been living years and +years, like bats, up under the cornices of Strasbourg and Cologne +cathedrals, with nothing to do but to make mouths at the people below. +However, they thought they knew everything about tower building; and +those who had heard what Neith said, told the rest; and they all flew +down directly, chattering in German, like jackdaws, to show Neith's +people what they could do. And they had found some of Neith's old +workpeople somewhere near Sais, sitting in the sun, with their hands on +their knees; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_107" id="Pg_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> abused them heartily: and Neith's people did not mind +at first, but, after a while, they seemed to get tired of the noise; and +one or two rose up slowly, and laid hold of their measuring rods, and +said, 'If St. Barbara's people liked to build with them, tower against +pyramid, they would show them how to lay stones.' Then the little Gothic +spirits threw a great many double somersaults for joy; and put the tips +of their tongues out slily to each other, on one side; and I heard the +Egyptians say, 'they must be some new kind of frog—they didn't think +there was much building in <i>them</i>.' However, the stiff old workers took +their rods, as I said, and measured out a square space of sand; but as +soon as the German spirits saw that, they declared they wanted exactly +that bit of ground to build on, themselves. Then the Egyptian builders +offered to go farther off, and the Germans ones said, 'Ja wohl.' But as +soon as the Egyptians had measured out another square, the little +Germans said they must have some of that too. Then Neith's people +laughed; and said, 'they might take as much as they liked, but they +would not move the plan of their pyramid again.' Then the little Germans +took three pieces, and began to build three spires directly; one large, +and two little. And when the Egyptians saw they had fairly begun, they +laid their foundation all round, of large square stones: and began to +build, so steadily that they had like to have swallowed up the three +little German spires. So when the Gothic spirits saw that, they built +their spires leaning, like the tower of Pisa, that they might stick out +at the side of the pyramid. And Neith's people stared at them; and +thought it very clever, but very wrong; and on they went, in their own +way, and said nothing. Then the little Gothic spirits were terribly +provoked because they could not spoil the shape of the pyramid; and they +sat down all along the ledges of it to make faces; but that did no good. +Then they ran to the corners, and put their elbows on their knees, and +stuck themselves out as far as they could, and made more faces; but that +did no good, neither. Then they looked up to the sky, and opened their +mouths wide, and gobbled, and said it was too hot for work, and +wondered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_108" id="Pg_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> when it would rain; but that did no good, neither. And all the +while the Egyptian spirits were laying step above step, patiently. But +when the Gothic ones looked, and saw how high they had got, they said, +'Ach, Himmel!' and flew down in a great black cluster to the bottom; and +swept out a level spot in the sand with their wings, in no time, and +began building a tower straight up, as fast as they could. And the +Egyptians stood still again to stare at them; for the Gothic spirits had +got quite into a passion, and were really working very wonderfully. They +cut the sandstone into strips as fine as reeds; and put one reed on the +top of another, so that you could not see where they fitted: and they +twisted them in and out like basket work, and knotted them into +likenesses of ugly faces, and of strange beasts biting each other; and +up they went, and up still, and they made spiral staircases at the +corners, for the loaded workers to come up by (for I saw they were but +weak imps, and could not fly with stones on their backs), and then they +made traceried galleries for them to run round by; and so up again; with +finer and finer work, till the Egyptians wondered whether they meant the +thing for a tower or a pillar: and I heard them saying to one another, +'It was nearly as pretty as lotus stalks; and if it were not for the +ugly faces, there would be a fine temple, if they were going to build it +all with pillars as big as that!' But in a minute afterwards,—just as +the Gothic spirits had carried their work as high as the upper course, +but three or four, of the pyramid—the Egyptians called out to them to +'mind what they were about, for the sand was running away from under one +of their tower corners.' But it was too late to mind what they were +about; for, in another instant, the whole tower sloped aside; and the +Gothic imps rose out of it like a flight of puffins, in a single cloud; +but screaming worse than any puffins you ever heard: and down came the +tower, all in a piece, like a falling poplar, with its head right on the +flank of the pyramid; against which it snapped short off. And of course +that waked me!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> What a shame of you to have such a dream, after all you have told +us about Gothic architecture!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_109" id="Pg_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. If you have understood anything I ever told you about it, you know +that no architecture was ever corrupted more miserably; or abolished +more justly by the accomplishment of its own follies. Besides, even in +its days of power, it was subject to catastrophes of this kind. I have +stood too often, mourning, by the grand fragment of the apse of +Beauvais, not to have that fact well burnt into me. Still, you must have +seen, surely, that these imps were of the Flamboyant school; or, at +least, of the German schools correspondent with it in extravagance.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But, then, where is the crystal about which you dreamed all this?</p> + +<p>L. Here; but I suppose little Pthah has touched it again, for it is very +small. But, you see, here is the pyramid, built of great square stones +of fluor spar, straight up; and here are the three little pinnacles of +mischievous quartz, which have set themselves, at the same time, on the +same foundation; only they lean like the tower of Pisa, and come out +obliquely at the side: and here is one great spire of quartz which seems +as if it had been meant to stand straight up, a little way off; and then +had fallen down against the pyramid base, breaking its pinnacle away. In +reality, it has crystallised horizontally, and terminated imperfectly: +but, then, by what caprice does one crystal form horizontally, when all +the rest stand upright? But this is nothing to the phantasies of fluor, +and quartz, and some other such companions, when they get leave to do +anything they like. I could show you fifty specimens, about every one of +which you might fancy a new fairy tale. Not that, in truth, any crystals +get leave to do quite what they like; and many of them are sadly tried, +and have little time for caprices—poor things!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> I thought they always looked as if they were either in play or in +mischief! What trials have they?</p> + +<p>L. Trials much like our own. Sickness, and starvation; fevers, and +agues, and palsy; oppression; and old age, and the necessity of passing +away in their time, like all else. If there's any pity in you, you must +come to-morrow, and take some part in these crystal griefs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_110" id="Pg_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I am sure we shall cry till our eyes are red.</p> + +<p>L. Ah, you may laugh, Dora: but I've been made grave, not once, nor +twice, to see that even crystals 'cannot choose but be old' at last. It +may be but a shallow proverb of the Justice's; but it is a shrewdly wide +one.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>pensive, for once</i>). I suppose it is very dreadful to be old! But +then (<i>brightening again</i>), what should we do without our dear old +friends, and our nice old lecturers?</p> + +<p>L. If all nice old lecturers were minded as little as one I know of——</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. And if they all meant as little what they say, would they not +deserve it? But we'll come—we'll come, and cry.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_152_152" id="Footnote_152_152"></a><a href="#FNanchor_152_152"><span class="label">[152]</span></a> Note v.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_111" id="Pg_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE IX.</h2> + +<h3><i>CRYSTAL SORROWS.</i></h3> + +<h4><i>Working Lecture in Schoolroom.</i></h4> + + +<p>L. We have been hitherto talking, children, as if crystals might live, +and play, and quarrel, and behave ill or well, according to their +characters, without interruption from anything else. But so far from +this being so, nearly all crystals, whatever their characters, have to +live a hard life of it, and meet with many misfortunes. If we could see +far enough, we should find, indeed, that, at the root, all their vices +were misfortunes: but to-day I want you to see what sort of troubles the +best crystals have to go through, occasionally, by no fault of their +own.</p> + +<p>This black thing, which is one of the prettiest of the very few pretty +black things in the world, is called 'Tourmaline.' It may be +transparent, and green, or red, as well as black; and then no stone can +be prettier (only, all the light that gets into it, I believe, comes out +a good deal the worse; and is not itself again for a long while). But +this is the commonest state of it,—opaque, and as black as jet.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. What does 'Tourmaline' mean?</p> + +<p>L. They say it is Ceylanese, and I don't know Ceylanese; but we may +always be thankful for a graceful word, whatever it means.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. And what is it made of?</p> + +<p>L. A little of everything; there's always flint, and clay, and magnesia +in it; and the black is iron, according to its fancy; and there's +boracic acid, if you know what that is; and if you don't, I cannot tell +you to-day; and it doesn't signify; and there's potash, and soda; and, +on the whole, the chemistry of it is more like a mediæval doctor's +prescription, than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_112" id="Pg_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> the making of a respectable mineral: but it may, +perhaps, be owing to the strange complexity of its make, that it has a +notable habit which makes it, to me, one of the most interesting of +minerals. You see these two crystals are broken right across, in many +places, just as if they had been shafts of black marble fallen from a +ruinous temple; and here they lie, imbedded in white quartz, fragment +succeeding fragment, keeping the line of the original crystal, while the +quartz fills up the intervening spaces. Now tourmaline has a trick of +doing this, more than any other mineral I know: here is another bit +which I picked up on the glacier of Macugnaga; it is broken, like a +pillar built of very flat broad stones, into about thirty joints, and +all these are heaved and warped away from each other sideways, almost +into a line of steps; and then all is filled up with quartz paste. And +here, lastly, is a green Indian piece, in which the pillar is first +disjointed, and then wrung round into the shape of an S.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> How <i>can</i> this have been done?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> There are a thousand ways in which it may have been done; the +difficulty is not to account for the doing of it; but for the showing of +it in some crystals, and not in others. You never by any chance get a +quartz crystal broken or twisted in this way. If it break or twist at +all, which it does sometimes, like the spire of Dijon, it is by its own +will or fault; it never seems to have been passively crushed. But, for +the forces which cause this passive ruin of the tourmaline,—here is a +stone which will show you multitudes of them in operation at once. It is +known as 'brecciated agate,' beautiful, as you see; and highly valued as +a pebble: yet, so far as I can read or hear, no one has ever looked at +it with the least attention. At the first glance, you see it is made of +very fine red striped agates, which have been broken into small pieces, +and fastened together again by paste, also of agate. There would be +nothing wonderful in this, if this were all. It is well known that by +the movements of strata, portions of rock are often shattered to +pieces:—well known also that agate is a deposit of flint by water under +certain conditions of heat and pressure: there is, therefore, nothing +wonderful in an agate's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_113" id="Pg_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> being broken; and nothing wonderful in its +being mended with the solution out of which it was itself originally +congealed. And with this explanation, most people, looking at a +brecciated agate, or brecciated anything, seem to be satisfied. I was so +myself, for twenty years; but, lately happening to stay for some time at +the Swiss Baden, where the beach of the Limmat is almost wholly composed +of brecciated limestones, I began to examine them thoughtfully; and +perceived, in the end, that they were, one and all, knots of as rich +mystery as any poor little human brain was ever lost in. That piece of +agate in your hand, Mary, will show you many of the common phenomena of +breccias; but you need not knit your brows over it in that way; depend +upon it, neither you nor I shall ever know anything about the way it was +made, as long as we live.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> That does not seem much to depend upon.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L.</span> Pardon me, puss. When once we gain some real notion of the extent and +the unconquerableness of our ignorance, it is a very broad and restful +thing to depend upon: you can throw yourself upon it at ease, as on a +cloud, to feast with the gods. You do not thenceforward trouble +yourself,—nor any one else,—with theories, or the contradiction of +theories; you neither get headache nor heartburning; and you never more +waste your poor little store of strength, or allowance of time.</p> + +<p>However, there are certain facts, about this agate-making, which I can +tell you; and then you may look at it in a pleasant wonder as long as +you like; pleasant wonder is no loss of time.</p> + +<p>First, then, it is not broken freely by a blow; it is slowly wrung, or +ground, to pieces. You can only with extreme dimness conceive the force +exerted on mountains in transitional states of movement. You have all +read a little geology; and you know how coolly geologists talk of +mountains being raised or depressed. They talk coolly of it, because +they are accustomed to the fact; but the very universality of the fact +prevents us from ever conceiving distinctly the conditions of force +involved. You know I was living last year<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_114" id="Pg_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> in Savoy; my house was on the +back of a sloping mountain which rose gradually for two miles, behind +it; and then fell at once in a great precipice towards Geneva, going +down three thousand feet in four or five cliffs, or steps. Now that +whole group of cliffs had simply been torn away by sheer strength from +the rocks below, as if the whole mass had been as soft as biscuit. Put +four or five captains' biscuits on the floor, on the top of one another; +and try to break them all in half, not by bending, but by holding one +half down, and tearing the other halves straight up;—of course you will +not be able to do it, but you will feel and comprehend the sort of force +needed. Then, fancy each captains' biscuit a bed of rock, six or seven +hundred feet thick; and the whole mass torn straight through; and one +half heaved up three thousand feet, grinding against the other as it +rose,—and you will have some idea of the making of the Mont Saléve.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> But it must crush the rocks all to dust!</p> + +<p>L. No; for there is no room for dust. The pressure is too great; +probably the heat developed also so great that the rock is made partly +ductile; but the worst of it is, that we never can see these parts of +mountains in the state they were left in at the time of their elevation; +for it is precisely in these rents and dislocations that the crystalline +power principally exerts itself. It is essentially a styptic power, and +wherever the earth is torn, it heals and binds; nay, the torture and +grieving of the earth seem necessary to bring out its full energy; for +you only find the crystalline living power fully in action, where the +rents and faults are deep and many.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> If you please, sir,—would you tell us—what are 'faults'?</p> + +<p>L. You never heard of such things?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Never in all our lives.</p> + +<p>L. When a vein of rock which is going on smoothly, is interrupted by +another troublesome little vein, which stops it, and puts it out, so +that it has to begin again in another place—that is called a fault. <i>I</i> +always think it ought to be called the fault of the vein that interrupts +it; but the miners always call it the fault of the vein that is +interrupted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_115" id="Pg_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> So it is, if it does not begin again where it left off.</p> + +<p>L. Well, that is certainly the gist of the business: but, whatever +good-natured old lecturers may do, the rocks have a bad habit, when they +are once interrupted, of never asking 'Where was I?'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> When the two halves of the dining table came separate, yesterday, +was that a 'fault'?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; but not the table's. However, it is not a bad illustration, +Dora. When beds of rock are only interrupted by a fissure, but remain at +the same level, like the two halves of the table, it is not called a +fault, but only a fissure; but if one half of the table be either tilted +higher than the other, or pushed to the side, so that the two parts will +not fit, it is a fault. You had better read the chapter on faults in +Jukes's Geology; then you will know all about it. And this rent that I +am telling you of in the Saléve, is one only of myriads, to which are +owing the forms of the Alps, as, I believe, of all great mountain +chains. Wherever you see a precipice on any scale of real magnificence, +you will nearly always find it owing to some dislocation of this kind; +but the point of chief wonder to me, is the delicacy of the touch by +which these gigantic rents have been apparently accomplished. Note, +however, that we have no clear evidence, hitherto, of the time taken to +produce any of them. We know that a change of temperature alters the +position and the angles of the atoms of crystals, and also the entire +bulk of rocks. We know that in all volcanic, and the greater part of all +subterranean, action, temperatures are continually changing, and +therefore masses of rock must be expanding or contracting, with infinite +slowness, but with infinite force. This pressure must result in +mechanical strain somewhere, both in their own substance, and in that of +the rocks surrounding them; and we can form no conception of the result +of irresistible pressure, applied so as to rend and raise, with +imperceptible slowness of gradation, masses thousands of feet in +thickness. We want some experiments tried on masses of iron and stone; +and we can't get them tried, because Christian creatures never will +seriously and sufficiently spend money, except to find out the shortest +ways<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_116" id="Pg_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> of killing each other. But, besides this slow kind of pressure, +there is evidence of more or less sudden violence, on the same terrific +scale; and, through it all, the wonder, as I said, is always to me the +delicacy of touch. I cut a block of the Saléve limestone from the edge +of one of the principal faults which have formed the precipice; it is a +lovely compact limestone, and the fault itself is filled up with a red +breccia formed of the crushed fragments of the torn rock, cemented by a +rich red crystalline paste. I have had the piece I cut from it smoothed, +and polished across the junction; here it is; and you may now pass your +soft little fingers over the surface, without so much as feeling the +place where a rock which all the hills of England might have been sunk +in the body of, and not a summit seen, was torn asunder through that +whole thickness, as a thin dress is torn when you tread upon it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The audience examine the stone, and touch it timidly; but +the matter remains inconceivable to them.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> (<i>struck by the beauty of the stone</i>). But this is almost marble?</p> + +<p>L. It is quite marble. And another singular point in the business, to my +mind, is that these stones, which men have been cutting into slabs, for +thousands of years, to ornament their principal buildings with,—and +which, under the general name of 'marble,' have been the delight of the +eyes, and the wealth of architecture, among all civilised nations,—are +precisely those on which the signs and brands of these earth agonies +have been chiefly struck; and there is not a purple vein nor flaming +zone in them, which is not the record of their ancient torture. What a +boundless capacity for sleep, and for serene stupidity, there is in the +human mind! Fancy reflective beings, who cut and polish stones for three +thousand years, for the sake of the pretty stains upon them; and educate +themselves to an art at last (such as it is), of imitating these veins +by dexterous painting; and never a curious soul of them, all that while, +asks, 'What painted the rocks?'</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The audience look dejected, and ashamed of themselves.</i>)</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_117" id="Pg_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>The fact is, we are all, and always, asleep, through our lives; and it +is only by pinching ourselves very hard that we ever come to see, or +understand, anything. At least, it is not always we who pinch ourselves; +sometimes other people pinch us; which I suppose is very good of +them,—or other things, which I suppose is very proper of them. But it +is a sad life; made up chiefly of naps and pinches.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>Some of the audience, on this, appearing to think that the +others require pinching, the</i> <span class="smcap">Lecturer</span> <i>changes the +subject.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>Now, however, for once, look at a piece of marble carefully, and think +about it. You see this is one side of the fault; the other side is down +or up, nobody knows where; but, on this side, you can trace the evidence +of the dragging and tearing action. All along the edge of this marble, +the ends of the fibres of the rock are torn, here an inch, and there +half an inch, away from each other; and you see the exact places where +they fitted, before they were torn separate; and you see the rents are +now all filled up with the sanguine paste, full of the broken pieces of +the rock; the paste itself seems to have been half melted, and partly to +have also melted the edge of the fragments it contains, and then to have +crystallised with them, and round them. And the brecciated agate I first +showed you contains exactly the same phenomena; a zoned crystallisation +going on amidst the cemented fragments, partly altering the structure of +those fragments themselves, and subject to continual change, either in +the intensity of its own power, or in the nature of the materials +submitted to it;—so that, at one time, gravity acts upon them, and +disposes them in horizontal layers, or causes them to droop in +stalactites; and at another, gravity is entirely defied, and the +substances in solution are crystallised in bands of equal thickness on +every side of the cell. It would require a course of lectures longer +than these (I have a great mind,—you have behaved so saucily—to stay +and give them) to describe to you the phenomena of this kind, in agates +and chalcedonies only;—nay, there is a single sarcophagus in the +British Museum, covered with grand sculpture of the 18th dynasty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_118" id="Pg_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>, which +contains in the magnificent breccia (agates and jaspers imbedded in +porphyry), out of which it is hewn, material for the thought of years; +and record of the earth-sorrow of ages in comparison with the duration +of which, the Egyptian letters tell us but the history of the evening +and morning of a day.</p> + +<p>Agates, I think, of all stones, confess most of their past history; but +all crystallisation goes on under, and partly records, circumstances of +this kind—circumstances of infinite variety, but always involving +difficulty, interruption, and change of condition at different times. +Observe, first, you have the whole mass of the rock in motion, either +contracting itself, and so gradually widening the cracks; or being +compressed, and thereby closing them, and crushing their edges;—and, if +one part of its substance be softer, at the given temperature, than +another, probably squeezing that softer substance out into the veins. +Then the veins themselves, when the rock leaves them open by its +contraction, act with various power of suction upon its substance;—by +capillary attraction when they are fine,—by that of pure vacuity when +they are larger, or by changes in the constitution and condensation of +the mixed gases with which they have been originally filled. Those gases +themselves may be supplied in all variation of volume and power from +below; or, slowly, by the decomposition of the rocks themselves; and, at +changing temperatures, must exert relatively changing forces of +decomposition and combination on the walls of the veins they fill; while +water, at every degree of heat and pressure (from beds of everlasting +ice, alternate with cliffs of native rock, to volumes of red hot, or +white hot, steam), congeals, and drips, and throbs, and thrills, from +crag to crag; and breathes from pulse to pulse of foaming or fiery +arteries, whose beating is felt through chains of the great islands of +the Indian seas, as your own pulses lift your bracelets, and makes whole +kingdoms of the world quiver in deadly earthquake, as if they were light +as aspen leaves. And, remember, the poor little crystals have to live +their lives, and mind their own affairs, in the midst of all this, as +best they may. They are wonderfully like human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_119" id="Pg_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> creatures,—forget all +that is going on if they don't see it, however dreadful; and never think +what is to happen to-morrow. They are spiteful or loving, and indolent +or painstaking, and orderly or licentious, with no thought whatever of +the lava or the flood which may break over them any day; and evaporate +them into air-bubbles, or wash them into a solution of salts. And you +may look at them, once understanding the surrounding conditions of their +fate, with an endless interest. You will see crowds of unfortunate +little crystals, who have been forced to constitute themselves in a +hurry, their dissolving element being fiercely scorched away; you will +see them doing their best, bright and numberless, but tiny. Then you +will find indulged crystals, who have had centuries to form themselves +in, and have changed their mind and ways continually; and have been +tired, and taken heart again; and have been sick, and got well again; +and thought they would try a different diet, and then thought better of +it; and made but a poor use of their advantages, after all. And others +you will see, who have begun life as wicked crystals; and then have been +impressed by alarming circumstances, and have become converted crystals, +and behaved amazingly for a little while, and fallen away again, and +ended, but discreditably, perhaps even in decomposition; so that one +doesn't know what will become of them. And sometimes you will see +deceitful crystals, that look as soft as velvet, and are deadly to all +near them; and sometimes you will see deceitful crystals, that seem +flint-edged, like our little quartz-crystal of a housekeeper here, +(hush! Dora,) and are endlessly gentle and true wherever gentleness and +truth are needed. And sometimes you will see little child-crystals put +to school like school-girls, and made to stand in rows; and taken the +greatest care of, and taught how to hold themselves up, and behave: and +sometimes you will see unhappy little child-crystals left to lie about +in the dirt, and pick up their living, and learn manners, where they +can. And sometimes you will see fat crystals eating up thin ones, like +great capitalists and little labourers; and politico-economic crystals +teaching the stupid ones how to eat each other, and cheat each other; +and foolish crystals getting in the way of wise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_120" id="Pg_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> ones; and impatient +crystals spoiling the plans of patient ones, irreparably; just as things +go on in the world. And sometimes you may see hypocritical crystals +taking the shape of others, though they are nothing like in their minds; +and vampire crystals eating out the hearts of others; and hermit-crab +crystals living in the shells of others; and parasite crystals living on +the means of others; and courtier crystals glittering in attendance upon +others; and all these, besides the two great companies of war and peace, +who ally themselves, resolutely to attack, or resolutely to defend. And +for the close, you see the broad shadow and deadly force of inevitable +fate, above all this: you see the multitudes of crystals whose time has +come; not a set time, as with us, but yet a time, sooner or later, when +they all must give up their crystal ghosts:—when the strength by which +they grew, and the breath given them to breathe, pass away from them; +and they fail, and are consumed, and vanish away; and another generation +is brought to life, framed out of their ashes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> It is very terrible. Is it not the complete fulfilment, down into +the very dust, of that verse: 'The whole creation groaneth and +travaileth in pain'?</p> + +<p>L. I do not know that it is in pain, Mary: at least, the evidence tends +to show that there is much more pleasure than pain, as soon as sensation +becomes possible.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> But then, surely, if we are told that it is pain, it must be +pain?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; if we are told; and told in the way you mean, Lucilla; but +nothing is said of the proportion to pleasure. Unmitigated pain would +kill any of us in a few hours; pain equal to our pleasures would make us +loathe life; the word itself cannot be applied to the lower conditions +of matter, in its ordinary sense. But wait till to-morrow to ask me +about this. To-morrow is to be kept for questions and difficulties; let +us keep to the plain facts to-day. There is yet one group of facts +connected with this rending of the rocks, which I especially want you to +notice. You know, when you have mended a very old dress, quite +meritoriously, till it won't mend any more—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_121" id="Pg_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>—</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Egypt</span> (<i>interrupting</i>). Could not you sometimes take gentlemen's work to +illustrate by?</p> + +<p>L. Gentlemen's work is rarely so useful as yours, Egypt; and when it is +useful, girls cannot easily understand it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> I am sure we should understand it better than gentlemen understand +about sewing.</p> + +<p>L. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, and under correction, when I +touch upon matters of the kind too high for me; and besides, I never +intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of sewing;—though you +always seem to think I am laughing at you. In all seriousness, +illustrations from sewing are those which Neith likes me best to use; +and which young ladies ought to like everybody to use. What do you think +the beautiful word 'wife' comes from?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> (<i>tossing her head</i>). I don't think it is a particularly beautiful +word.</p> + +<p>L. Perhaps not. At your ages you may think 'bride' sounds better; but +wife's the word for wear, depend upon it. It is the great word in which +the English and Latin languages conquer the French and the Greek. I hope +the French will some day get a word for it, yet, instead of their +dreadful 'femme.' But what do you think it comes from?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> I never <i>did</i> think about it.</p> + +<p>L. Nor you, Sibyl?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> No; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there.</p> + +<p>L. Yes; but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do mean +something. Wife means 'weaver.' You have all the right to call +yourselves little 'housewives,' when you sew neatly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> But I don't think we want to call ourselves 'little housewives.'</p> + +<p>L. You must either be house-Wives, or house-Moths; remember that. In the +deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes, and embroider them; or +feed upon, and bring them to decay. You had better let me keep my sewing +illustration, and help me out with it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Well we'll hear it, under protest.</p> + +<p>L. You have heard it before; but with reference to other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_122" id="Pg_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> matters. When +it is said, 'no man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old garment, else +it taketh from the old,' does it not mean that the new piece tears the +old one away at the sewn edge?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Yes; certainly.</p> + +<p>L. And when you mend a decayed stuff with strong thread, does not the +whole edge come away sometimes, when it tears again?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Yes; and then it is of no use to mend it any more.</p> + +<p>L. Well, the rocks don't seem to think that: but the same thing happens +to them continually. I told you they were full of rents, or veins. Large +masses of mountain are sometimes as full of veins as your hand is; and +of veins nearly as fine (only you know a rock vein does not mean a tube, +but a crack or cleft). Now these clefts are mended, usually, with the +strongest material the rock can find; and often literally with threads; +for the gradually opening rent seems to draw the substance it is filled +with into fibres, which cross from one side of it to the other, and are +partly crystalline; so that, when the crystals become distinct, the +fissure has often exactly the look of a tear, brought together with +strong cross stitches. Now when this is completely done, and all has +been fastened and made firm, perhaps some new change of temperature may +occur, and the rock begin to contract again. Then the old vein must open +wider; or else another open elsewhere. If the old vein widen, it <i>may</i> +do so at its centre; but it constantly happens, with well filled veins, +that the cross stitches are too strong to break; the walls of the vein, +instead, are torn away by them; and another little supplementary +vein—often three or four successively—will be thus formed at the side +of the first.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. That is really very much like our work. But what do the mountains +use to sew with?</p> + +<p>L. Quartz, whenever they can get it: pure limestones are obliged to be +content with carbonate of lime; but most mixed rocks can find some +quartz for themselves. Here is a piece of black slate from the Buet: it +looks merely like dry dark mud;—you could not think there was any +quartz in it; but,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_123" id="Pg_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> you see, its rents are all stitched together with +beautiful white thread, which is the purest quartz, so close drawn that +you can break it like flint, in the mass; but, where it has been exposed +to the weather, the fine fibrous structure is shown: and, more than +that, you see the threads have been all twisted and pulled aside, this +way and the other, by the warpings and shifting of the sides of the vein +as it widened.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. It is wonderful! But is that going on still? Are the mountains +being torn and sewn together again at this moment?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, certainly, my dear: but I think, just as certainly (though +geologists differ on this matter), not with the violence, or on the +scale, of their ancient ruin and renewal. All things seem to be tending +towards a condition of at least temporary rest; and that groaning and +travailing of the creation, as, assuredly, not wholly in pain, is not, +in the full sense, 'until now.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. I want so much to ask you about that!</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Yes; and we all want to ask you about a great many other things +besides.</p> + +<p>L. It seems to me that you have got quite as many new ideas as are good +for any of you at present: and I should not like to burden you with +more; but I must see that those you have are clear, if I can make them +so; so we will have one more talk, for answer of questions, mainly. +Think over all the ground, and make your difficulties thoroughly +presentable. Then we'll see what we can make of them.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. They shall all be dressed in their very best; and curtsey as they +come in.</p> + +<p>L. No, no, Dora; no curtseys, if you please. I had enough of them the +day you all took a fit of reverence, and curtsied me out of the room.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. But, you know, we cured ourselves of the fault, at once, by that +fit. We have never been the least respectful since. And the difficulties +will only curtsey themselves out of the room, I hope;—come in at one +door—vanish at the other.</p> + +<p>L. What a pleasant world it would be, if all its difficulties were +taught to behave so! However, one can generally make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_124" id="Pg_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> something, or +(better still) nothing, or at least less, of them, if they thoroughly +know their own minds; and your difficulties—I must say that for you, +children,—generally do know their own minds, as you do yourselves.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. That is very kindly said for us. Some people would not allow so +much as that girls had any minds to know.</p> + +<p>L. They will at least admit that you have minds to change, Dora.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. You might have left us the last speech, without a retouch. But +we'll put our little minds, such as they are, in the best trim we can, +for to-morrow.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_125" id="Pg_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE X.</h2> + +<h3><i>THE CRYSTAL REST.</i></h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Evening. The fireside.</i> L's <i>arm-chair in the comfortablest +corner.</i></p></div> + + +<p>L. (<i>perceiving various arrangements being made of foot-stool, cushion, +screen, and the like</i>). Yes, yes, it's all very fine! and I am to sit +here to be asked questions till supper-time, am I?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I don't think you can have any supper to-night:—we've got so much +to ask.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily</span>. Oh, Miss Dora! We can fetch it him here, you know, so nicely!</p> + +<p>L. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with competitive examination going +on over one's plate; the competition being among the examiners. Really, +now that I know what teasing things girls are, I don't so much wonder +that people used to put up patiently with the dragons who took <i>them</i> +for supper. But I can't help myself, I suppose;—no thanks to St. +George. Ask away, children, and I'll answer as civilly as may be.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. We don't so much care about being answered civilly, as about not +being asked things back again.</p> + +<p>L. 'Ayez seulement la patience que je le parle.' There shall be no +requitals.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Well, then, first of all—What shall we ask first, Mary?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. It does not matter. I think all the questions come into one, at +last, nearly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. You know, you always talk as if the crystals were alive; and we +never understand how much you are in play, and how much in earnest. +That's the first thing.</p> + +<p>L. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, how much I am in earnest. +The stones puzzle me as much as I puzzle you. They look as if they were +alive, and make me speak as if they were; and I do not in the least know +how much truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_126" id="Pg_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> there is in the appearance. I'm not to ask things back +again to-night, but all questions of this sort lead necessarily to the +one main question, which we asked, before, in vain, 'What is it to be +alive?'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. Yes; but we want to come back to that: for we've been reading +scientific books about the 'conservation of forces,' and it seems all so +grand, and wonderful; and the experiments are so pretty; and I suppose +it must be all right: but then the books never speak as if there were +any such thing as 'life.'</p> + +<p>L. They mostly omit that part of the subject, certainly, Dora; but they +are beautifully right as far as they go; and life is not a convenient +element to deal with. They seem to have been getting some of it into and +out of bottles, in their 'ozone' and 'antizone' lately; but they still +know little of it: and, certainly, I know less.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. You promised not to be provoking, to-night.</p> + +<p>L. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know less of the secrets of +life than the philosophers do; I yet know one corner of ground on which +we artists can stand, literally as 'Life Guards' at bay, as steadily as +the Guards at Inkermann; however hard the philosophers push. And you may +stand with us, if once you learn to draw nicely.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. I'm sure we are all trying! but tell us where we may stand.</p> + +<p>L. You may always stand by Form, against Force. To a painter, the +essential character of anything is the form of it; and the philosophers +cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for instance, that there is +as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy (or whatever else they like +to call it), in a tea-kettle as in a Gier-eagle. Very good; that is so; +and it is very interesting. It requires just as much heat as will boil +the kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest; and as much more to +bring him down again on a hare or a partridge. But we painters, +acknowledging the equality and similarity of the kettle and the bird in +all scientific respects, attach, for our part, our principal interest to +the difference in their forms. For us, the primarily cognisable facts, +in the two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_127" id="Pg_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> things, are, that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a +beak; the one a lid on its back, the other a pair of wings;—not to +speak of the distinction also of volition, which the philosophers may +properly call merely a form or mode of force;—but then, to an artist, +the form, or mode, is the gist of the business. The kettle chooses to +sit still on the hob; the eagle to recline on the air. It is the fact of +the choice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfilment of it, +which appears to us the more interesting circumstance;—though the other +is very interesting too. Exceedingly so! Don't laugh, children; the +philosophers have been doing quite splendid work lately, in their own +way: especially, the transformation of force into light is a great piece +of systematised discovery; and this notion about the sun's being +supplied with his flame by ceaseless meteoric hail is grand, and looks +very likely to be true. Of course, it is only the old gun-lock,—flint +and steel,—on a large scale: but the order and majesty of it are +sublime. Still, we sculptors and painters care little about it. 'It is +very fine,' we say, 'and very useful, this knocking the light out of the +sun, or into it, by an eternal cataract of planets. But you may hail +away, so, for ever, and you will not knock out what we can. Here is a +bit of silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single +hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out the +head of the Apollo of Clazomenæ. It is merely a matter of form; but if +any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary system to hammer +with, can hit out such another bit of silver as this,—we will take off +our hats to you. For the present, we keep them on.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Yes, I understand; and that is nice; but I don't think we shall +any of us like having only form to depend upon.</p> + +<p>L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my dear.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. It does not seem to separate us from the dust of the ground. It is +that breathing of the life which we want to understand.</p> + +<p>L. So you should: but hold fast to the form, and defend that first, as +distinguished from the mere transition of forces. Discern the moulding +hand of the potter commanding the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_128" id="Pg_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> clay, from his merely beating foot, +as it turns the wheel. If you can find incense, in the vase, +afterwards,—well: but it is curious how far mere form will carry you +ahead of the philosophers. For instance, with regard to the most +interesting of all their modes of force—light;—they never consider how +far the existence of it depends on the putting of certain vitreous and +nervous substances into the formal arrangement which we call an eye. The +German philosophers began the attack, long ago, on the other side, by +telling us, there was no such thing as light at all, unless we chose to +see it: now, German and English, both, have reversed their engines, and +insist that light would be exactly the same light that it is, though +nobody could ever see it. The fact being that the force must be there, +and the eyes there; and 'light' means the effect of the one on the +other;—and perhaps, also—(Plato saw farther into that mystery than any +one has since, that I know of),—on something a little way within the +eyes; but we may stand quite safe, close behind the retina, and defy the +philosophers.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. But I don't care so much about defying the philosophers, if only +one could get a clear idea of life, or soul, for one's self.</p> + +<p>L. Well, Sibyl, you used to know more about it, in that cave of yours, +than any of us. I was just going to ask you about inspiration, and the +golden bough, and the like; only I remembered I was not to ask anything. +But, will not you, at least, tell us whether the ideas of Life, as the +power of putting things together, or 'making' them; and of Death, as the +power of pushing things separate, or 'unmaking' them, may not be very +simply held in balance against each other?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. No, I am not in my cave to-night; and cannot tell you anything.</p> + +<p>L. I think they may. Modern Philosophy is a great separator; it is +little more than the expansion of Molière's great sentence, 'Il s'ensuit +de là, que tout ce qu'il y a de beau est dans les dictionnaires; il n'y +a que les mots qui sont transposés.' But when you used to be in your +cave, Sibyl, and to be inspired, there was (and there remains still in +some small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_129" id="Pg_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> measure), beyond the merely formative and sustaining power, +another, which we painters call 'passion'—I don't know what the +philosophers call it; we know it makes people red, or white; and +therefore it must be something, itself; and perhaps it is the most truly +'poetic' or 'making' force of all, creating a world of its own out of a +glance, or a sigh: and the want of passion is perhaps the truest death, +or 'unmaking' of everything;—even of stones. By the way, you were all +reading about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, the other day?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Because you had told us it was so difficult, you thought it could +not be ascended.</p> + +<p>L. Yes; I believed the Aiguille Verte would have held its own. But do +you recollect what one of the climbers exclaimed, when he first felt +sure of reaching the summit?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl</span>. Yes, it was, 'Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous êtes morte, vous êtes +morte!'</p> + +<p>L. That was true instinct. Real philosophic joy. Now can you at all +fancy the difference between that feeling of triumph in a mountain's +death; and the exultation of your beloved poet, in its life—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Quantus Athos, aut quantus Eryx, aut ipse coruscis<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quum fremit ilicibus quantus, gandetque nivali<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vertice, se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span>. You must translate for us mere house-keepers, please,—whatever +the cave-keepers may know about it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Will Dryden do?</p> + +<p>L. No. Dryden is a far way worse than nothing, and nobody will 'do.' You +can't translate it. But this is all you need know, that the lines are +full of a passionate sense of the Apennines' fatherhood, or protecting +power over Italy; and of sympathy with their joy in their snowy strength +in heaven; and with the same joy, shuddering through all the leaves of +their forests.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span>. Yes, that is a difference indeed! but then, you know, one can't +help feeling that it is fanciful. It is very delightful to imagine the +mountains to be alive; but then,—<i>are</i> they alive?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_130" id="Pg_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>L. It seems to me, on the whole, Mary, that the feelings of the purest +and most mightily passioned human souls are likely to be the truest. +Not, indeed, if they do not desire to know the truth, or blind +themselves to it that they may please themselves with passion; for then +they are no longer pure: but if, continually seeking and accepting the +truth as far as it is discernible, they trust their Maker for the +integrity of the instincts He has gifted them with, and rest in the +sense of a higher truth which they cannot demonstrate, I think they will +be most in the right, so.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Jessie</span> (<i>clapping their hands</i>). Then we really may believe +that the mountains are living?</p> + +<p>L. You may at least earnestly believe, that the presence of the spirit +which culminates in your own life, shows itself in dawning, wherever the +dust of the earth begins to assume any orderly and lovely state. You +will find it impossible to separate this idea of gradated manifestation +from that of the vital power. Things are not either wholly alive, or +wholly dead. They are less or more alive. Take the nearest, most easily +examined instance—the life of a flower. Notice what a different degree +and kind of life there is in the calyx and the corolla. The calyx is +nothing but the swaddling clothes of the flower; the child-blossom is +bound up in it, hand and foot; guarded in it, restrained by it, till the +time of birth. The shell is hardly more subordinate to the germ in the +egg, than the calyx to the blossom. It bursts at last; but it never +lives as the corolla does. It may fall at the moment its task is +fulfilled, as in the poppy; or wither gradually, as in the buttercup; or +persist in a ligneous apathy, after the flower is dead, as in the rose; +or harmonise itself so as to share in the aspect of the real flower, as +in the lily; but it never shares in the corolla's bright passion of +life. And the gradations which thus exist between the different members +of organic creatures, exist no less between the different ranges of +organism. We know no higher or more energetic life than our own; but +there seems to me this great good in the idea of gradation of life—it +admits the idea of a life above us, in other creatures, as much nobler +than ours, as ours is nobler than that of the dust.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_131" id="Pg_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> I am glad you have said that; for I know Violet and Lucilla and +May want to ask you something; indeed, we all do; only you frightened +Violet so about the ant-hill, that she can't say a word; and May is +afraid of your teasing her, too: but I know they are wondering why you +are always telling them about heathen gods and goddesses, as if you half +believed in them; and you represent them as good; and then we see there +is really a kind of truth in the stories about them; and we are all +puzzled: and, in this, we cannot even make our difficulty quite clear to +ourselves;—it would be such a long confused question, if we could ask +you all we should like to know.</p> + +<p>L. Nor is it any wonder, Mary; for this is indeed the longest, and the +most wildly confused question that reason can deal with; but I will try +to give you, quickly, a few clear ideas about the heathen gods, which +you may follow out afterwards, as your knowledge increases.</p> + +<p>Every heathen conception of deity in which you are likely to be +interested, has three distinct characters:—</p> + +<p>I. It has a physical character. It represents some of the great powers +or objects of nature—sun or moon, or heaven, or the winds, or the sea. +And the fables first related about each deity represent, figuratively, +the action of the natural power which it represents; such as the rising +and setting of the sun, the tides of the sea, and so on.</p> + +<p>II. It has an ethical character, and represents, in its history, the +moral dealings of God with man. Thus Apollo is first, physically, the +sun contending with darkness; but morally, the power of divine life +contending with corruption. Athena is, physically, the air; morally, the +breathing of the divine spirit of wisdom. Neptune is, physically, the +sea; morally, the supreme power of agitating passion; and so on.</p> + +<p>III. It has, at last, a personal character; and is realised in the minds +of its worshippers as a living spirit, with whom men may speak face to +face, as a man speaks to his friend.</p> + +<p>Now it is impossible to define exactly, how far, at any period of a +national religion, these three ideas are mingled; or how far one +prevails over the other. Each enquirer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_132" id="Pg_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> usually takes up one of these +ideas, and pursues it, to the exclusion of the others: no impartial +effort seems to have been made to discern the real state of the heathen +imagination in its successive phases. For the question is not at all +what a mythological figure meant in its origin; but what it became in +each subsequent mental development of the nation inheriting the thought. +Exactly in proportion to the mental and moral insight of any race, its +mythological figures mean more to it, and become more real. An early and +savage race means nothing more (because it has nothing more to mean) by +its Apollo, than the sun; while a cultivated Greek means every operation +of divine intellect and justice. The Neith, of Egypt, meant, physically, +little more than the blue of the air; but the Greek, in a climate of +alternate storm and calm, represented the wild fringes of the +storm-cloud by the serpents of her ægis; and the lightning and cold of +the highest thunder-clouds, by the Gorgon on her shield: while morally, +the same types represented to him the mystery and changeful terror of +knowledge, as her spear and helm its ruling and defensive power. And no +study can be more interesting, or more useful to you, than that of the +different meanings which have been created by great nations, and great +poets, out of mythological figures given them, at first, in utter +simplicity. But when we approach them in their third, or personal, +character (and, for its power over the whole national mind, this is far +the leading one), we are met at once by questions which may well put all +of you at pause. Were they idly imagined to be real beings? and did they +so usurp the place of the true God? Or were they actually real +beings—evil spirits,—leading men away from the true God? Or is it +conceivable that they might have been real beings,—good +spirits,—entrusted with some message from the true God? These were the +questions you wanted to ask; were they not, Lucilla?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> Yes, indeed.</p> + +<p>L. Well, Lucilla, the answer will much depend upon the clearness of your +faith in the personality of the spirits which are described in the book +of your own religion;—their personality, observe, as distinguished from +merely symbolical visions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_133" id="Pg_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> For instance, when Jeremiah has the vision +of the seething pot with its mouth to the north, you know that this +which he sees is not a real thing; but merely a significant dream. Also, +when Zechariah sees the speckled horses among the myrtle trees in the +bottom, you still may suppose the vision symbolical;—you do not think +of them as real spirits, like Pegasus, seen in the form of horses. But +when you are told of the four riders in the Apocalypse, a distinct sense +of personality begins to force itself upon you. And though you might, in +a dull temper, think that (for one instance of all) the fourth rider on +the pale horse was merely a symbol of the power of death,—in your +stronger and more earnest moods you will rather conceive of him as a +real and living angel. And when you look back from the vision of the +Apocalypse to the account of the destruction of the Egyptian first-born, +and of the army of Sennacherib, and again to David's vision at the +threshing floor of Araunah, the idea of personality in this death-angel +becomes entirely defined, just as in the appearance of the angels to +Abraham, Manoah, or Mary.</p> + +<p>Now, when you have once consented to this idea of a personal spirit, +must not the question instantly follow: 'Does this spirit exercise its +functions towards one race of men only, or towards all men? Was it an +angel of death to the Jew only, or to the Gentile also?' You find a +certain Divine agency made visible to a King of Israel, as an armed +angel, executing vengeance, of which one special purpose was to lower +his kingly pride. You find another (or perhaps the same) agency, made +visible to a Christian prophet as an angel standing in the sun, calling +to the birds that fly under heaven to come, that they may eat the flesh +of kings. Is there anything impious in the thought that the same agency +might have been expressed to a Greek king, or Greek seer, by similar +visions?—that this figure, standing in the sun, and armed with the +sword, or the bow (whose arrows were drunk with blood), and exercising +especially its power in the humiliation of the proud, might, at first, +have been called only 'Destroyer,' and afterwards, as the light, or sun, +of justice, was recognised in the chastisement, called also 'Physician' +or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_134" id="Pg_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> 'Healer?' If you feel hesitation in admitting the possibility of +such a manifestation, I believe you will find it is caused, partly +indeed by such trivial things as the difference to your ear between +Greek and English terms; but, far more, by uncertainty in your own mind +respecting the nature and truth of the visions spoken of in the Bible. +Have any of you intently examined the nature of your belief in them? +You, for instance, Lucilla, who think often, and seriously, of such +things?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> No; I never could tell what to believe about them. I know they +must be true in some way or other; and I like reading about them.</p> + +<p>L. Yes; and I like reading about them too, Lucilla; as I like reading +other grand poetry. But, surely, we ought both to do more than like it? +Will God be satisfied with us, think you, if we read His words merely +for the sake of an entirely meaningless poetical sensation?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lucilla.</span> But do not the people who give themselves to seek out the +meaning of these things, often get very strange, and extravagant?</p> + +<p>L. More than that, Lucilla. They often go mad. That abandonment of the +mind to religious theory, or contemplation, is the very thing I have +been pleading with you against. I never said you should set yourself to +discover the meanings; but you should take careful pains to understand +them, so far as they <i>are</i> clear; and you should always accurately +ascertain the state of your mind about them. I want you never to read +merely for the pleasure of fancy; still less as a formal religious duty +(else you might as well take to repeating Paters at once; for it is +surely wiser to repeat one thing we understand, than read a thousand +which we cannot). Either, therefore, acknowledge the passages to be, for +the present, unintelligible to you; or else determine the sense in which +you at present receive them; or, at all events, the different senses +between which you clearly see that you must choose. Make either your +belief, or your difficulty, definite; but do not go on, all through your +life, believing nothing intelligently, and yet supposing that your +having read the words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_135" id="Pg_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> of a divine book must give you the right to +despise every religion but your own. I assure you, strange as it may +seem, our scorn of Greek tradition depends, not on our belief, but our +disbelief, of our own traditions. We have, as yet, no sufficient clue to +the meaning of either; but you will always find that, in proportion to +the earnestness of our own faith, its tendency to accept a spiritual +personality increases: and that the most vital and beautiful Christian +temper rests joyfully in its conviction of the multitudinous ministry of +living angels, infinitely varied in rank and power. You all know one +expression of the purest and happiest form of such faith, as it exists +in modern times, in Richter's lovely illustrations of the Lord's Prayer. +The real and living death-angel, girt as a pilgrim for journey, and +softly crowned with flowers, beckons at the dying mother's door; +child-angels sit talking face to face with mortal children, among the +flowers;—hold them by their little coats, lest they fall on the +stairs;—whisper dreams of heaven to them, leaning over their pillows; +carry the sound of the church bells for them far through the air; and +even descending lower in service, fill little cups with honey, to hold +out to the weary bee. By the way, Lily, did you tell the other children +that story about your little sister, and Alice, and the sea?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> I told it to Alice, and to Miss Dora. I don't think I did to +anybody else. I thought it wasn't worth.</p> + +<p>L. We shall think it worth a great deal now, Lily, if you will tell it +us. How old is Dotty, again? I forget.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> She is not quite three; but she has such odd little old ways, +sometimes.</p> + +<p>L. And she was very fond of Alice?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Yes; Alice was so good to her always!</p> + +<p>L. And so when Alice went away?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> Oh, it was nothing, you know, to tell about; only it was strange +at the time.</p> + +<p>L. Well; but I want you to tell it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lily.</span> The morning after Alice had gone, Dotty was very sad and restless +when she got up; and went about, looking into all the corners, as if she +could find Alice in them, and at last she came to me, and said, 'Is Alie +gone over the great sea?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_136" id="Pg_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> And I said, 'Yes, she is gone over the great, +deep sea, but she will come back again some day.' Then Dotty looked +round the room; and I had just poured some water out into the basin; and +Dotty ran to it, and got up on a chair, and dashed her hands through the +water, again and again; and cried, 'Oh, deep, deep sea! send little Alie +back to me.'</p> + +<p>L. Isn't that pretty, children? There's a dear little heathen for you! +The whole heart of Greek mythology is in that; the idea of a personal +being in the elemental power;—of its being moved by prayer;—and of its +presence everywhere, making the broken diffusion of the element sacred.</p> + +<p>Now, remember, the measure in which we may permit ourselves to think of +this trusted and adored personality, in Greek, or in any other, +mythology, as conceivably a shadow of truth, will depend on the degree +in which we hold the Greeks, or other great nations, equal, or inferior, +in privilege and character, to the Jews, or to ourselves. If we believe +that the great Father would use the imagination of the Jew as an +instrument by which to exalt and lead him; but the imagination of the +Greek only to degrade and mislead him: if we can suppose that real +angels were sent to minister to the Jews and to punish them; but no +angels, or only mocking spectra of angels, or even devils in the shapes +of angels, to lead Lycurgus and Leonidas from desolate cradle to +hopeless grave:—and if we can think that it was only the influence of +spectres, or the teaching of demons, which issued in the making of +mothers like Cornelia, and of sons like Cleobis and Bito, we may, of +course, reject the heathen Mythology in our privileged scorn: but, at +least, we are bound to examine strictly by what faults of our own it has +come to pass, that the ministry of real angels among ourselves is +occasionally so ineffectual, as to end in the production of Cornelias +who entrust their child-jewels to Charlotte Winsors for the better +keeping of them; and of sons like that one who, the other day, in +France, beat his mother to death with a stick; and was brought in by the +jury, 'guilty, with extenuating circumstances.'</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">May.</span> Was that really possible?</p> + +<p>L. Yes, my dear. I am not sure that I can lay my hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_137" id="Pg_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> on the reference +to it (and I should not have said 'the other day'—it was a year or two +ago), but you may depend on the fact; and I could give you many like it, +if I chose. There was a murder done in Russia, very lately, on a +traveller. The murderess's little daughter was in the way, and found it +out, somehow. Her mother killed her, too, and put her into the oven. +There is a peculiar horror about the relations between parent and child, +which are being now brought about by our variously degraded forms of +European white slavery. Here <i>is</i> one reference, I see, in my notes on +that story of Cleobis and Bito; though I suppose I marked this chiefly +for its quaintness, and the beautifully Christian names of the sons; but +it is a good instance of the power of the King of the Valley of +Diamonds<a name="FNanchor_153_153" id="FNanchor_153_153"></a><a href="#Footnote_153_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a> among us.</p> + +<p>In 'Galignani' of July 21-22, 1862, is reported a trial of a farmer's +son in the department of the Yonne. The father, two years ago, at Malay +le Grand, gave up his property to his two sons, on condition of being +maintained by them. Simon fulfilled his agreement, but Pierre would not. +The tribunal of Sens condemns Pierre to pay eighty-four francs a year to +his father. Pierre replies, 'he would rather die than pay it.' Actually, +returning home, he throws himself into the river, and the body is not +found till next day.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> But—but—I can't tell what you would have us think. Do you +seriously mean that the Greeks were better than we are; and that their +gods were real angels?</p> + +<p>L. No, my dear. I mean only that we know, in reality, less than nothing +of the dealings of our Maker with our fellow-men; and can only reason or +conjecture safely about them, when we have sincerely humble thoughts of +ourselves and our creeds.</p> + +<p>We owe to the Greeks every noble discipline in literature; every radical +principle of art; and every form of convenient beauty in our household +furniture and daily occupations of life. We are unable, ourselves, to +make rational use of half that we have received from them: and, of our +own, we have nothing but discoveries in science, and fine mechanical +adaptations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_138" id="Pg_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> of the discovered physical powers. On the other hand, the +vice existing among certain classes, both of the rich and poor, in +London, Paris, and Vienna, could have been conceived by a Spartan or +Roman of the heroic ages only as possible in a Tartarus, where fiends +were employed to teach, but not to punish, crime. It little becomes us +to speak contemptuously of the religion of races to whom we stand in +such relations; nor do I think any man of modesty or thoughtfulness will +ever speak so of any religion, in which God has allowed one good man to +die, trusting.</p> + +<p>The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished +convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever +is right in them will become: and no error is so conclusively fatal as +the idea that God will not allow <i>us</i> to err, though He has allowed all +other men to do so. There may be doubt of the meaning of other visions, +but there is none respecting that of the dream of St. Peter; and you may +trust the Rock of the Church's Foundation for true interpreting, when he +learned from it that, 'in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh +righteousness, is accepted with Him.' See that you understand what that +righteousness means; and set hand to it stoutly: you will always measure +your neighbors' creed kindly, in proportion to the substantial fruits of +your own. Do not think you will ever get harm by striving to enter into +the faith of others, and to sympathise, in imagination, with the guiding +principles of their lives. So only can you justly love them, or pity +them, or praise. By the gracious effort you will double, treble—nay, +indefinitely multiply, at once the pleasure, the reverence, and the +intelligence with which you read: and, believe me, it is wiser and +holier, by the fire of your own faith to kindle the ashes of expired +religions, than to let your soul shiver and stumble among their graves, +through the gathering darkness, and communicable cold.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> (<i>after some pause</i>). We shall all like reading Greek history so +much better after this! but it has put everything else out of our heads +that we wanted to ask.</p> + +<p>L. I can tell you one of the things; and I might take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_139" id="Pg_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> credit for +generosity in telling you; but I have a personal reason—Lucilla's verse +about the creation.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dora.</span> Oh, yes—yes; and its 'pain together, until now.'</p> + +<p>L. I call you back to that, because I must warn you against an old error +of my own. Somewhere in the fourth volume of 'Modern Painters,' I said +that the earth seemed to have passed through its highest state: and +that, after ascending by a series of phases, culminating in its +habitation by man, it seems to be now gradually becoming less fit for +that habitation.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Yes, I remember.</p> + +<p>L. I wrote those passages under a very bitter impression of the gradual +perishing of beauty from the loveliest scenes which I knew in the +physical world;—not in any doubtful way, such as I might have +attributed to loss of sensation in myself—but by violent and definite +physical action; such as the filling up of the Lac de Chêde by landslips +from the Rochers des Fiz;—the narrowing of the Lake Lucerne by the +gaining delta of the stream of the Muotta-Thal, which, in the course of +years, will cut the lake into two, as that of Brientz has been divided +from that of Thun;—the steady diminishing of the glaciers north of the +Alps, and still more, of the sheets of snow on their southern slopes, +which supply the refreshing streams of Lombardy:—the equally steady +increase of deadly maremma round Pisa and Venice; and other such +phenomena, quite measurably traceable within the limits even of short +life, and unaccompanied, as it seemed, by redeeming or compensatory +agencies. I am still under the same impression respecting the existing +phenomena; but I feel more strongly, every day, that no evidence to be +collected within historical periods can be accepted as any clue to the +great tendencies of geological change; but that the great laws which +never fail, and to which all change is subordinate, appear such as to +accomplish a gradual advance to lovelier order, and more calmly, yet +more deeply, animated Rest. Nor has this conviction ever fastened itself +upon me more distinctly, than during my endeavour to trace the laws +which govern the lowly framework of the dust. For, through all the +phases of its transition and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_140" id="Pg_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> dissolution, there seems to be a continual +effort to raise itself into a higher state; and a measured gain, through +the fierce revulsion and slow renewal of the earth's frame, in beauty, +and order, and permanence. The soft white sediments of the sea draw +themselves, in process of time, into smooth knots of sphered symmetry; +burdened and strained under increase of pressure, they pass into a +nascent marble; scorched by fervent heat, they brighten and blanch into +the snowy rock of Paros and Carrara. The dark drift of the inland river, +or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake, divides, or resolves itself +as it dries, into layers of its several elements; slowly purifying each +by the patient withdrawal of it from the anarchy of the mass in which it +was mingled. Contracted by increasing drought, till it must shatter into +fragments, it infuses continually a finer ichor into the opening veins, +and finds in its weakness the first rudiments of a perfect strength. +Bent at last, rock from rock, nay, atom from atom, and tormented in +lambent fire, it knits, through the fusion, the fibres of a perennial +endurance; and, during countless subsequent centuries, declining, or +rather let me say, rising to repose, finishes the infallible lustre of +its crystalline beauty, under harmonies of law which are wholly +beneficent, because wholly inexorable.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<i>The children seem pleased, but more inclined to think over +these matters than to talk.</i>)</p></div> + +<p>L. (<i>after giving them a little time</i>). Mary, I seldom ask you to read +anything out of books of mine; but there is a passage about the Law of +Help, which I want you to read to the children now, because it is of no +use merely to put it in other words for them. You know the place I mean, +do not you?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary.</span> Yes (<i>presently finding it</i>); where shall I begin?</p> + +<p>L. Here; but the elder ones had better look afterwards at the piece +which comes just before this.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mary</span> (<i>reads</i>):</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>'A pure or holy state of anything is that in which all its parts are +helpful or consistent. The highest and first law of the universe, and +the other name of life, is therefore, "help." The other name of death is +"separation." Government and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_141" id="Pg_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> co-operation are in all things, and +eternally, the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, eternally, and in +all things, the laws of death.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps the best, though the most familiar, example we could take of +the nature and power of consistence, will be that of the possible +changes in the dust we tread on.</p> + +<p>'Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type +of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp, over-trodden path, in the +outskirts of a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, because +that is mixed with animal refuse; but take merely an ounce or two of the +blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a +manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of +clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand +and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and +destroy reciprocally each other's nature and power: competing and +fighting for place at every tread of your foot; sand squeezing out clay, +and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere, and defiling +the whole. Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect +rest, and that its elements gather together, like to like, so that their +atoms may get into the closest relations possible.</p> + +<p>'Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it +gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fit, with +help of congealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain, and painted +on, and be kept in kings' palaces. But such artificial consistence is +not its best. Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, +and it becomes, not only white but clear; not only clear, but hard; nor +only clear and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a +wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, +refusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire.</p> + +<p>'Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of +quiet to the sand. It also becomes, first, a white earth; then proceeds +to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, +infinitely fine parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting, not +merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the +greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any hard material +whatsoever. We call it then an opal.</p> + +<p>'In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at +first; but, instead of being discouraged, tries harder and harder; and +comes out clear at last; and the hardest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_142" id="Pg_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> thing in the world: and for +the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the power of reflecting +all the rays of the sun at once, in the vividest blaze that any solid +thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond.</p> + +<p>'Last of all, the water purifies, or unites itself; contented enough if +it only reach the form of a dewdrop: but, if we insist on its proceeding +to a more perfect consistence, it crystallises into the shape of a star. +And, for the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of +competition, we have, by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, +an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow.'</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>L. I have asked you to hear that, children, because, from all that we +have seen in the work and play of these past days, I would have you gain +at least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming trouble,—the +unquestionable degradation,—of the elements of the physical earth, must +passively wait the appointed time of their repose, or their restoration. +It can only be brought about for them by the agency of external law. But +if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving +atoms;—if, indeed, there is an eternal difference between the fire +which inhabits them, and that which animates us,—it must be shown, by +each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in +the activity of our hope; not merely by our desire, but our labour, for +the time when the Dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for +foundations of the gates of the city of God. The human clay, now +trampled and despised, will not be,—cannot be,—knit into strength and +light by accident or ordinances of unassisted fate. By human cruelty and +iniquity it has been afflicted;—by human mercy and justice it must be +raised: and, in all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real +message of creation, or of revelation, you may assuredly find perfect +peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly +required,—and content that He should indeed require no more of +you,—than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_153_153" id="Footnote_153_153"></a><a href="#FNanchor_153_153"><span class="label">[153]</span></a> Note vi.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_143" id="Pg_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> +<h2>NOTES.</h2> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Note I.</span></h4> + +<p>Page 24.</p> + +<p><i>'That third pyramid of hers.'</i></p> + +<p>Throughout the dialogues, it must be observed that 'Sibyl' is addressed +(when in play) as having once been the Cumæan Sibyl; and 'Egypt' as +having been queen Nitocris,—the Cinderella, and 'the greatest heroine +and beauty' of Egyptian story. The Egyptians called her 'Neith the +Victorious' (Nitocris), and the Greeks 'Face of the Rose' (Rhodope). +Chaucer's beautiful conception of Cleopatra in the 'Legend of Good +Women,' is much more founded on the traditions of her than on those of +Cleopatra; and, especially in its close, modified by Herodotus's +terrible story of the death of Nitocris, which, however, is +mythologically nothing more than a part of the deep monotonous ancient +dirge for the fulfilment of the earthly destiny of Beauty; 'She cast +herself into a chamber full of ashes.'</p> + +<p>I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have either +built, or increased to double its former size, the third pyramid of +Gizeh: and the passage following in the text refers to an imaginary +endeavour, by the Old Lecturer and the children together, to make out +the description of that pyramid in the 167th page of the second volume +of Bunsen's 'Egypt's Place in Universal History'—ideal +endeavour,—which ideally terminates as the Old Lecturer's real +endeavours to the same end always have terminated. There are, however, +valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210 of the same volume: but +the 'Early Egyptian History for the Young,' by the author of Sidney +Gray, contains, in a pleasant form, as much information as young readers +will usually need.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Note II.</span></h4> + +<p>Page 25.</p> + +<p><i>'Pyramid of Asychis.'</i></p> + +<p>This pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel the shame, +or vain glory, of being presumptuously, and first among great edifices, +built with 'brick for stone.' This was the inscription on it, according +to Herodotus:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_144" id="Pg_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Despise me not, in comparing me with the pyramids of stone; +for I have the pre-eminence over them, as far as Jupiter has +pre-eminence over the gods. For, striking with staves into +the pool, men gathered the clay which fastened itself to the +staff, and kneaded bricks out of it, and so made me.'</p></div> + +<p>The word I have translated 'kneaded' is literally 'drew;' in the sense +of drawing, for which the Latins used 'duco;' and thus gave us our +'ductile' in speaking of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or leader, in +speaking of living clay. As the asserted pre-eminence of the edifice is +made, in this inscription, to rest merely on the quantity of labour +consumed in it, this pyramid is considered, in the text, as the type, at +once, of the base building, and of the lost labour, of future ages, so +far at least as the spirits of measured and mechanical effort deal with +it: but Neith, exercising her power upon it, makes it a type of the work +of wise and inspired builders.</p> + + +<h4><span class="smcap">Note III.</span></h4> + +<p>Page 25.</p> + +<p><i>'The Greater Pthah.'</i></p> + +<p>It is impossible, as yet, to define with distinctness the personal +agencies of the Egyptian deities. They are continually associated in +function, or hold derivative powers, or are related to each other in +mysterious triads; uniting always symbolism of physical phenomena with +real spiritual power. I have endeavoured partly to explain this in the +text of the tenth Lecture: here, it is only necessary for the reader to +know that the Greater Pthah more or less represents the formative power +of order and measurement: he always stands on a four-square pedestal, +'the Egyptian cubit, metaphorically used as the hieroglyphic for truth;' +his limbs are bound together, to signify fixed stability, as of a +pillar; he has a measuring-rod in his hand; and at Philæ, is represented +as holding an egg on a potter's wheel; but I do not know if this symbol +occurs in older sculptures. His usual title is the 'Lord of Truth.' +Others, very beautiful: 'King of the Two Worlds, of Gracious +Countenance,' 'Superintendent of the Great Abode,' &c., are given by Mr. +Birch in Arundale's 'Gallery of Antiquities,' which I suppose is the +book of best authority easily accessible. For the full titles and +utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as yet the only—and I believe, +still a very questionable—authority; and Arundale's little book, +excellent in the text, has this great defect, that its drawings give the +statues invariably a ludicrous or ignoble character. Readers who have +not access to the originals must be warned against this frequent fault +in modern illustration (especially existing also in some of the painted +casts of Gothic and Norman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_145" id="Pg_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> work at the Crystal Palace). It is not owing +to any wilful want of veracity: the plates in Arundale's book are +laboriously faithful: but the expressions of both face and body in a +figure depend merely on emphasis of touch; and, in barbaric art, most +draughtsmen emphasise what they plainly see—the barbarism; and miss +conditions of nobleness, which they must approach the monument in a +different temper before they will discover, and draw with great subtlety +before they can express.</p> + +<p>The character of the Lower Pthah, or perhaps I ought rather to say, of +Pthah in his lower office, is sufficiently explained in the text of the +third Lecture; only the reader must be warned that the Egyptian +symbolism of him by the beetle was not a scornful one; it expressed only +the idea of his presence in the first elements of life. But it may not +unjustly be used, in another sense, by us, who have seen his power in +new development; and, even as it was, I cannot conceive that the +Egyptians should have regarded their beetle-headed image of him +(Champollion, 'Pantheon,' pl. 12), without some occult scorn. It is the +most painful of all their types of any beneficent power; and even among +those of evil influences, none can be compared with it, except its +opposite, the tortoise-headed demon of indolence.</p> + +<p>Pasht (p. 24, line 32) is connected with the Greek Artemis, especially +in her offices of judgment and vengeance. She is usually lioness-headed; +sometimes cat-headed; her attributes seeming often trivial or ludicrous +unless their full meaning is known; but the enquiry is much too wide to +be followed here. The cat was sacred to her; or rather to the sun, and +secondarily to her. She is alluded to in the text because she is always +the companion of Pthah (called 'the beloved of Pthah,' it may be as +Judgment, demanded and longed for by Truth); and it may be well for +young readers to have this fixed in their minds, even by chance +association. There are more statues of Pasht in the British Museum than +of any other Egyptian deity; several of them fine in workmanship; nearly +all in dark stone, which may be, presumably, to connect her, as the +moon, with the night; and in her office of avenger, with grief.</p> + +<p>Thoth (p. 27, line 17), is the Recording Angel of Judgment; and the +Greek Hermes Phre (line 20), is the Sun.</p> + +<p>Neith is the Egyptian spirit of divine wisdom; and the Athena of the +Greeks. No sufficient statement of her many attributes, still less of +their meanings, can be shortly given; but this should be noted +respecting the veiling of the Egyptian image of her by vulture +wings—that as she is, physically, the goddess of the air, this bird, +the most powerful creature of the air known to the Egyptians, naturally +became her symbol. It had other significations; but certainly this, when +in connection with Neith. As representing her, it was the most important +sign, next to the winged sphere, in Egyptian sculpture; and, just as in +Homer, Athena<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_146" id="Pg_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> herself guides her heroes into battle, this symbol of +wisdom, giving victory, floats over the heads of the Egyptian kings. The +Greeks, representing the goddess herself in human form, yet would not +lose the power of the Egyptian symbol, and changed it into an angel of +victory. First seen in loveliness on the early coins of Syracuse and +Leontium, it gradually became the received sign of all conquest, and the +so-called 'Victory' of later times; which, little by little, loses its +truth, and is accepted by the moderns only as a personification of +victory itself,—not as an actual picture of the living Angel who led to +victory. There is a wide difference between these two conceptions,—all +the difference between insincere poetry, and sincere religion. This I +have also endeavoured farther to illustrate in the tenth Lecture; there +is however one part of Athena's character which it would have been +irrelevant to dwell upon there; yet which I must not wholly leave +unnoticed.</p> + +<p>As the goddess of the air, she physically represents both its beneficent +calm, and necessary tempest: other storm-deities (as Chrysaor and Æolus) +being invested with a subordinate and more or less malignant function, +which is exclusively their own, and is related to that of Athena as the +power of Mars is related to hers in war. So also Virgil makes her able +to wield the lightning herself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the +intervention of Æolus. She has precisely the correspondent moral +authority over calmness of mind, and just anger. She soothes Achilles, +as she incites Tydides; her physical power over the air being always +hinted correlatively. She grasps Achilles by his hair—as the wind would +lift it—softly,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'It fanned his cheek, it raised his hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a meadow gale in spring.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She does not merely turn the lance of Mars from Diomed; but seizes it in +both her hands, and casts it aside, with a sense of making it vain, like +chaff in the wind;—to the shout of Achilles, she adds her own voice of +storm in heaven—but in all cases the moral power is still the principal +one—most beautifully in that seizing of Achilles by the hair, which was +the talisman of his life (because he had vowed it to the Sperchius if he +returned in safety), and which, in giving at Patroclus' tomb, he, +knowingly, yields up the hope of return to his country, and signifies +that he will die with his friend. Achilles and Tydides are, above all +other heroes, aided by her in war, because their prevailing characters +are the desire of justice, united in both with deep affections; and, in +Achilles, with a passionate tenderness, which is the real root of his +passionate anger. Ulysses is her favourite chiefly in her office as the +goddess of conduct and design.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_147" id="Pg_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>NOTE IV.</h4> + +<p>Page 54.</p> + +<p><i>'Geometrical limitations.'</i></p> + +<p>It is difficult, without a tedious accuracy, or without full +illustration, to express the complete relations of crystalline +structure, which dispose minerals to take, at different times, fibrous, +massive, or foliated forms; and I am afraid this chapter will be +generally skipped by the reader: yet the arrangement itself will be +found useful, if kept broadly in mind; and the transitions of state are +of the highest interest, if the subject is entered upon with any +earnestness. It would have been vain to add to the scheme of this little +volume any account of the geometrical forms of crystals: an available +one, though still far too difficult and too copious, has been arranged +by the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, for Orr's 'Circle of the Sciences'; and, I +believe, the 'nets' of crystals, which are therein given to be cut out +with scissors and put prettily together, will be found more conquerable +by young ladies than by other students. They should also, when an +opportunity occurs, be shown, at any public library, the diagram of the +crystallisation of quartz referred to poles, at p. 8 of Cloizaux's +'Manuel de Minéralogie': that they may know what work is; and what the +subject is.</p> + +<p>With a view to more careful examination of the nascent states of silica, +I have made no allusion in this volume to the influence of mere +segregation, as connected with the crystalline power. It has only been +recently, during the study of the breccias alluded to in page 113, that +I have fully seen the extent to which this singular force often modifies +rocks in which at first its influence might hardly have been suspected; +many apparent conglomerates being in reality formed chiefly by +segregation, combined with mysterious brokenly-zoned structures, like +those of some malachites. I hope some day to know more of these and +several other mineral phenomena (especially of those connected with the +relative sizes of crystals), which otherwise I should have endeavoured +to describe in this volume.</p> + + +<h4>NOTE V.</h4> + +<p>Page 102.</p> + +<p><i>'St. Barbara.'</i></p> + +<p>I would have given the legends of St. Barbara, and St. Thomas, if I had +thought it always well for young readers to have everything at once told +them which they may wish to know. They will remember the stories better +after taking some trouble to find them: and the text is intelligible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_148" id="Pg_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +enough as it stands. The idea of St. Barbara, as there given is founded +partly on her legend in Peter de Natalibus, partly on the beautiful +photograph of Van Eyck's picture of her at Antwerp: which was some time +since published at Lille.</p> + + +<h4>NOTE VI.</h4> + +<p>Page 137.</p> + +<p><i>'King of the Valley of Diamonds.'</i></p> + +<p>Isabel interrupted the Lecturer here, and was briefly bid to hold her +tongue; which gave rise to some talk, apart, afterwards, between L. and +Sibyl, of which a word or two may be perhaps advisably set down.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> We shall spoil Isabel, certainly, if we don't mind: I was glad +you stopped her, and yet sorry; for she wanted so much to ask about the +Valley of Diamonds again, and she has worked so hard at it, and made it +nearly all out by herself. She recollected Elisha's throwing in the +meal, which nobody else did.</p> + +<p>L. But what did she want to ask?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> About the mulberry trees and the serpents; we are all stopped by +that. Won't you tell us what it means?</p> + +<p>L. Now, Sibyl, I am sure you, who never explained yourself, should be +the last to expect others to do so. I hate explaining myself.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> And yet how often you complain of other people for not saying +what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three stone steps +to purgatory; for instance!</p> + +<p>L. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at; but mine matters +nothing: at least, if ever I think it is of any consequence, I speak it +as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you like of the serpent +forests. I could have helped you to find out what they were, by giving a +little more detail, but it would have been tiresome.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> It is much more tiresome not to find out. Tell us, please, as +Isabel says, because we feel so stupid.</p> + +<p>L. There is no stupidity; you could not possibly do more than guess at +anything so vague. But I think, you, Sibyl, at least, might have +recollected what first dyed the mulberry?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> So I did; but that helped little; I thought of Dante's forest of +suicides, too, but you would not simply have borrowed that?</p> + +<p>L. No. If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen it, to beat +into another shape; not borrowed it. But that idea of souls in trees is +as old as the world; or at least, as the world of man. And I <i>did</i> mean +that there were souls in those dark branches; the souls of all those who +had perished in misery through the pursuit of riches; and that the river +was of their blood, gathering gradually, and flowing out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_149" id="Pg_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> of the valley. +That I meant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived +carelessly and wantonly in their riches; and who have all their sins +forgiven by the world, because they are rich: and therefore they have +seven crimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they +are proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the chief +causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness and +absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing serpents. And +the worms are the souls of the common money-getters and traffickers, who +do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain habitually by the distress or +foolishness of others (as you see the butchers have been gaining out of +the panic at the cattle plague, among the poor),—so they are made to +eat the dark leaves, and spin, and perish.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sibyl.</span> And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress the +poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where are they?</p> + +<p>L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the gold; and +make the grave dust of the valley. I believe so, at least, for no one +ever sees those souls anywhere.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(<span class="smcap">Sibyl</span> <i>ceases questioning.</i>)</p></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel</span> (<i>who has crept up to her side without any one's seeing</i>). Oh, +Sibyl, please ask him about the fire-flies!</p> + +<p>L. What, you there, mousie! No; I won't tell either Sibyl or you about +the fire-flies; nor a word more about anything else. You ought to be +little fire-flies yourselves, and find your way in twilight by your own +wits.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Isabel.</span> But you said they burned, you know?</p> + +<p>L. Yes; and you may be fire-flies that way too, some of you, before +long, though I did not mean that. Away with you, children. You have +thought enough for to-day.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.</h2> + + +<p><i>Sentence</i> out of letter from May (who is staying with Isabel just now +at Cassel), dated 15th June, 1877:—</p> + +<p>"I am reading the Ethics with a nice Irish girl who is staying here, and +she's just as puzzled as I've always been about the fire-flies, and we +both want to know so much.—Please be a very nice old Lecturer, and tell +us, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Well, May, you never were a vain girl; so could scarcely guess that I +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_150" id="Pg_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>meant them for the light, unpursued vanities, which yet blind us, +confused among the stars. One evening, as I came late into Siena, the +fire-flies were flying high on a stormy sirocco wind,—the stars +themselves no brighter, and all their host seeming, at moments, to fade +as the insects faded.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_153" id="Pg_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> +<h2>FICTION—FAIR AND FOUL.</h2> + + +<p>On the first mild—or, at least, the first bright—day of March, in this +year, I walked through what was once a country lane, between the +hostelry of the Half-moon at the bottom of Herne Hill, and the secluded +College of Dulwich.</p> + +<p>In my young days, Croxsted Lane was a green bye-road traversable for +some distance by carts; but rarely so traversed, and, for the most part, +little else than a narrow strip of untilled field, separated by +blackberry hedges from the better cared-for meadows on each side of it: +growing more weeds, therefore, than they, and perhaps in spring a +primrose or two—white archangel—daisies plenty, and purple thistles in +autumn. A slender rivulet, boasting little of its brightness, for there +are no springs at Dulwich, yet fed purely enough by the rain and morning +dew, here trickled—there loitered—through the long grass beneath the +hedges, and expanded itself, where it might, into moderately clear and +deep pools, in which, under their veils of duck-weed, a fresh-water +shell or two, sundry curious little skipping shrimps, any quantity of +tadpoles in their time, and even sometimes a tittlebat, offered +themselves to my boyhood's pleased, and not inaccurate, observation. +There, my mother and I used to gather the first buds of the hawthorn; +and there, in after years, I used to walk in the summer shadows, as in a +place wilder and sweeter than our garden, to think over any passage I +wanted to make better than usual in <i>Modern Painters</i>.</p> + +<p>So, as aforesaid, on the first kindly day of this year, being thoughtful +more than usual of those old times, I went to look again at the place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_154" id="Pg_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>Often, both in those days, and since, I have put myself hard to it, +vainly, to find words wherewith to tell of beautiful things; but beauty +has been in the world since the world was made, and human language can +make a shift, somehow, to give account of it, whereas the peculiar +forces of devastation induced by modern city life have only entered the +world lately; and no existing terms of language known to me are enough +to describe the forms of filth, and modes of ruin, that varied +themselves along the course of Croxsted Lane. The fields on each side of +it are now mostly dug up for building, or cut through into gaunt corners +and nooks of blind ground by the wild crossings and concurrencies of +three railroads. Half a dozen handfuls of new cottages, with Doric +doors, are dropped about here and there among the gashed ground: the +lane itself, now entirely grassless, is a deep-rutted, heavy-hillocked +cart-road, diverging gatelessly into various brick-fields or pieces of +waste; and bordered on each side by heaps of—Hades only knows +what!—mixed dust of every unclean thing that can crumble in drought, +and mildew of every unclean thing that can rot or rust in damp: ashes +and rags, beer-bottles and old shoes, battered pans, smashed crockery, +shreds of nameless clothes, door-sweepings, floor-sweepings, kitchen +garbage, back-garden sewage, old iron, rotten timber jagged with +out-torn nails, cigar-ends, pipe-bowls, cinders, bones, and ordure, +indescribable; and, variously kneaded into, sticking to, or fluttering +foully here and there over all these,—remnants broadcast, of every +manner of newspaper, advertisement or big-lettered bill, festering and +flaunting out their last publicity in the pits of stinking dust and +mortal slime.</p> + +<p>The lane ends now where its prettiest windings once began; being cut off +by a cross-road leading out of Dulwich to a minor railway station: and +on the other side of this road, what was of old the daintiest intricacy +of its solitude is changed into a straight, and evenly macadamised +carriage drive, between new houses of extreme respectability, with good +attached gardens and offices—most of these tenements being larger—all +more pretentious, and many, I imagine, held at greatly higher rent than +my father's, tenanted for twenty years at Herne Hill.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_155" id="Pg_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> And it became +matter of curious meditation to me what must here become of children +resembling my poor little dreamy quondam self in temper, and thus +brought up at the same distance from London, and in the same or better +circumstances of worldly fortune; but with only Croxsted Lane in its +present condition for their country walk. The trimly kept road before +their doors, such as one used to see in the fashionable suburbs of +Cheltenham or Leamington, presents nothing to their study but gravel, +and gas-lamp posts; the modern addition of a vermilion letter-pillar +contributing indeed to the splendour, but scarcely to the interest of +the scene; and a child of any sense or fancy would hastily contrive +escape from such a barren desert of politeness, and betake itself to +investigation, such as might be feasible, of the natural history of +Croxsted Lane.</p> + +<p>But, for its sense or fancy, what food, or stimulus, can it find, in +that foul causeway of its youthful pilgrimage? What would have happened +to myself, so directed, I cannot clearly imagine. Possibly, I might have +got interested in the old iron and wood-shavings; and become an engineer +or a carpenter: but for the children of to-day, accustomed from the +instant they are out of their cradles, to the sight of this infinite +nastiness, prevailing as a fixed condition of the universe, over the +face of nature, and accompanying all the operations of industrious man, +what is to be the scholastic issue? unless, indeed, the thrill of +scientific vanity in the primary analysis of some unheard-of process of +corruption—or the reward of microscopic research in the sight of worms +with more legs, and acari of more curious generation than ever vivified +the more simply smelling plasma of antiquity.</p> + +<p>One result of such elementary education is, however, already certain; +namely, that the pleasure which we may conceive taken by the children of +the coming time, in the analysis of physical corruption, guides, into +fields more dangerous and desolate, the expatiation of imaginative +literature: and that the reactions of moral disease upon itself, and the +conditions of languidly monstrous character developed in an atmosphere +of low vitality, have become the most valued material of modern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_156" id="Pg_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +fiction, and the most eagerly discussed texts of modern philosophy.</p> + +<p>The many concurrent reasons for this mischief may, I believe, be massed +under a few general heads.</p> + +<p>I. There is first the hot fermentation and unwholesome secrecy of the +population crowded into large cities, each mote in the misery lighter, +as an individual soul, than a dead leaf, but becoming oppressive and +infectious each to his neighbour, in the smoking mass of decay. The +resulting modes of mental ruin and distress are continually new; and in +a certain sense, worth study in their monstrosity: they have accordingly +developed a corresponding science of fiction, concerned mainly with the +description of such forms of disease, like the botany of leaf-lichens.</p> + +<p>In De Balzac's story of <i>Father Goriot</i>, a grocer makes a large fortune, +of which he spends on himself as much as may keep him alive; and on his +two daughters, all that can promote their pleasures or their pride. He +marries them to men of rank, supplies their secret expenses, and +provides for his favourite a separate and clandestine establishment with +her lover. On his deathbed, he sends for this favourite daughter, who +wishes to come, and hesitates for a quarter of an hour between doing so, +and going to a ball at which it has been for the last month her chief +ambition to be seen. She finally goes to the ball.</p> + +<p>This story is, of course, one of which the violent contrasts and +spectral catastrophe could only take place, or be conceived, in a large +city. A village grocer cannot make a large fortune, cannot marry his +daughters to titled squires, and cannot die without having his children +brought to him, if in the neighbourhood, by fear of village gossip, if +for no better cause.</p> + +<p>II. But a much more profound feeling than this mere curiosity of science +in morbid phenomena is concerned in the production of the carefullest +forms of modern fiction. The disgrace and grief resulting from the mere +trampling pressure and electric friction of town life, become to the +sufferers peculiarly mysterious in their undeservedness, and frightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_157" id="Pg_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +in their inevitableness. The power of all surroundings over them for +evil; the incapacity of their own minds to refuse the pollution, and of +their own wills to oppose the weight, of the staggering mass that chokes +and crushes them into perdition, brings every law of healthy existence +into question with them, and every alleged method of help and hope into +doubt. Indignation, without any calming faith in justice, and +self-contempt, without any curative self-reproach, dull the +intelligence, and degrade the conscience, into sullen incredulity of all +sunshine outside the dunghill, or breeze beyond the wafting of its +impurity; and at last a philosophy develops itself, partly satiric, +partly consolatory, concerned only with the regenerative vigour of +manure, and the necessary obscurities of fimetic Providence; showing how +everybody's fault is somebody else's, how infection has no law, +digestion no will, and profitable dirt no dishonour.</p> + +<p>And thus an elaborate and ingenious scholasticism, in what may be called +the Divinity of Decomposition, has established itself in connection with +the more recent forms of romance, giving them at once a complacent tone +of clerical dignity, and an agreeable dash of heretical impudence; while +the inculcated doctrine has the double advantage of needing no laborious +scholarship for its foundation, and no painful self-denial for its +practice.</p> + +<p>III. The monotony of life in the central streets of any great modern +city, but especially in those of London, where every emotion intended to +be derived by men from the sight of nature, or the sense of art, is +forbidden for ever, leaves the craving of the heart for a sincere, yet +changeful, interest, to be fed from one source only. Under natural +conditions the degree of mental excitement necessary to bodily health is +provided by the course of the seasons, and the various skill and fortune +of agriculture. In the country every morning of the year brings with it +a new aspect of springing or fading nature; a new duty to be fulfilled +upon earth, and a new promise or warning in heaven. No day is without +its innocent hope, its special prudence, its kindly gift, and its +sublime danger; and in every process of wise husbandry, and every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_158" id="Pg_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +effort of contending or remedial courage, the wholesome passions, pride, +and bodily power of the labourer are excited and exerted in happiest +unison. The companionship of domestic, the care of serviceable, animals, +soften and enlarge his life with lowly charities, and discipline him in +familiar wisdoms and unboastful fortitudes; while the divine laws of +seed-time which cannot be recalled, harvest which cannot be hastened, +and winter in which no man can work, compel the impatiences and coveting +of his heart into labour too submissive to be anxious, and rest too +sweet to be wanton. What thought can enough comprehend the contrast +between such life, and that in streets where summer and winter are only +alternations of heat and cold; where snow never fell white, nor sunshine +clear; where the ground is only a pavement, and the sky no more than the +glass roof of an arcade; where the utmost power of a storm is to choke +the gutters, and the finest magic of spring, to change mud into dust: +where—chief and most fatal difference in state, there is no interest of +occupation for any of the inhabitants but the routine of counter or desk +within doors, and the effort to pass each other without collision +outside; so that from morning to evening the only possible variation of +the monotony of the hours, and lightening of the penalty of existence, +must be some kind of mischief, limited, unless by more than ordinary +godsend of fatality, to the fall of a horse, or the slitting of a +pocket.</p> + +<p>I said that under these laws of inanition, the craving of the human +heart for some kind of excitement could be supplied from <i>one</i> source +only. It might have been thought by any other than a sternly tentative +philosopher, that the denial of their natural food to human feelings +would have provoked a reactionary desire for it; and that the dreariness +of the street would have been gilded by dreams of pastoral felicity. +Experience has shown the fact to be otherwise; the thoroughly trained +Londoner can enjoy no other excitement than that to which he has been +accustomed, but asks for <i>that</i> in continually more ardent or more +virulent concentration; and the ultimate power of fiction to entertain +him is by varying to his fancy the modes, and defining for his dulness +the horrors, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_159" id="Pg_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> Death. In the single novel of <i>Bleak House</i> there are +nine deaths (or left for death's, in the drop scene) carefully wrought +out or led up to, either by way of pleasing surprise, as the baby's at +the brickmaker's, or finished in their threatenings and sufferings, with +as much enjoyment as can be contrived in the anticipation, and as much +pathology as can be concentrated in the description. Under the following +varieties of method:—</p> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>One by assassination</td><td align='left'>Mr. Tulkinghorn.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by starvation, with phthisis</td><td align='left'>Joe.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by chagrin</td><td align='left'>Richard.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by spontaneous combustion</td><td align='left'>Mr. Krook.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by sorrow</td><td align='left'>Lady Dedlock's lover.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by remorse</td><td align='left'>Lady Dedlock.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by insanity</td><td align='left'>Miss Flite.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>One by paralysis</td><td align='left'>Sir Leicester.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Besides the baby, by fever, and a lively young Frenchwoman left to be +hanged.</p> + +<p>And all this, observe, not in a tragic, adventurous, or military story, +but merely as the further enlivenment of a narrative intended to be +amusing; and as a properly representative average of the statistics of +civilian mortality in the centre of London.</p> + +<p>Observe further, and chiefly. It is not the mere number of deaths +(which, if we count the odd troopers in the last scene, is exceeded in +<i>Old Mortality</i>, and reached, within one or two, both in <i>Waverley</i> and +<i>Guy Mannering</i>) that marks the peculiar tone of the modern novel. It is +the fact that all these deaths, but one, are of inoffensive, or at least +in the world's estimate respectable persons; and that they are all +grotesquely either violent or miserable, purporting thus to illustrate +the modern theology that the appointed destiny of a large average of our +population is to die like rats in a drain, either by trap or poison. +Not, indeed, that a lawyer in full practice can be usually supposed as +faultless in the eye of heaven as a dove or a woodcock; but it is not, +in former divinities, thought the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_160" id="Pg_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> will of Providence that he should be +dropped by a shot from a client behind his fire-screen, and retrieved in +the morning by his housemaid under the chandelier. Neither is Lady +Dedlock less reprehensible in her conduct than many women of fashion +have been and will be: but it would not therefore have been thought +poetically just, in old-fashioned morality, that she should be found by +her daughter lying dead, with her face in the mud of a St. Giles's +churchyard.</p> + +<p>In the work of the great masters death is always either heroic, +deserved, or quiet and natural (unless their purpose be totally and +deeply tragic, when collateral meaner death is permitted, like that of +Polonius or Roderigo). In <i>Old Mortality</i>, four of the deaths, +Bothwell's, Ensign Grahame's, Macbriar's, and Evandale's, are +magnificently heroic; Burley's and Oliphant's long deserved, and swift; +the troopers', met in the discharge of their military duty, and the old +miser's, as gentle as the passing of a cloud, and almost beautiful in +its last words of—now unselfish—care.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Ailie' (he aye ca'd me Ailie, we were auld acquaintance,) +'Ailie, take ye care and haud the gear weel thegither; for +the name of Morton of Milnwood's gane out like the last +sough of an auld sang.' And sae he fell out o' ae dwam into +another, and ne'er spak a word mair, unless it were +something we cou'dna mak out, about a dipped candle being +gude eneugh to see to dee wi'. He cou'd ne'er bide to see a +moulded ane, and there was ane, by ill luck, on the table.</p></div> + +<p>In <i>Guy Mannering</i>, the murder, though unpremeditated, of a single +person, (himself not entirely innocent, but at least by heartlessness in +a cruel function earning his fate,) is avenged to the uttermost on all +the men conscious of the crime; Mr. Bertram's death, like that of his +wife, brief in pain, and each told in the space of half-a-dozen lines; +and that of the heroine of the tale, self-devoted, heroic in the +highest, and happy.</p> + +<p>Nor is it ever to be forgotten, in the comparison of Scott's with +inferior work, that his own splendid powers were, even in early life, +tainted, and in his latter years destroyed, by modern conditions of +commercial excitement, then first, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_161" id="Pg_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> rapidly, developing themselves. +There are parts even in his best novels coloured to meet tastes which he +despised; and many pages written in his later ones to lengthen his +article for the indiscriminate market.</p> + +<p>But there was one weakness of which his healthy mind remained incapable +to the last. In modern stories prepared for more refined or fastidious +audiences than those of Dickens, the funereal excitement is obtained, +for the most part, not by the infliction of violent or disgusting death; +but in the suspense, the pathos, and the more or less by all felt, and +recognised, mortal phenomena of the sick-room. The temptation, to weak +writers, of this order of subject is especially great, because the study +of it from the living—or dying—model is so easy, and to many has been +the most impressive part of their own personal experience; while, if the +description be given even with mediocre accuracy, a very large section +of readers will admire its truth, and cherish its melancholy: Few +authors of second or third rate genius can either record or invent a +probable conversation in ordinary life; but few, on the other hand, are +so destitute of observant faculty as to be unable to chronicle the +broken syllables and languid movements of an invalid. The easily +rendered, and too surely recognised, image of familiar suffering is felt +at once to be real where all else had been false; and the historian of +the gestures of fever and words of delirium can count on the applause of +a gratified audience as surely as the dramatist who introduces on the +stage of his flagging action a carriage that can be driven or a fountain +that will flow. But the masters of strong imagination disdain such work, +and those of deep sensibility shrink from it.<a name="FNanchor_154_154" id="FNanchor_154_154"></a><a href="#Footnote_154_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> Only under conditions +of personal weakness, presently to be noted, would Scott comply with the +cravings of his lower audience in scenes of terror like the death of +Front-de-Bœuf. But he never once withdrew the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_162" id="Pg_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> sacred curtain of the +sick-chamber, nor permitted the disgrace of wanton tears round the +humiliation of strength, or the wreck of beauty.</p> + +<p>IV. No exception to this law of reverence will be found in the scenes in +Cœur de Lion's illness introductory to the principal incident in the +<i>Talisman</i>. An inferior writer would have made the king charge in +imagination at the head of his chivalry, or wander in dreams by the +brooks of Aquitaine; but Scott allows us to learn no more startling +symptoms of the king's malady than that he was restless and impatient, +and could not wear his armour. Nor is any bodily weakness, or crisis of +danger, permitted to disturb for an instant the royalty of intelligence +and heart in which he examines, trusts and obeys the physician whom his +attendants fear.</p> + +<p>Yet the choice of the main subject in this story and its companion—the +trial, to a point of utter torture, of knightly faith, and several +passages in the conduct of both, more especially the exaggerated scenes +in the House of Baldringham, and hermitage of Engedi, are signs of the +gradual decline in force of intellect and soul which those who love +Scott best have done him the worst injustice in their endeavours to +disguise or deny. The mean anxieties, moral humiliations, and +mercilessly demanded brain-toil, which killed him, show their sepulchral +grasp for many and many a year before their final victory; and the +states of more or less dulled, distorted, and polluted imagination which +culminate in <i>Castle Dangerous</i>, cast a Stygian hue over <i>St. Ronan's +Well, The Fair Maid of Perth</i>, and <i>Anne of Geierstein</i>, which lowers +them, the first altogether, the other two at frequent intervals, into +fellowship with the normal disease which festers throughout the whole +body of our lower fictitious literature.</p> + +<p>Fictitious! I use the ambiguous word deliberately; for it is impossible +to distinguish in these tales of the prison-house how far their vice and +gloom are thrown into their manufacture only to meet a vile demand, and +how far they are an integral condition of thought in the minds of men +trained from their youth up in the knowledge of Londinian and Parisian +misery. The speciality of the plague is a delight in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_163" id="Pg_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> exposition of +the relations between guilt and decrepitude; and I call the results of +it literature 'of the prison-house,' because the thwarted habits of body +and mind, which are the punishment of reckless crowding in cities, +become, in the issue of that punishment, frightful subjects of exclusive +interest to themselves; and the art of fiction in which they finally +delight is only the more studied arrangement and illustration, by +coloured firelights, of the daily bulletins of their own wretchedness, +in the prison calendar, the police news, and the hospital report.</p> + +<p>The reader will perhaps be surprised at my separating the greatest work +of Dickens, <i>Oliver Twist</i>, with honour, from the loathsome mass to +which it typically belongs. That book is an earnest and uncaricatured +record of states of criminal life, written with didactic purpose, full +of the gravest instruction, nor destitute of pathetic studies of noble +passion. Even the <i>Mysteries of Paris</i> and Gaboriau's <i>Crime d'Augival</i> +are raised, by their definiteness of historical intention and +forewarning anxiety, far above the level of their order, and may be +accepted as photographic evidence of an otherwise incredible +civilisation, corrupted in the infernal fact of it, down to the genesis +of such figures as the Vicomte d'Augival, the Stabber,<a name="FNanchor_155_155" id="FNanchor_155_155"></a><a href="#Footnote_155_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> the +Skeleton, and the She-wolf. But the effectual head of the whole +cretinous school is the renowned novel in which the hunchbacked lover +watches the execution of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_164" id="Pg_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> mistress from the tower of Notre-Dame; and +its strength passes gradually away into the anatomical preparations, for +the general market, of novels like <i>Poor Miss Finch</i>, in which the +heroine is blind, the hero epileptic, and the obnoxious brother is found +dead with his hands dropped off, in the Arctic regions.<a name="FNanchor_156_156" id="FNanchor_156_156"></a><a href="#Footnote_156_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_165" id="Pg_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p><p>This literature of the Prison-house, understanding by the word not only +the cell of Newgate, but also and even more definitely the cell of the +Hôtel-Dieu, the Hôpital des Fous, and the grated corridor with the +dripping slabs of the Morgue,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_166" id="Pg_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> having its central root thus in the Ile +de Paris—or historically and pre-eminently the 'Cité de Paris'—is, +when understood deeply, the precise counter-corruption of the religion +of the Sainte Chapelle, just as the worst forms of bodily and mental +ruin are the corruption of love. I have therefore called it 'Fiction +mécroyante,' with literal accuracy and precision; according to the +explanation of the word which the reader may find in any good French +dictionary,<a name="FNanchor_157_157" id="FNanchor_157_157"></a><a href="#Footnote_157_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> and round its Arctic pole in the Morgue, he may gather +into one Caina of gelid putrescence the entire product of modern infidel +imagination, amusing itself with destruction of the body, and busying +itself with aberration of the mind.</p> + +<p>Aberration, palsy, or plague, observe, as distinguished from normal +evil, just as the venom of rabies or cholera differs from that of a wasp +or a viper. The life of the insect and serpent deserves, or at least +permits, our thoughts; not so, the stages of agony in the fury-driven +hound. There is some excuse, indeed, for the pathologic labour of the +modern novelist in the fact that he cannot easily, in a city population, +find a healthy mind to vivisect: but the greater part of such amateur +surgery is the struggle, in an epoch of wild literary competition, to +obtain novelty of material. The varieties of aspect and colour in +healthy fruit, be it sweet or sour, may be within certain limits +described exhaustively. Not so the blotches of its conceivable blight: +and while the symmetries of integral human character can only be traced +by harmonious and tender skill, like the branches of a living tree, the +faults and gaps of one gnawed away by corroding accident can be shuffled +into senseless change like the wards of a Chubb lock.</p> + +<p>V. It is needless to insist on the vast field for this dice-cast or +card-dealt calamity which opens itself in the ignorance, money-interest, +and mean passion, of city marriage. Peasants know each other as +children—meet, as they grow up in testing labour; and if a stout +farmer's son marries a handless girl, it is his own fault. Also in the +patrician families of the field, the young people know what they are +doing, and marry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_167" id="Pg_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> a neighbouring estate, or a covetable title, with some +conception of the responsibilities they undertake. But even among these, +their season in the confused metropolis creates licentious and +fortuitous temptation before unknown; and in the lower middle orders, an +entirely new kingdom of discomfort and disgrace has been preached to +them in the doctrines of unbridled pleasure which are merely an apology +for their peculiar forms of illbreeding. It is quite curious how often +the catastrophe, or the leading interest, of a modern novel, turns upon +the want, both in maid and bachelor, of the common self-command which +was taught to their grandmothers and grandfathers as the first element +of ordinarily decent behaviour. Rashly inquiring the other day the plot +of a modern story from a female friend, I elicited, after some +hesitation, that it hinged mainly on the young people's 'forgetting +themselves in a boat;' and I perceive it to be accepted as nearly an +axiom in the code of modern civic chivalry that the strength of amiable +sentiment is proved by our incapacity on proper occasions to express, +and on improper ones to control it. The pride of a gentleman of the old +school used to be in his power of saying what he meant, and being silent +when he ought, (not to speak of the higher nobleness which bestowed love +where it was honourable, and reverence where it was due); but the +automatic amours and involuntary proposals of recent romance acknowledge +little further law of morality than the instinct of an insect, or the +effervescence of a chemical mixture.</p> + +<p>There is a pretty little story of Alfred de Musset's,—<i>La Mouche</i>, +which, if the reader cares to glance at it, will save me further trouble +in explaining the disciplinarian authority of mere old-fashioned +politeness, as in some sort protective of higher things. It describes, +with much grace and precision, a state of society by no means +pre-eminently virtuous, or enthusiastically heroic; in which many people +do extremely wrong, and none sublimely right. But as there are heights +of which the achievement is unattempted, there are abysses to which fall +is barred; neither accident nor temptation will make any of the +principal personages swerve from an adopted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_168" id="Pg_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> resolution, or violate an +accepted principle of honour; people are expected as a matter of course +to speak with propriety on occasion, and to wait with patience when they +are bid: those who do wrong, admit it; those who do right don't boast of +it; everybody knows his own mind, and everybody has good manners.</p> + +<p>Nor must it be forgotten that in the worst days of the self-indulgence +which destroyed the aristocracies of Europe, their vices, however +licentious, were never, in the fatal modern sense, 'unprincipled.' The +vainest believed in virtue; the vilest respected it. 'Chaque chose avait +son nom,'<a name="FNanchor_158_158" id="FNanchor_158_158"></a><a href="#Footnote_158_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> and the severest of English moralists recognises the +accurate wit, the lofty intellect, and the unfretted benevolence, which +redeemed from vitiated surroundings the circle of d'Alembert and +Marmontel.<a name="FNanchor_159_159" id="FNanchor_159_159"></a><a href="#Footnote_159_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a></p> + +<p>I have said, with too slight praise, that the vainest, in those days, +'believed' in virtue. Beautiful and heroic examples of it were always +before them; nor was it without the secret significance attaching to +what may seem the least accidents in the work of a master, that Scott +gave to both his heroines of the age of revolution in England the name +of the queen of the highest order of English chivalry.<a name="FNanchor_160_160" id="FNanchor_160_160"></a><a href="#Footnote_160_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a></p> + +<p>It is to say little for the types of youth and maid which alone Scott +felt it a joy to imagine, or thought it honourable to portray, that they +act and feel in a sphere where they are never for an instant liable to +any of the weaknesses which disturb the calm, or shake the resolution, +of chastity and courage in a modern novel. Scott lived in a country and +time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_169" id="Pg_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> when, from highest to lowest, but chiefly in that dignified and +nobly severe<a name="FNanchor_161_161" id="FNanchor_161_161"></a><a href="#Footnote_161_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> middle class to which he himself belonged, a habit of +serene and stainless thought was as natural to the people as their +mountain air. Women like Rose Bradwardine and Ailie Dinmont were the +grace and guard of almost every household (God be praised that the race +of them is not yet extinct, for all that Mall or Boulevard can do), and +it has perhaps escaped the notice of even attentive readers that the +comparatively uninteresting character of Sir Walter's heroes had always +been studied among a class of youths who were simply incapable of doing +anything seriously wrong; and could only be embarrassed by the +consequences of their levity or imprudence.</p> + +<p>But there is another difference in the woof of a Waverley novel from the +cobweb of a modern one, which depends on Scott's larger view of human +life. Marriage is by no means, in his conception of man and woman, the +most important business of their existence;<a name="FNanchor_162_162" id="FNanchor_162_162"></a><a href="#Footnote_162_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a> nor love the only +reward to be proposed to their virtue or exertion. It is not in his +reading of the laws of Providence a necessity that virtue should, either +by love or any other external blessing, be rewarded at all;<a name="FNanchor_163_163" id="FNanchor_163_163"></a><a href="#Footnote_163_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> and +marriage is in all cases thought of as a constituent of the happiness of +life, but not as its only interest, still less its only aim. And upon +analysing with some care the motives of his principal stories, we shall +often find that the love in them is merely a light by which the sterner +features of character are to be irradiated, and that the marriage of the +hero is as subordinate to the main bent of the story as Henry the +Fifth's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_170" id="Pg_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> courtship of Katherine is to the battle of Agincourt. Nay, the +fortunes of the person who is nominally the subject of the tale are +often little more than a background on which grander figures are to be +drawn, and deeper fates forth-shadowed. The judgments between the faith +and chivalry of Scotland at Drumclog and Bothwell bridge owe little of +their interest in the mind of a sensible reader to the fact that the +captain of the Popinjay is carried a prisoner to one battle, and returns +a prisoner from the other: and Scott himself, while he watches the white +sail that bears Queen Mary for the last time from her native land, very +nearly forgets to finish his novel, or to tell us—and with small sense +of any consolation to be had out of that minor circumstance,—that +'Roland and Catherine were united, spite of their differing faiths.'</p> + +<p>Neither let it be thought for an instant that the slight, and sometimes +scornful, glance with which Scott passes over scenes which a novelist of +our own day would have analysed with the airs of a philosopher, and +painted with the curiosity of a gossip, indicate any absence in his +heart of sympathy with the great and sacred elements of personal +happiness. An era like ours, which has with diligence and ostentation +swept its heart clear of all the passions once known as loyalty, +patriotism, and piety, necessarily magnifies the apparent force of the +one remaining sentiment which sighs through the barren chambers, or +clings inextricably round the chasms of ruin; nor can it but regard with +awe the unconquerable spirit which still tempts or betrays the +sagacities of selfishness into error or frenzy which is believed to be +love.</p> + +<p>That Scott was never himself, in the sense of the phrase as employed by +lovers of the Parisian school, 'ivre d'amour,' may be admitted without +prejudice to his sensibility,<a name="FNanchor_164_164" id="FNanchor_164_164"></a><a href="#Footnote_164_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> and that he never knew 'l'amor che +move 'l sol e l'altre stelle,' was the chief, though unrecognised, +calamity of his deeply chequered life. But the reader of honour and +feeling will not therefore suppose that the love which Miss Vernon +sacrifices, stooping for an instant from her horse, is of less noble +stamp, or less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_171" id="Pg_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> enduring faith, than that which troubles and degrades +the whole existence of Consuelo; or that the affection of Jeanie Deans +for the companion of her childhood, drawn like a field of soft blue +heaven beyond the cloudy wrack of her sorrow, is less fully in +possession of her soul than the hesitating and self-reproachful impulses +under which a modern heroine forgets herself in a boat, or compromises +herself in the cool of the evening.</p> + +<p>I do not wish to return over the waste ground we have traversed, +comparing, point by point, Scott's manner with those of Bermondsey and +the Faubourgs; but it may be, perhaps, interesting at this moment to +examine, with illustration from those Waverley novels which have so +lately <i>re</i>tracted the attention of a fair and gentle public, the +universal conditions of 'style,' rightly so called, which are in all +ages, and above all local currents or wavering tides of temporary +manners, pillars of what is for ever strong, and models of what is for +ever fair.</p> + +<p>But I must first define, and that within strict horizon, the works of +Scott, in which his perfect mind may be known, and his chosen ways +understood.</p> + +<p>His great works of prose fiction, excepting only the first half-volume +of <i>Waverley</i>, were all written in twelve years, 1814-26 (of his own age +forty-three to fifty-five), the actual time employed in their +composition being not more than a couple of months out of each year; and +during that time only the morning hours and spare minutes during the +professional day. 'Though the first volume of <i>Waverley</i> was begun long +ago, and actually lost for a time, yet the other two were begun and +finished between the 4th of June and the first of July, during all which +I attended my duty in court, and proceeded without loss of time or +hindrance of business.'<a name="FNanchor_165_165" id="FNanchor_165_165"></a><a href="#Footnote_165_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></p> + +<p>Few of the maxims for the enforcement of which, in <i>Modern Painters</i>, +long ago, I got the general character of a lover of paradox, are more +singular, or more sure, than the statement, apparently so encouraging to +the idle, that if a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_172" id="Pg_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> thing can be done at all, it can be done +easily. But it is in that kind of ease with which a tree blossoms after +long years of gathered strength, and all Scott's great writings were the +recreations of a mind confirmed in dutiful labour, and rich with organic +gathering of boundless resource.</p> + +<p>Omitting from our count the two minor and ill-finished sketches of the +<i>Black Dwarf</i> and <i>Legend of Montrose</i>, and, for a reason presently to +be noticed, the unhappy <i>St. Ronan's</i>, the memorable romances of Scott +are eighteen, falling into three distinct groups, containing six each.</p> + +<p>The first group is distinguished from the other two by characters of +strength and felicity which never more appeared after Scott was struck +down by his terrific illness in 1819. It includes <i>Waverley</i>, <i>Guy +Mannering</i>, <i>The Antiquary</i>, <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Old Mortality</i>, and <i>The Heart +of Midlothian</i>.</p> + +<p>The composition of these occupied the mornings of his happiest days, +between the ages of 43 and 48. On the 8th of April, 1819 (he was 48 on +the preceding 15th of August) he began for the first time to +dictate—being unable for the exertion of writing—<i>The Bride of +Lammermuir</i>, 'the affectionate Laidlaw beseeching him to stop dictating, +when his audible suffering filled every pause. "Nay, Willie," he +answered "only see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the +cry as well as all the wool to ourselves; but as for giving over work, +that can only be when I am in woollen."'<a name="FNanchor_166_166" id="FNanchor_166_166"></a><a href="#Footnote_166_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> From this time forward the +brightness of joy and sincerity of inevitable humour, which perfected +the imagery of the earlier novels, are wholly absent, except in the two +short intervals of health unaccountably restored, in which he wrote +<i>Redgauntlet</i> and <i>Nigel</i>.</p> + +<p>It is strange, but only a part of the general simplicity of Scott's +genius, that these revivals of earlier power were unconscious, and that +the time of extreme weakness in which he wrote <i>St. Ronan's Well</i>, was +that in which he first asserted his own restoration.</p> + +<p>It is also a deeply interesting characteristic of his noble nature that +he never gains anything by sickness; the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_173" id="Pg_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> man breathes or faints +as one creature; the ache that stiffens a limb chills his heart, and +every pang of the stomach paralyses the brain. It is not so with +inferior minds, in the workings of which it is often impossible to +distinguish native from narcotic fancy, and throbs of conscience from +those of indigestion. Whether in exaltation or languor, the colours of +mind are always morbid, which gleam on the sea for the 'Ancient +Mariner,' and through the casements on 'St. Agnes' Eve;' but Scott is at +once blinded and stultified by sickness; never has a fit of the cramp +without spoiling a chapter, and is perhaps the only author of vivid +imagination who never wrote a foolish word but when he was ill.</p> + +<p>It remains only to be noticed on this point that any strong natural +excitement, affecting the deeper springs of his heart, would at once +restore his intellectual powers in all their fullness, and that, far +towards their sunset: but that the strong will on which he prided +himself, though it could trample upon pain, silence grief, and compel +industry, never could warm his imagination, or clear the judgment in his +darker hours.</p> + +<p>I believe that this power of the heart over the intellect is common to +all great men: but what the special character of emotion was, that alone +could lift Scott above the power of death, I am about to ask the reader, +in a little while, to observe with joyful care.</p> + +<p>The first series of romances then, above named, are all that exhibit the +emphasis of his unharmed faculties. The second group, composed in the +three years subsequent to illness all but mortal, bear every one of them +more or less the seal of it.</p> + +<p>They consist of the <i>Bride of Lammermuir</i>, <i>Ivanhoe</i>, the <i>Monastery</i>, +the <i>Abbot</i>, <i>Kenilworth</i>, and the <i>Pirate</i>.<a name="FNanchor_167_167" id="FNanchor_167_167"></a><a href="#Footnote_167_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> The marks of broken +health on all these are essentially twofold—prevailing melancholy, and +fantastic improbability. Three of the tales are agonizingly tragic, the +<i>Abbot</i> scarcely less so in its main event, and <i>Ivanhoe</i> deeply wounded +through all its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_174" id="Pg_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> bright panoply; while even in that most powerful of the +series, the impossible archeries and axestrokes, the incredibly +opportune appearances of Locksley, the death of Ulrica, and the +resuscitation of Athelstane, are partly boyish, partly feverish. Caleb +in the <i>Bride</i>, Triptolemus and Halcro in the <i>Pirate</i>, are all +laborious, and the first incongruous; half a volume of the <i>Abbot</i> is +spent in extremely dull detail of Roland's relations with his +fellow-servants and his mistress, which have nothing whatever to do with +the future story; and the lady of Avenel herself disappears after the +first volume, 'like a snaw wreath when it's thaw, Jeanie.' The public +has for itself pronounced on the <i>Monastery</i>, though as much too harshly +as it has foolishly praised the horrors of <i>Ravenswood</i> and the nonsense +of <i>Ivanhoe</i>; because the modern public finds in the torture and +adventure of these, the kind of excitement which it seeks at an opera, +while it has no sympathy whatever with the pastoral happiness of +Glendearg, or with the lingering simplicities of superstition which give +historical likelihood to the legend of the White Lady.</p> + +<p>But both this despised tale and its sequel have Scott's heart in them. +The first was begun to refresh himself in the intervals of artificial +labour on <i>Ivanhoe</i>. 'It was a relief,' he said, 'to interlay the +scenery most familiar to me<a name="FNanchor_168_168" id="FNanchor_168_168"></a><a href="#Footnote_168_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> with the strange world for which I had +to draw so much on imagination.'<a name="FNanchor_169_169" id="FNanchor_169_169"></a><a href="#Footnote_169_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> Through all the closing scenes of +the second he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_175" id="Pg_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> raised to his own true level by his love for the +queen. And within the code of Scott's work to which I am about to appeal +for illustration of his essential powers, I accept the <i>Monastery</i> and +<i>Abbot</i>, and reject from it the remaining four of this group.</p> + +<p>The last series contains two quite noble ones, <i>Redgauntlet</i> and +<i>Nigel</i>; two of very high value, <i>Durward</i> and <i>Woodstock</i>; the slovenly +and diffuse <i>Peveril</i>, written for the trade; the sickly <i>Tales of the +Crusaders</i>, and the entirely broken and diseased <i>St. Ronan's Well</i>. +This last I throw out of count altogether, and of the rest, accept only +the four first named as sound work; so that the list of the novels in +which I propose to examine his methods and ideal standards, reduces +itself to these following twelve (named in order of production): +<i>Waverley</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i>, the <i>Antiquary</i>, <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Old +Mortality</i>, the <i>Heart of Midlothian</i>, the <i>Monastery</i>, the <i>Abbot</i>, the +<i>Fortunes of Nigel</i>, <i>Quentin Durward</i>, and <i>Woodstock</i>.<a name="FNanchor_170_170" id="FNanchor_170_170"></a><a href="#Footnote_170_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a></p> + +<p>It is, however, too late to enter on my subject in this article, which I +may fitly close by pointing out some of the merely verbal +characteristics of his style, illustrative in little ways of the +questions we have been examining, and chiefly of the one which may be +most embarrassing to many readers, the difference, namely, between +character and disease.</p> + +<p>One quite distinctive charm in the Waverleys is their modified use of +the Scottish dialect; but it has not generally been observed, either by +their imitators, or the authors of different taste who have written for +a later public, that there is a difference between the dialect of a +language, and its corruption.</p> + +<p>A dialect is formed in any district where there are persons of +intelligence enough to use the language itself in all its fineness and +force, but under the particular conditions of life, climate, and temper, +which introduce words peculiar to the scenery, forms of word and idioms +of sentence peculiar to the race, and pronunciations indicative of their +character and disposition.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_176" id="Pg_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus 'burn' (of a streamlet) is a word possible only in a country where +there are brightly running waters, 'lassie,' a word possible only where +girls are as free as the rivulets, and 'auld,' a form of the southern +'old,' adopted by a race of finer musical ear than the English.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, mere deteriorations, or coarse, stridulent, and, in the +ordinary sense of the phrase, 'broad' forms of utterance, are not +dialects at all, having nothing dialectic in them, and all phrases +developed in states of rude employment, and restricted intercourse, are +injurious to the tone and narrowing to the power of the language they +affect. Mere breadth of accent does not spoil a dialect as long as the +speakers are men of varied idea and good intelligence; but the moment +the life is contracted by mining, millwork, or any oppressive and +monotonous labour, the accents and phrases become debased. It is part of +the popular folly of the day to find pleasure in trying to write and +spell these abortive, crippled, and more or less brutal forms of human +speech.</p> + +<p>Abortive, crippled, or brutal, are however not necessarily 'corrupted' +dialects. Corrupt language is that gathered by ignorance, invented by +vice, misused by insensibility, or minced and mouthed by affectation, +especially in the attempt to deal with words of which only half the +meaning is understood, or half the sound heard. Mrs. Gamp's 'aperiently +so'—and the 'undermined' with primal sense of undermine, of—I forget +which gossip, in the <i>Mill on the Floss</i>, are master- and +mistress-pieces in this latter kind. Mrs. Malaprop's 'allegories on the +banks of the Nile' are in a somewhat higher order of mistake: Miss +Tabitha Bramble's ignorance is vulgarised by her selfishness, and +Winifred Jenkins' by her conceit. The 'wot' of Noah Claypole, and the +other degradations of cockneyism (Sam Weller and his father are in +nothing more admirable than in the power of heart and sense that can +purify even these); the 'trewth' of Mr. Chadband, and 'natur' of Mr. +Squeers, are examples of the corruption of words by insensibility: the +use of the word 'bloody' in modern low English is a deeper corruption, +not altering the form of the word, but defiling the thought in it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_177" id="Pg_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus much being understood, I shall proceed to examine thoroughly a +fragment of Scott's Lowland Scottish dialect; not choosing it of the +most beautiful kind; on the contrary, it shall be a piece reaching as +low down as he ever allows Scotch to go—it is perhaps the only unfair +patriotism in him, that if ever he wants a word or two of really +villainous slang, he gives it in English or Dutch—not Scotch.</p> + +<p>I had intended in the close of this paper to analyse and compare the +characters of Andrew Fairservice and Richie Moniplies for examples, the +former of innate evil, unaffected by external influences, and +undiseased, but distinct from natural goodness as a nettle is distinct +from balm or lavender; and the latter of innate goodness, contracted and +pinched by circumstance, but still undiseased, as an oak-leaf crisped by +frost, not by the worm. This, with much else in my mind, I must put off; +but the careful study of one sentence of Andrew's will give us a good +deal to think of.</p> + +<p>I take his account of the rescue of Glasgow Cathedral at the time of the +Reformation.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Ah! it's a brave kirk—nane o' yere whigmaleeries and +curliewurlies and opensteek hems about it—a' solid, +weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the +warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it. It had amaist a +douncome lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun +the kirks of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa', to +cleanse them o' Papery, and idolatry, and image-worship, and +surplices, and sic-like rags o' the muckle hure that sitteth +on seven hills, as if ane wasna braid eneugh for her auld +hinder end. Sae the commons o' Renfrew, and o' the Barony, +and the Gorbals, and a' about, they behoved to come into +Glasgow ae fair morning, to try their hand on purging the +High Kirk o' Popish nicknackets. But the townsmen o' +Glasgow, they were feared their auld edifice might slip the +girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae they rang +the common bell, and assembled the train-bands wi' took o' +drum. By good luck, the worthy James Rabat was Dean o' Guild +that year—(and a gude mason he was himsell, made him the +keener to keep up the auld bigging), and the trades +assembled, and offered downright battle to the commons, +rather than their kirk should coup the crans, as others had +done elsewhere. It wasna for luve o'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_178" id="Pg_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Paperie—na, na!—nane +could ever say that o' the trades o' Glasgow—Sae they sune +came to an agreement to take a' the idolatrous statues of +sants (sorrow be on them!) out o' their neuks—And sae the +bits o' stane idols were broken in pieces by Scripture +warrant, and flung into the Molendinar burn, and the auld +kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff +her, and a'body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk +say, that if the same had been done in ilka kirk in +Scotland, the Reform wad just hae been as pure as it is e'en +now, and we wad hae mair Christian-like kirks; for I hae +been sae lang in England, that naething will drived out o' +my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone-Hall is better +than mony a house o' God in Scotland.</p></div> + +<p>Now this sentence is in the first place a piece of Scottish history of +quite inestimable and concentrated value. Andrew's temperament is the +type of a vast class of Scottish—shall we call it +'<i>sow</i>-thistlian'—mind, which necessarily takes the view of either Pope +or saint that the thistle in Lebanon took of the cedar or lilies in +Lebanon; and the entire force of the passions which, in the Scottish +revolution, foretold and forearmed the French one, is told in this one +paragraph; the coarseness of it, observe, being admitted, not for the +sake of the laugh, any more than an onion in broth merely for its +flavour, but for the meat of it; the inherent constancy of that +coarseness being a fact in this order of mind, and an essential part of +the history to be told.</p> + +<p>Secondly, observe that this speech, in the religious passion of it, such +as there may be, is entirely sincere. Andrew is a thief, a liar, a +coward, and, in the Fair service from which he takes his name, a +hypocrite; but in the form of prejudice, which is all that his mind is +capable of in the place of religion, he is entirely sincere. He does not +in the least pretend detestation of image worship to please his master, +or any one else; he honestly scorns the 'carnal morality<a name="FNanchor_171_171" id="FNanchor_171_171"></a><a href="#Footnote_171_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> as dowd +and fusionless as rue-leaves at Yule' of the sermon in the upper +cathedral; and when wrapt in critical attention to the 'real savour o' +doctrine' in the crypt, so completely forgets the hypocrisy of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_179" id="Pg_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> his fair +service as to return his master's attempt to disturb him with hard +punches of the elbow.</p> + +<p>Thirdly. He is a man of no mean sagacity, quite up to the average +standard of Scottish common sense, not a low one; and, though incapable +of understanding any manner of lofty thought or passion, is a shrewd +measurer of weaknesses, and not without a spark or two of kindly +feeling. See first his sketch of his master's character to Mr. +Hammorgaw, beginning: 'He's no a'thegither sae void o' sense, neither;' +and then the close of the dialogue: 'But the lad's no a bad lad after +a', and he needs some carefu' body to look after him.'</p> + +<p>Fourthly. He is a good workman; knows his own business well, and can +judge of other craft, if sound, or otherwise.</p> + +<p>All these four qualities of him must be known before we can understand +this single speech. Keeping them in mind, I take it up, word by word.</p> + +<p>You observe, in the outset, Scott makes no attempt whatever to indicate +accents or modes of pronunciation by changed spelling, unless the word +becomes a quite definitely new and scarcely writeable one. The Scottish +way of pronouncing 'James,' for instance, is entirely peculiar, and +extremely pleasant to the ear. But it is so, just because it does <i>not</i> +change the word into Jeems, nor into Jims, nor into Jawms. A modern +writer of dialects would think it amusing to use one or other of these +ugly spellings. But Scott writes the name in pure English, knowing that +a Scots reader will speak it rightly, and an English one be wise in +letting it alone. On the other hand he writes 'weel' for 'well,' because +that word is complete in its change, and may be very closely expressed +by the double <i>e</i>. The ambiguous '<i>u</i>'s in 'gude' and 'sune' are +admitted, because far liker the sound than the double <i>o</i> would be, and +that in 'hure,' for grace' sake, to soften the word;—so also 'flaes' +for 'fleas.' 'Mony' for 'many' is again positively right in sound, and +'neuk' differs from our 'nook' in sense, and is not the same word at +all, as we shall presently see.</p> + +<p>Secondly, observe, not a word is corrupted in any indecent haste, +slowness, slovenliness, or incapacity of pronunciation. There is no +lisping, drawling, slobbering, or snuffling: the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_180" id="Pg_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> speech is as clear as +a bell and as keen as an arrow: and its elisions and contractions are +either melodious, ('na,' for 'not,'—'pu'd,' for 'pulled,') or as normal +as in a Latin verse. The long words are delivered without the slightest +bungling; and 'bigging' finished to its last <i>g</i>.</p> + +<p>I take the important words now in their places.</p> + +<p><i>Brave.</i> The old English sense of the word in 'to go brave' retained, +expressing Andrew's sincere and respectful admiration. Had he meant to +insinuate a hint of the church's being too fine, he would have said +'braw.'</p> + +<p><i>Kirk.</i> This is of course just as pure and unprovincial a word as +'Kirche,' or 'église.'</p> + +<p><i>Whigmaleerie.</i> I cannot get at the root of this word, but it is one +showing that the speaker is not bound by classic rules, but will use any +syllables that enrich his meaning. 'Nipperty-tipperty' (of his master's +'poetry-nonsense') is another word of the same class. 'Curlieurlie' is +of course just as pure as Shakespeare's 'Hurly-burly.' But see first +suggestion of the idea to Scott at Blair-Adam (L. vi. 264).</p> + +<p><i>Opensteek hems.</i> More description, or better, of the later Gothic +cannot be put into four syllables. 'Steek,' melodious for stitch, has a +combined sense of closing or fastening. And note that the later Gothic, +being precisely what Scott knew best (in Melrose) and liked best, it is, +here as elsewhere, quite as much himself<a name="FNanchor_172_172" id="FNanchor_172_172"></a><a href="#Footnote_172_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a> as Frank, that he is +laughing at, when he laughs <i>with</i> Andrew, whose 'opensteek hems' are +only a ruder metaphor for his own 'willow-wreaths changed to stone.'</p> + +<p><i>Gunpowther.</i> '-Ther' is a lingering vestige of the French '-dre.'</p> + +<p><i>Syne.</i> One of the melodious and mysterious Scottish words which have +partly the sound of wind and stream in them, and partly the range of +softened idea which is like a distance of blue hills over border land +('far in the distant Cheviot's blue'). Perhaps even the least +sympathetic 'Englisher' might recognise this, if he heard 'Old Long +Since' vocally substituted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_181" id="Pg_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> for the Scottish words to the air. I do not +know the root; but the word's proper meaning is not 'since,' but before +or after an interval of some duration, 'as weel sune as syne.' 'But +first on Sawnie gies a ca', Syne, bauldly in she enters.'</p> + +<p><i>Behoved</i> (<i>to come</i>). A rich word, with peculiar idiom, always used +more or less ironically of anything done under a partly mistaken and +partly pretended notion of duty.</p> + +<p><i>Siccan.</i> Far prettier, and fuller in meaning than 'such.' It contains +an added sense of wonder; and means properly 'so great' or 'so unusual.'</p> + +<p><i>Took</i> (<i>o' drum</i>). Classical 'tuck' from Italian 'toccata,' the +preluding 'touch' or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson under +word 'tucket,' quoting <i>Othello</i>). The deeper Scottish vowels are used +here to mark the deeper sound of the bass drum, as in more solemn +warning.</p> + +<p><i>Bigging.</i> The only word in all the sentence of which the Scottish form +is less melodious than the English, 'and what for no,' seeing that +Scottish architecture is mostly little beyond Bessie Bell's and Mary +Gray's? 'They biggit a bow're by yon burnside, and theekit it ow're wi +rashes.' But it is pure Anglo-Saxon in roots; see glossary to +Fairbairn's edition of the Douglas <i>Virgil</i>, 1710.</p> + +<p><i>Coup.</i> Another of the much-embracing words; short for 'upset,' but with +a sense of awkwardness as the inherent cause of fall; compare Richie +Moniplies (also for sense of 'behoved'): 'Ae auld hirplin deevil of a +potter behoved just to step in my way, and offer me a pig (earthern +pot—etym. dub.), as he said "just to put my Scotch ointment in;" and I +gave him a push, as but natural, and the tottering deevil coupit owre +amang his own pigs, and damaged a score of them.' So also Dandie Dinmont +in the postchaise: ''Od! I hope they'll no coup us.'</p> + +<p><i>The Crans.</i> Idiomatic; root unknown to me, but it means in this use, +full, total, and without recovery.</p> + +<p><i>Molendinar.</i> From 'molendinum,' the grinding-place. I do not know if +actually the local name,<a name="FNanchor_173_173" id="FNanchor_173_173"></a><a href="#Footnote_173_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> or Scott's invention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_182" id="Pg_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> Compare Sir +Piercie's 'Molinaras.' But at all events used here with bye-sense of +degradation of the formerly idle saints to grind at the mill.</p> + +<p><i>Crouse.</i> Courageous, softened with a sense of comfort.</p> + +<p><i>Ilka.</i> Again a word with azure distance, including the whole sense of +'each' and 'every.' The reader must carefully and reverently distinguish +these comprehensive words, which gather two or more perfectly understood +meanings into one <i>chord</i> of meaning, and are harmonies more than words, +from the above-noted blunders between two half-hit meanings, struck as a +bad piano-player strikes the edge of another note. In English we have +fewer of these combined thoughts; so that Shakespeare rather plays with +the distinct lights of his words, than melts them into one. So again +Bishop Douglas spells, and doubtless spoke, the word 'rose,' +differently, according to his purpose; if as the chief or governing +ruler of flowers, 'rois,' but if only in her own beauty, rose.</p> + +<p><i>Christian-like.</i> The sense of the decency and order proper to +Christianity is stronger in Scotland than in any other country, and the +word 'Christian' more distinctly opposed to 'beast.' Hence the +back-handed cut at the English for their over-pious care of dogs.</p> + +<p>I am a little surprised myself at the length to which this examination +of one small piece of Sir Walter's first-rate work has carried us, but +here I must end for this time, trusting, if the Editor of the +<i>Nineteenth Century</i> permit me, yet to trespass, perhaps more than once, +on his readers' patience; but, at all events, to examine in a following +paper the technical characteristics of Scott's own style, both in prose +and verse,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_183" id="Pg_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> together with Byron's, as opposed to our fashionably recent +dialects and rhythms; the essential virtues of language, in both the +masters of the old school, hinging ultimately, little as it might be +thought, on certain unalterable views of theirs concerning the code +called 'of the Ten Commandments,' wholly at variance with the dogmas of +automatic morality which, summed again by the witches' line, 'Fair is +foul, and foul is fair,' hover through the fog and filthy air of our +prosperous England.</p> + + +<p class="right">John Ruskin.</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>'<i>He hated greetings in the market-place</i>, and there were generally +loiterers in the streets to persecute him <i>either about the events of +the day</i>, or about some petty pieces of business.'</p> + +<p>These lines, which the reader will find near the beginning of the +sixteenth chapter of the first volume of the <i>Antiquary</i>, contain two +indications of the old man's character, which, receiving the ideal of +him as a portrait of Scott himself, are of extreme interest to me. They +mean essentially that neither Monkbarns nor Scott had any mind to be +called of men, Rabbi, in mere hearing of the mob; and especially that +they hated to be drawn back out of their far-away thoughts, or forward +out of their long-ago thoughts, by any manner of 'daily' news, whether +printed or gabbled. Of which two vital characteristics, deeper in both +the men, (for I must always speak of Scott's creations as if they were +as real as himself,) than any of their superficial vanities, or passing +enthusiasms, I have to speak more at another time. I quote the passage +just now, because there was one piece of the daily news of the year 1815 +which did extremely interest Scott, and materially direct the labour of +the latter part of his life; nor is there any piece of history in this +whole nineteenth century quite so pregnant with various instruction as +the study of the reasons which influenced Scott and Byron in their +opposite views of the glories of the battle of Waterloo.</p> + +<p>But I quote it for another reason also. The principal greeting which Mr. +Oldbuck on this occasion receives in the market-place, being compared +with the speech of Andrew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_184" id="Pg_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Fairservice, examined in my first paper, will +furnish me with the text of what I have mainly to say in the present +one.</p> + +<p>'"Mr. Oldbuck," said the town-clerk (a more important person, who came +in front and ventured to stop the old gentleman), "the provost, +understanding you were in town, begs on no account that you'll quit it +without seeing him; he wants to speak to ye about bringing the water +frae the Fairwell spring through a part o' your lands."</p> + +<p>'"What the deuce!—have they nobody's land but mine to cut and carve +on?—I won't consent, tell them."</p> + +<p>'"And the provost," said the clerk, going on, without noticing the +rebuff, "and the council, wad be agreeable that you should hae the auld +stanes at Donagild's Chapel, that ye was wussing to hae."</p> + +<p>'"Eh?—what?—Oho! that's another story—Well, well, I'll call upon the +provost, and we'll talk about it."</p> + +<p>'"But ye maun speak your mind on't forthwith, Monkbarns, if ye want the +stanes; for Deacon Harlewalls thinks the carved through-stanes might be +put with advantage on the front of the new council-house—that is, the +twa cross-legged figures that the callants used to ca' Robbin and +Bobbin, ane on ilka door-cheek; and the other stane, that they ca'd +Ailie Dailie, abune the door. It will be very tastefu', the Deacon says, +and just in the style of modern Gothic."</p> + +<p>'"Good Lord deliver me from this Gothic generation!" exclaimed the +Antiquary,—"a monument of a knight-templar on each side of a Grecian +porch, and a Madonna on the top of it!—<i>O crimini!</i>—Well, tell the +provost I wish to have the stones, and we'll not differ about the +water-course.—It's lucky I happened to come this way to-day."</p> + +<p>'They parted mutually satisfied; but the wily clerk had most reason to +exult in the dexterity he had displayed, since the whole proposal of an +exchange between the monuments (which the council had determined to +remove as a nuisance, because they encroached three feet upon the public +road) and the privilege of conveying the water to the burgh, through the +estate of Monkbarns, was an idea which had originated with himself upon +the pressure of the moment.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_185" id="Pg_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this single page of Scott, will the reader please note the kind of +prophetic instinct with which the great men of every age mark and +forecast its destinies? The water from the Fairwell is the future +Thirlmere carried to Manchester; the 'auld stanes'<a name="FNanchor_174_174" id="FNanchor_174_174"></a><a href="#Footnote_174_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> at Donagild's +Chapel, removed as a <i>nuisance</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_186" id="Pg_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> foretell the necessary view taken by +modern cockneyism, Liberalism, and progress, of all things that remind +them of the noble dead, of their father's fame, or of their own duty; +and the public road becomes their idol, instead of the saint's shrine. +Finally, the roguery of the entire transaction—the mean man seeing the +weakness of the honourable, and 'besting' him—in modern slang, in the +manner and at the pace of modern trade—'on the pressure of the moment.'</p> + +<p>But neither are these things what I have at present quoted the passage +for.</p> + +<p>I quote it, that we may consider how much wonderful and various history +is gathered in the fact, recorded for us in this piece of entirely fair +fiction, that in the Scottish borough of Fairport, (Montrose, really,) +in the year 17— of Christ, the knowledge given by the pastors and +teachers provided for its children by enlightened Scottish +Protestantism, of their fathers' history, and the origin of their +religion, had resulted in this substance and sum;—that the statues of +two crusading knights had become, to their children, Robin and Bobbin; +and the statue of the Madonna, Ailie Dailie.</p> + +<p>A marvellous piece of history, truly: and far too comprehensive for +general comment here. Only one small piece of it I must carry forward +the readers' thoughts upon.</p> + +<p>The pastors and teachers aforesaid, (represented typically in another +part of this errorless book by Mr. Blattergowl) are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_187" id="Pg_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> not, whatever else +they may have to answer for, answerable for these names. The names are +of the children's own choosing and bestowing, but not of the children's +own inventing. 'Robin' is a classically endearing cognomen, recording +the <i>errant</i> heroism of old days—the name of the Bruce and of Rob Roy. +'Bobbin' is a poetical and symmetrical fulfilment and adornment of the +original phrase. 'Ailie' is the last echo of 'Ave,' changed into the +softest Scottish Christian name familiar to the children, itself the +beautiful feminine form of royal 'Louis;' the 'Dailie' again +symmetrically added for kinder and more musical endearment. The last +vestiges, you see, of honour for the heroism and religion of their +ancestors, lingering on the lips of babes and sucklings.</p> + +<p>But what is the meaning of this necessity the children find themselves +under of completing the nomenclature rhythmically and rhymingly? Note +first the difference carefully, and the attainment of both qualities by +the couplets in question. Rhythm is the syllabic and quantitative +measure of the words, in which Robin, both in weight and time, balances +Bobbin; and Dailie holds level scale with Ailie. But rhyme is the added +correspondence of sound; unknown and undesired, so far as we can learn, +by the Greek Orpheus, but absolutely essential to, and, as special +virtue, becoming titular of, the Scottish Thomas.</p> + +<p>The 'Ryme,'<a name="FNanchor_175_175" id="FNanchor_175_175"></a><a href="#Footnote_175_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> you may at first fancy, is the especially childish part +of the work. Not so. It is the especially chivalric and Christian part +of it. It characterises the Christian chant or canticle, as a higher +thing than a Greek ode, melos, or hymnos, or than a Latin carmen.</p> + +<p>Think of it, for this again is wonderful! That these children of +Montrose should have an element of music in their souls which Homer had +not,—which a melos of David the Prophet and King had not,—which +Orpheus and Amphion had not,—which Apollo's unrymed oracles became mute +at the sound of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_188" id="Pg_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + +<p>A strange new equity this,—melodious justice and judgment as it +were,—in all words spoken solemnly and ritualistically by Christian +human creatures;—Robin and Bobbin—by the Crusader's tomb, up to 'Dies +iræ, dies illa,' at judgment of the crusading soul.</p> + +<p>You have to understand this most deeply of all Christian minstrels, from +first to last; that they are more musical, because more joyful, than any +others on earth: ethereal minstrels, pilgrims of the sky, true to the +kindred points of heaven and home; their joy essentially the sky-lark's, +in light, in purity; but, with their human eyes, looking for the +glorious appearing of something in the sky, which the bird cannot.</p> + +<p>This it is that changes Etruscan murmur into Terza rima—Horatian Latin +into Provençal troubadour's melody; not, because less artful, less wise.</p> + +<p>Here is a little bit, for instance, of French ryming just before +Chaucer's time—near enough to our own French to be intelligible to us +yet.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'O quant très-glorieuse vie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quant cil quit out peut et maistrie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Veult esprouver pour nécessaire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ne pour quant il ne blasma mie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">La vie de Marthe sa mie:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mais il lui donna exemplaire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">D'autrement vivre, et de bien plaire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Dieu; et plut de bien à faire:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pour se conclut-il que Marie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qui estoit à ses piedz sans braire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et pensait d'entendre et de taire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Estleut la plus saine partie.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">La meilleur partie esleut-elle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et la plus saine et la plus belle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qui jà ne luy sera ostée<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Car par vérité se fut celle<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Qui fut tousjours fresche et nouvelle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">D'aymer Dieu et d'en estre aymée;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Car jusqu'au cueur fut entamée,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et si ardamment enflammée.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_189" id="Pg_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Que tous-jours ardoit l'estincelle;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Par quoi elle fut visitée<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et de Dieu premier comfortée;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Car charité est trop ysnelle.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The only law of <i>metre</i>, observed in this song, is that each line shall +be octosyllabic:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Qui fut | tousjours | fresche et | nouvelle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">D'autre | ment vi | vret de | bien (ben) plaire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et pen | soit den | tendret | de taire<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But the reader must note that words which were two-syllabled in Latin +mostly remain yet so in the French.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">La <i>vi</i> | -<i>e</i> de | Marthe | sa mie,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>although <i>mie</i>, which is pet language, loving abbreviation of <i>amica</i> +through <i>amie</i>, remains monosyllabic. But <i>vie</i> elides its <i>e</i> before a +vowel:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Car Mar- | the me | nait vie | active<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Et Ma- | ri-e | contemp | lative;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and custom endures many exceptions. Thus <i>Marie</i> may be three-syllabled +as above, or answer to <i>mie</i> as a dissyllable; but <i>vierge</i> is always, I +think, dissyllabic, <i>vier-ge</i>, with even stronger accent on the -<i>ge</i>, +for the Latin -<i>go</i>.</p> + +<p>Then, secondly, of quantity, there is scarcely any fixed law. The metres +may be timed as the minstrel chooses—fast or slow—and the iambic +current checked in reverted eddy, as the words chance to come.</p> + +<p>But, thirdly, there is to be rich ryming and chiming, no matter how +simply got, so only that the words jingle and tingle together with due +art of interlacing and answering in different parts of the stanza, +correspondent to the involutions of tracery and illumination. The whole +twelve-line stanza is thus constructed with two rymes only, six of each, +thus arranged:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">AAB | AAB | BBA | BBA |<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>dividing the verse thus into four measures, reversed in ascent and +descent, or <i>descant</i> more properly; and doubtless with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_190" id="Pg_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> correspondent +phases in the voice-given, and duly accompanying, or following, music; +Thomas the Rymer's own precept, that 'tong is chefe in mynstrelsye,' +being always kept faithfully in mind.<a name="FNanchor_176_176" id="FNanchor_176_176"></a><a href="#Footnote_176_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> + +<p>Here then you have a sufficient example of the pure chant of the +Christian ages; which is always at heart joyful, and divides itself into +the four great forms, Song of Praise, Song of Prayer, Song of Love, and +Song of Battle; praise, however, being the keynote of passion through +all the four forms; according to the first law which I have already +given in the laws of Fesolé; 'all great Art is Praise,' of which the +contrary is also true, all foul or miscreant Art is accusation, διαβολη: 'She gave me of the tree and I did eat' being an entirely +museless expression on Adam's part, the briefly essential contrary of +Love-song.</p> + +<p>With these four perfect forms of Christian chant, of which we may take +for pure examples the 'Te Deum,' the 'Te Lucis Ante,' the 'Amor che +nella mente,'<a name="FNanchor_177_177" id="FNanchor_177_177"></a><a href="#Footnote_177_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a> and the 'Chant de Roland,' are mingled songs of +mourning, of Pagan origin (whether Greek or Danish), holding grasp still +of the races that have once learned them, in times of suffering and +sorrow; and songs of Christian humiliation or grief, regarding chiefly +the sufferings of Christ, or the conditions of our own sin: while +through the entire system of these musical complaints are interwoven +moralities, instructions, and related histories, in illustration of +both, passing into Epic and Romantic verse, which gradually, as the +forms and learnings of society increase, becomes less joyful, and more +didactic, or satiric, until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_191" id="Pg_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> last echoes of Christian joy and melody +vanish in the 'Vanity of human wishes.'</p> + +<p>And here I must pause for a minute or two to separate the different +branches of our inquiry clearly from one another. For one thing, the +reader must please put for the present out of his head all thought of +the progress of 'civilisation'—that is to say, broadly, of the +substitution of wigs for hair, gas for candles, and steam for legs. This +is an entirely distinct matter from the phases of policy and religion. +It has nothing to do with the British Constitution, or the French +Revolution, or the unification of Italy. There are, indeed, certain +subtle relations between the state of mind, for instance, in Venice, +which makes her prefer a steamer to a gondola, and that which makes her +prefer a gazetteer to a duke; but these relations are not at all to be +dealt with until we solemnly understand that whether men shall be +Christians and poets, or infidels and dunces, does not depend on the way +they cut their hair, tie their breeches, or light their fires. Dr. +Johnson might have worn his wig in fulness conforming to his dignity, +without therefore coming to the conclusion that human wishes were vain; +nor is Queen Antoinette's civilised hair-powder, as opposed to Queen +Bertha's savagely loose hair, the cause of Antoinette's laying her head +at last in scaffold dust, but Bertha in a pilgrim-haunted tomb.</p> + +<p>Again, I have just now used the words 'poet' and 'dunce,' meaning the +degree of each quality possible to average human nature. Men are +eternally divided into the two classes of poet (believer, maker, and +praiser) and dunce (or unbeliever, unmaker, and dispraiser). And in +process of ages they have the power of making faithful and formative +creatures of themselves, or unfaithful and <i>de</i>formative. And this +distinction between the creatures who, blessing, are blessed, and +evermore <i>benedicti</i>, and the creatures who, cursing, are cursed, and +evermore <i>maledicti</i>, is one going through all humanity; antediluvian in +Cain and Abel, diluvian in Ham and Shem. And the question for the public +of any given period is not whether they are a constitutional or +unconstitutional vulgus, but whether they are a benignant or malignant +vulgus. So also, whether it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_192" id="Pg_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> indeed the gods who have given any +gentleman the grace to despise the rabble, depends wholly on whether it +is indeed the rabble, or he, who are the malignant persons.</p> + +<p>But yet again. This difference between the persons to whom Heaven, +according to Orpheus, has granted 'the hour of delight,'<a name="FNanchor_178_178" id="FNanchor_178_178"></a><a href="#Footnote_178_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> and those +whom it has condemned to the hour of detestableness, being, as I have +just said, of all times and nations,—it is an interior and more +delicate difference which we are examining in the gift of <i>Christian</i>, +as distinguished from unchristian, song. Orpheus, Pindar, and Horace are +indeed distinct from the prosaic rabble, as the bird from the snake; but +between Orpheus and Palestrina, Horace and Sidney, there is another +division, and a new power of music and song given to the humanity which +has hope of the Resurrection.</p> + +<p><i>This</i> is the root of all life and all rightness in Christian harmony, +whether of word or instrument; and so literally, that in precise manner +as this hope disappears, the power of song is taken away, and taken away +utterly. When the Christian falls back out of the bright hope of the +Resurrection, even the Orpheus song is forbidden him. Not to have known +the hope is blameless: one may sing, unknowing, as the swan, or +Philomela. But to have known and fall away from it, and to declare that +the human wishes, which are summed in that one—'Thy kingdom come'—are +vain! The Fates ordain there shall be no singing after that denial.</p> + +<p>For observe this, and earnestly. The old Orphic song, with its dim hope +of yet once more Eurydice,—the Philomela song—granted after the cruel +silence,—the Halcyon song—with its fifteen days of peace, were all +sad, or joyful only in some vague vision of conquest over death. But the +Johnsonian vanity of wishes is on the whole satisfactory to +Johnson—accepted with gentlemanly resignation by Pope—triumphantly and +with bray of penny trumpets and blowing of steam-whistles, proclaimed +for the glorious discovery of the civilised ages, by Mrs. Barbauld, Miss +Edgeworth, Adam Smith, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_193" id="Pg_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> Co. There is no God, but have we not +invented gunpowder?—who wants a God, with that in his pocket?<a name="FNanchor_179_179" id="FNanchor_179_179"></a><a href="#Footnote_179_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> +There is no Resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but have we not +paper and pens, and cannot every blockhead print his opinions, and the +Day of Judgment become Republican, with everybody for a judge, and the +flat of the universe for the throne? There is no law, but only +gravitation and congelation, and we are stuck together in an everlasting +hail, and melted together in everlasting mud, and great was the day in +which our worships were born. And there is no Gospel, but only, whatever +we've got, to get more, and, wherever we are, to go somewhere else. And +are not these discoveries, to be sung of, and drummed of, and fiddled +of, and generally made melodiously indubitable in the eighteenth century +song of praise?</p> + +<p>The Fates will not have it so. No word of song is possible, in that +century, to mortal lips. Only polished versification, sententious +pentameter and hexameter, until, having turned out its toes long enough +without dancing, and pattered with its lips long enough without piping, +suddenly Astræa returns to the earth, and a Day of Judgment of a sort, +and there bursts out a song at last again, a most curtly melodious +triplet of Amphisbænic ryme. '<i>Ça ira.</i>'</p> + +<p>Amphisbænic, fanged in each ryme with fire, and obeying Ercildoune's +precept, 'Tong is chefe of mynstrelsye,' to the syllable.—Don +Giovanni's hitherto fondly chanted 'Andiam, andiam,' become suddenly +impersonal and prophetic: <span class="smcap">It</span> shall go, and you also. A cry—before it is +a song, then song and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_194" id="Pg_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> accompaniment together—perfectly done; and the +march 'towards the field of Mars. The two hundred and fifty +thousand—they to the sound of stringed music—preceded by young girls +with tricolor streamers, they have shouldered soldier-wise their shovels +and picks, and with one throat are singing <i>Ça ira</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_180_180" id="FNanchor_180_180"></a><a href="#Footnote_180_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a></p> + +<p>Through all the springtime of 1790, 'from Brittany to Burgundy, on most +plains of France, under most city walls, there march and +constitutionally wheel to the Ça-iraing mood of fife and drum—our clear +glancing phalanxes;—the song of the two hundred and fifty thousand, +virgin led, is in the long light of July.' Nevertheless, another song is +yet needed, for phalanx, and for maid. For, two springs and summers +having gone—amphisbænic,—on the 28th of August 1792, 'Dumouriez rode +from the camp of Maulde, eastwards to <i>Sedan</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_181_181" id="FNanchor_181_181"></a><a href="#Footnote_181_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a></p> + +<p>And Longwi has fallen basely, and Brunswick and the Prussian king will +beleaguer Verdun, and Clairfait and the Austrians press deeper in over +the northern marches, Cimmerian Europe behind. And on that same night +Dumouriez assembles council of war at his lodgings in Sedan. Prussians +here, Austrians there, triumphant both. With broad highway to Paris and +little hindrance—<i>we</i> scattered, helpless here and there—what to +advise? The generals advise retreating, and retreating till Paris be +sacked at the latest day possible. Dumouriez, silent, dismisses +<i>them</i>,—keeps only, with a sign, Thouvenot. Silent, thus, when needful, +yet having voice, it appears, of what musicians call tenor-quality, of a +rare kind. Rubini-esque, even, but scarcely producible to fastidious +ears at opera. The seizure of the forest of Argonne follows—the +cannonade of Valmy. The Prussians do not march on Paris <i>this</i> time, the +autumnal hours of fate pass on—<i>ça ira</i>—and on the 6th of November, +Dumouriez meets the Austrians also. 'Dumouriez wide-winged, they +wide-winged—at and around Jemappes, its green heights fringed and maned +with red fire. And Dumouriez is swept back on this wing and swept back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_195" id="Pg_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +on that, and is like to be swept back utterly, when he rushes up in +person, speaks a prompt word or two, and then, with clear tenor-pipe, +uplifts the hymn of the Marseillaise, ten thousand tenor or bass pipes +joining, or say some forty thousand in all, for every heart leaps up at +the sound; and so, with rhythmic march melody, they rally, they advance, +they rush death-defying, and like the fire whirlwind sweep all manner of +Austrians from the scene of action.' Thus, through the lips of +Dumouriez, sings Tyrtæus, Rouget de Lisle,<a name="FNanchor_182_182" id="FNanchor_182_182"></a><a href="#Footnote_182_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> 'Aux armes—marchons!' +Iambic measure with a witness! in what wide strophe here beginning—in +what unthought-of antistrophe returning to that council chamber in +Sedan!</p> + +<p>While these two great songs were thus being composed, and sung, and +danced to in cometary cycle, by the French nation, here in our less +giddy island there rose, amidst hours of business in Scotland and of +idleness in England, three troubadours of quite different temper. +Different also themselves, but not opponent; forming a perfect chord, +and adverse all the three of them alike to the French musicians, in this +main point—that while the <i>Ça ira</i> and Marseillaise were essentially +songs of blame and wrath, the British bards wrote, virtually, always +songs of praise, though by no means psalmody in the ancient keys. On the +contrary, all the three are alike moved by a singular antipathy to the +priests, and are pointed at with fear and indignation by the pietists, +of their day;—not without latent cause. For they are all of them, with +the most loving service, servants of that world which the Puritan and +monk alike despised; and, in the triple chord of their song, could not +but appear to the religious persons around them as respectively and +specifically the praisers—Scott of the world, Burns of the flesh, and +Byron of the devil.</p> + +<p>To contend with this carnal orchestra, the religious world, having long +ago rejected its Catholic Psalms as antiquated and unscientific, and +finding its Puritan melodies sunk into faint jar and twangle from their +native trumpet-tone, had nothing to oppose but the innocent, rather than +religious,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_196" id="Pg_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> verses of the school recognised as that of the English +Lakes; very creditable to them; domestic at once and refined; observing +the errors of the world outside of the Lakes with a pitying and tender +indignation, and arriving in lacustrine seclusion at many valuable +principles of philosophy, as pure as the tarns of their mountains, and +of corresponding depth.<a name="FNanchor_183_183" id="FNanchor_183_183"></a><a href="#Footnote_183_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a></p> + +<p>I have lately seen, and with extreme pleasure, Mr. Matthew Arnold's +arrangement of Wordsworth's poems; and read with sincere interest his +high estimate of them. But a great poet's work never needs arrangement +by other hands; and though it is very proper that Silver How should +clearly understand and brightly praise its fraternal Rydal Mount, we +must not forget that, over yonder, are the Andes, all the while.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth's rank and scale among poets were determined by himself, in a +single exclamation:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'What was the great Parnassus' self to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mount Skiddaw?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Answer his question faithfully, and you have the relation between the +great masters of the Muse's teaching, and the pleasant fingerer of his +pastoral flute among the reeds of Rydal.</p> + +<p>Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreland peasant, with considerably less +shrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and no sense +of humour: but gifted (in this singularly) with vivid sense of natural +beauty, and a pretty turn for reflections, not always acute, but, as far +as they reach, medicinal to the fever of the restless and corrupted life +around him. Water to parched lips may be better than Samian wine, but do +not let us therefore confuse the qualities of wine and water. I much +doubt there being many inglorious Miltons in our country churchyards; +but I am very sure there are many Wordsworths resting there, who were +inferior to the renowned one only in caring less to hear themselves +talk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_197" id="Pg_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<p>With an honest and kindly heart, a stimulating egoism, a wholesome +contentment in modest circumstances, and such sufficient ease, in that +accepted state, as permitted the passing of a good deal of time in +wishing that daisies could see the beauty of their own shadows, and +other such profitable mental exercises, Wordsworth has left us a series +of studies of the graceful and happy shepherd life of our lake country, +which to me personally, for one, are entirely sweet and precious; but +they are only so as the mirror of an existent reality in many ways more +beautiful than its picture.</p> + +<p>But the other day I went for an afternoon's rest into the cottage of one +of our country people of old statesman class; cottage lying nearly +midway between two village churches, but more conveniently for downhill +walk towards one than the other. I found, as the good housewife made tea +for me, that nevertheless she went up the hill to church. 'Why do not +you go to the nearer church?' I asked. 'Don't you like the clergyman?' +'Oh no, sir,' she answered, 'it isn't that; but you know I couldn't +leave my mother.' 'Your mother! she is buried at H—— then?' 'Yes, sir; +and you know I couldn't go to church anywhere else.'</p> + +<p>That feelings such as these existed among the peasants, not of +Cumberland only, but of all the tender earth that gives forth her fruit +for the living, and receives her dead to peace, might perhaps have been, +to our great and endless comfort, discovered before now, if Wordsworth +had been content to tell us what he knew of his own villages and people, +not as the leader of a new and only correct school of poetry, but simply +as a country gentleman of sense and feeling, fond of primroses, kind to +the parish children, and reverent of the spade with which Wilkinson had +tilled his lands: and I am by no means sure that his influence on the +stronger minds of his time was anywise hastened or extended by the +spirit of tunefulness under whose guidance he discovered that heaven +rhymed to seven, and Foy to boy.</p> + +<p>Tuneful nevertheless at heart, and of the heavenly choir, I gladly and +frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with a new +and a singular virtue in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_198" id="Pg_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>aërial purity and healthful rightness of +his quiet song;—but <i>aërial</i> only,—not ethereal; and lowly in its +privacy of light.</p> + +<p>A measured mind, and calm; innocent, unrepentant; helpful to sinless +creatures and scatheless, such of the flock as do not stray. Hopeful at +least, if not faithful; content with intimations of immortality such as +may be in skipping of lambs, and laughter of children,—incurious to see +in the hands the print of the Nails.</p> + +<p>A gracious and constant mind; as the herbage of its native hills, +fragrant and pure;—yet, to the sweep and the shadow, the stress and +distress, of the greater souls of men, as the tufted thyme to the laurel +wilderness of Tempe,—as the gleaming euphrasy to the dark branches of +Dodona.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>[I am obliged to defer the main body of this paper to next +month,—revises penetrating all too late into my lacustrine seclusion; +as chanced also unluckily with the preceding paper, in which the reader +will perhaps kindly correct the consequent misprints, p. 29, l. 20, of +'scarcely' to 'securely,' and p. 31, l. 34, 'full,' with comma, to +'fall,' without one; noticing besides that <i>Redgauntlet</i> has been +omitted in the italicised list, p. 25, l. 16; and that the reference to +note 2 should not be at the word 'imagination,' p. 24, but at the word +'trade,' p. 25, l. 7. My dear old friend, Dr. John Brown, sends me, from +Jamieson's <i>Dictionary</i>, the following satisfactory end to one of my +difficulties:—'Coup the crans.' The language is borrowed from the +'cran,' or trivet on which small pots are placed in cookery, which is +sometimes turned with its feet uppermost by an awkward assistant. Thus +it signifies to be <i>completely</i> upset.]</p> + +<p class="right"> +John Ruskin. +</p> + + +<h4>[<span class="smcap">Byron.</span>]</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Parching summer hath no warrant<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To consume this crystal well;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rains, that make each brook a torrent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Neither sully it, nor swell.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So was it, year by year, among the unthought-of hills. Little Duddon and +child Rotha ran clear and glad; and laughed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_199" id="Pg_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> from ledge to pool, and +opened from pool to mere, translucent, through endless days of peace.</p> + +<p>But eastward, between her orchard plains, Loire locked her embracing +dead in silent sands; dark with blood rolled Iser; glacial-pale, +Beresina-Lethe, by whose shore the weary hearts forgot their people, and +their father's house.</p> + +<p>Nor unsullied, Tiber; nor unswoln, Arno and Aufidus; and Euroclydon high +on Helle's wave; meantime, let our happy piety glorify the garden rocks +with snowdrop circlet, and breathe the spirit of Paradise, where life is +wise and innocent.</p> + +<p>Maps many have we, now-a-days clear in display of earth constituent, air +current, and ocean tide. Shall we ever engrave the map of meaner +research, whose shadings shall content themselves in the task of showing +the depth, or drought,—the calm, or trouble, of Human Compassion?</p> + +<p>For this is indeed all that is noble in the life of Man, and the source +of all that is noble in the speech of Man. Had it narrowed itself then, +in those days, out of all the world, into this peninsula between +Cockermouth and Shap?</p> + +<p>Not altogether so; but indeed the <i>Vocal</i> piety seemed conclusively to +have retired (or excursed?) into that mossy hermitage, above Little +Langdale. The <i>Un</i>vocal piety, with the uncomplaining sorrow, of Man, +may have had a somewhat wider range, for aught we know: but history +disregards those items; and of firmly proclaimed and sweetly canorous +religion, there really seemed at that juncture none to be reckoned upon, +east of Ingleborough, or north of Criffel. Only under Furness Fells, or +by Bolton Priory, it seems we can still write Ecclesiastical Sonnets, +stanzas on the force of Prayer, Odes to Duty, and complimentary +addresses to the Deity upon His endurance for adoration. Far otherwise, +over yonder, by Spezzia Bay, and Ravenna Pineta, and in ravines of +Hartz. There, the softest voices speak the wildest words; and Keats +discourses of Endymion, Shelley of Demogorgon, Goethe of Lucifer, and +Bürger of the Resurrection of Death unto Death—while even Puritan +Scotland and Episcopal Anglia produce for us only these three minstrels +of doubtful tone, who show but small respect for the 'unco guid,' put +but limited faith in gifted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_200" id="Pg_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> Gilfillan, and translate with unflinching +frankness the <i>Morgante Maggiore</i>.<a name="FNanchor_184_184" id="FNanchor_184_184"></a><a href="#Footnote_184_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> + +<p>Dismal the aspect of the spiritual world, or at least the sound of it, +might well seem to the eyes and ears of Saints (such as we had) of the +period—dismal in angels' eyes also assuredly! Yet is it possible that +the dismalness in angelic sight may be otherwise quartered, as it were, +from the way of mortal heraldry; and that seen, and heard, of +angels,—again I say—hesitatingly—<i>is</i> it possible that the goodness +of the Unco Guid, and the gift of Gilfillan, and the word of Mr. +Blattergowl, may severally not have been the goodness of God, the gift +of God, nor the word of God: but that in the much blotted and broken +efforts at goodness, and in the careless gift which they themselves +despised,<a name="FNanchor_185_185" id="FNanchor_185_185"></a><a href="#Footnote_185_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> and in the sweet ryme and murmur of their unpurposed +words, the Spirit of the Lord had, indeed, wandering, as in chaos days +on lightless waters, gone forth in the hearts and from the lips of those +other three strange prophets, even though they ate forbidden bread by +the altar of the poured-out ashes, and even though the wild beast of the +desert found them, and slew.</p> + +<p>This, at least, I know, that it had been well for England, though all +her other prophets, of the Press, the Parliament, the Doctor's chair, +and the Bishop's throne, had fallen silent; so only that she had been +able to understand with her heart here and there the simplest line of +these, her despised.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_201" id="Pg_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>I take one at mere chance:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Who thinks of self, when gazing on the sky?'<a name="FNanchor_186_186" id="FNanchor_186_186"></a><a href="#Footnote_186_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Well, I don't know; Mr. Wordsworth certainly did, and observed, with +truth, that its clouds took a sober colouring in consequence of his +experiences. It is much if, indeed, this sadness be unselfish, and our +eyes <i>have</i> kept loving watch o'er Man's Mortality. I have found it +difficult to make any one now-a-days believe that such sobriety can be; +and that Turner saw deeper crimson than others in the clouds of Goldau. +But that any should yet think the clouds brightened by Man's +<i>Im</i>mortality instead of dulled by his death,—and, gazing on the sky, +look for the day when every eye must gaze also—for behold, He cometh +with the clouds—this it is no more possible for Christian England to +apprehend, however exhorted by her gifted and guid.</p> + +<p>'But Byron was not thinking of such things!'—He, the reprobate! how +should such as he think of Christ?</p> + +<p>Perhaps not wholly as you or I think of Him. Take, at chance, another +line or two, to try:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Carnage (so Wordsworth tells you) is God's daughter;<a name="FNanchor_187_187" id="FNanchor_187_187"></a><a href="#Footnote_187_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">If <i>he</i> speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Just now, behaved as in the Holy Land.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Blasphemy, cry you, good reader? Are you sure you understand it? The +first line I gave you was easy Byron—almost shallow Byron—these are of +the man in his depth, and you will not fathom them, like a tarn,—nor in +a hurry.</p> + +<p>'Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.' How <i>did</i> Carnage behave in the +Holy Land then? You have all been greatly questioning, of late, whether +the sun, which you find to be now going out, ever stood still. Did you +in any lagging minute, on those scientific occasions, chance to reflect +what he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_202" id="Pg_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> was bid stand still <i>for</i>? or if not—will you please look—and +what, also, going forth again as a strong man to run his course, he saw, +rejoicing?</p> + +<p>'Then Joshua passed from Makkedah unto Libnah—and fought against +Libnah. And the Lord delivered it and the king thereof into the hand of +Israel, and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls +that were therein.' And from Lachish to Eglon, and from Eglon to +Kirjath-Arba, and Sarah's grave in the Amorites' land, 'and Joshua smote +all the country of the hills and of the south—and of the vale and of +the springs, and all their kings; he left none remaining, but utterly +destroyed all that breathed—as the Lord God of Israel commanded.'</p> + +<p>Thus 'it is written:' though you perhaps do not so often hear <i>these</i> +texts preached from, as certain others about taking away the sins of the +world. I wonder how the world would like to part with them! hitherto it +has always preferred parting first with its Life—and God has taken it +at its word. But Death is not <i>His</i> Begotten Son, for all that; nor is +the death of the innocent in battle carnage His 'instrument for working +out a pure intent' as Mr. Wordsworth puts it; but Man's instrument for +working out an impure one, as Byron would have you to know. Theology +perhaps less orthodox, but certainly more reverent;—neither is the +Woolwich Infant a Child of God; neither does the iron-clad 'Thunderer' +utter thunders of God—which facts, if you had had the grace or sense to +learn from Byron, instead of accusing him of blasphemy, it had been +better at this day for <i>you</i>, and for many a savage soul also, by Euxine +shore, and in Zulu and Afghan lands.</p> + +<p>It was neither, however, for the theology, nor the use, of these lines +that I quoted them; but to note this main point of Byron's own +character. He was the first great Englishman who felt the cruelty of +war, and, in its cruelty, the shame. Its guilt had been known to George +Fox—its folly shown practically by Penn. But the <i>compassion</i> of the +pious world had still for the most part been shown only in keeping its +stock of Barabbases unhanged if possible: and, till Byron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_203" id="Pg_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> came, neither +Kunersdorf, Eylau, nor Waterloo, had taught the pity and the pride of +men that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The drying up a single tear has more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.'<a name="FNanchor_188_188" id="FNanchor_188_188"></a><a href="#Footnote_188_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such pacific verse would not indeed have been acceptable to the +Edinburgh volunteers on Portobello sands. But Byron can write a battle +song too, when it is <i>his</i> cue to fight. If you look at the introduction +to the <i>Isles of Greece</i>, namely the 85th and 86th stanzas of the 3rd +canto of <i>Don Juan</i>,—you will find—what will you <i>not</i> find, if only +you understand them! 'He' in the first line, remember, means the typical +modern poet.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Thus usually, when he was asked to sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He gave the different nations something national.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas all the same to him—"God save the King"<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or "Ça ira" according to the fashion all;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His muse made increment of anything<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From the high lyric down to the low rational:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If Pindar sang horse races, what should hinder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In England a six-canto quarto tale;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Spain, he'd make a ballad or romance on<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The last war—much the same in Portugal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Would be old Goethe's—(see what says de Staël)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Italy he'd ape the 'Trecentisti;'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In Greece, he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t' ye.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Note first here, as we did in Scott, the concentrating and foretelling +power. The 'God Save the Queen' in England, fallen hollow now, as the +'Ça ira' in France—not a man in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_204" id="Pg_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> France knowing where either France or +'that' (whatever 'that' may be) is going to; nor the Queen of England +daring, for her life, to ask the tiniest Englishman to do a single thing +he doesn't like;—nor any salvation, either of Queen or Realm, being any +more possible to God, unless under the direction of the Royal Society: +then, note the estimate of height and depth in poetry, swept in an +instant, 'high lyric to low rational.' Pindar to Pope (knowing Pope's +height, too, all the while, no man better); then, the poetic power of +France—resumed in a word—Béranger; then the cut at Marmion, entirely +deserved, as we shall see, yet kindly given, for everything he names in +these two stanzas is the best of its kind; then Romance in Spain on—the +<i>last</i> war, (<i>present</i> war not being to Spanish poetical taste), then, +Goethe the real heart of all Germany, and last, the aping of the +Trecentisti which has since consummated itself in Pre-Raphaelitism! that +also being the best thing Italy has done through England, whether in +Rossetti's 'blessed damozels' or Burne Jones's 'days of creation.' +Lastly comes the mock at himself—the modern English Greek—(followed up +by the 'degenerate into hands like mine' in the song itself); and +then—to amazement, forth he thunders in his Achilles voice. We have had +one line of him in his clearness—five of him in his depth—sixteen of +him in his play. Hear now but these, out of his whole heart:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'What,—silent yet? and silent <i>all</i>?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah no, the voices of the dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sound like a distant torrent's fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And answer, "Let <i>one</i> living head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But one, arise—we come—we come:"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—'Tis but the living who are dumb.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Resurrection, this, you see like Bürger's; but not of death unto death.</p> + +<p>'Sound like a distant torrent's fall.' I said the <i>whole</i> heart of Byron +was in this passage. First its compassion, then its indignation, and the +third element, not yet examined, that love of the beauty of this world +in which the three—unholy—children,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_205" id="Pg_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> of its Fiery Furnace were like to +each other; but Byron the widest-hearted. Scott and Burns love Scotland +more than Nature itself: for Burns the moon must rise over Cumnock +Hills,—for Scott, the Rymer's glen divide the Eildons; but, for Byron, +Loch-na-Gar <i>with Ida</i>, looks o'er Troy, and the soft murmurs of the Dee +and the Bruar change into voices of the dead on distant Marathon.</p> + +<p>Yet take the parallel from Scott, by a field of homelier rest:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And silence aids—though the steep hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Send to the lake a thousand rills;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In summer tide, so soft they weep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sound but lulls the ear asleep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So stilly is the solitude.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Naught living meets the eye or ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But well I ween the dead are near;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For though, in feudal strife, a foe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath laid our Lady's Chapel low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet still beneath the hallowed soil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The peasant rests him from his toil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, dying, bids his bones be laid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where erst his simple fathers prayed.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And last take the same note of sorrow—with Burns's finger on the fall +of it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye hazly shaws and briery dens,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Wi' toddlin' din,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or foamin' strang wi' hasty stens<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Frae lin to lin.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>As you read, one after another, these fragments of chant by the great +masters, does not a sense come upon you of some element in their +passion, no less than in their sound, different, specifically, from that +of 'Parching summer hath no warrant'? Is it more profane, think you—or +more tender—nay, perhaps, in the core of it, more true?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_206" id="Pg_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> + +<p>For instance, when we are told that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">'Wharfe, as he moved along,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To matins joined a mournful voice,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is this disposition of the river's mind to pensive psalmody quite +logically accounted for by the previous statement (itself by no means +rhythmically dulcet,) that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The boy is in the arms of Wharfe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strangled by a merciless force'?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or, when we are led into the improving reflection,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'How sweet were leisure, could it yield no more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then 'mid this wave-washed churchyard to recline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—is the divinity of the extract assured to us by its being made at +leisure, and in a reclining attitude—as compared with the meditations +of otherwise active men, in an erect one? Or are we perchance, many of +us, still erring somewhat in our notions alike of Divinity and +Humanity,—poetical extraction, and moral position?</p> + +<p>On the chance of its being so, might I ask hearing for just a few words +more of the school of Belial?</p> + +<p>Their occasion, it must be confessed, is a quite unjustifiable one. Some +very wicked people—mutineers, in fact—have retired, misanthropically, +into an unfrequented part of the country, and there find themselves +safe, indeed, but extremely thirsty. Whereupon Byron thus gives them to +drink:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A little stream came tumbling from the height<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And straggling into ocean as it might.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close on the wild wide ocean,—yet as pure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fresh as Innocence; and more secure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While, far below, the vast and sullen swell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ocean's Alpine azure rose and fell.'<a name="FNanchor_189_189" id="FNanchor_189_189"></a><a href="#Footnote_189_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_207" id="Pg_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> +<p>Now, I beg, with such authority as an old workman may take concerning +his trade, having also looked at a waterfall or two in my time, and not +unfrequently at a wave, to assure the reader that here <i>is</i> entirely +first-rate literary work. Though Lucifer himself had written it, the +thing is itself good, and not only so, but unsurpassably good, the +closing line being probably the best concerning the sea yet written by +the race of the sea-kings.</p> + +<p>But Lucifer himself <i>could</i> not have written it; neither any servant of +Lucifer. I do not doubt but that most readers were surprised at my +saying, in the close of my first paper, that Byron's 'style' depended in +any wise on his views respecting the Ten Commandments. That so +all-important a thing as 'style' should depend in the least upon so +ridiculous a thing as moral sense: or that Allegra's father, watching +her drive by in Count G.'s coach and six, had any remnant of so +ridiculous a thing to guide,—or check,—his poetical passion, may alike +seem more than questionable to the liberal and chaste philosophy of the +existing British public. But, first of all, putting the question of who +writes, or speaks, aside, do you, good reader, <i>know</i> good 'style' when +you get it? Can you say, of half-a-dozen given lines taken anywhere out +of a novel, or poem, or play, That is good, essentially, in style, or +bad, essentially? and can you say why such half-dozen lines are good, or +bad?</p> + +<p>I imagine that in most cases, the reply would be given with hesitation, +yet if you will give me a little patience, and take some accurate pains, +I can show you the main tests of style in the space of a couple of +pages.</p> + +<p>I take two examples of absolutely perfect, and in manner highest, <i>i. +e.</i> kingly, and heroic, style: the first example in expression of anger, +the second of love.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(1) 'We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">His present, and your pains, we thank you for.<br /></span> +<span class="i6">When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">We will in France, by God's grace, play a set,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_208" id="Pg_208">[Pg 208]</a></span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(2) 'My gracious Silence, hail!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home<br /></span> +<span class="i6">That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And mothers that lack sons.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Let us note, point by point, the conditions of greatness common to both +these passages, so opposite in temper.</p> + +<p>A. Absolute command over all passion, however intense; this the +first-of-first conditions, (see the King's own sentence just before, 'We +are no tyrant, but a Christian King, Unto <i>whose grace</i> our passion is +as subject As are our wretches fettered in our prisons'); and with this +self-command, the supremely surveying grasp of every thought that is to +be uttered, before its utterance; so that each may come in its exact +place, time, and connection. The slightest hurry, the misplacing of a +word, or the unnecessary accent on a syllable, would destroy the 'style' +in an instant.</p> + +<p>B. Choice of the fewest and simplest words that can be found in the +compass of the language, to express the thing meant: these few words +being also arranged in the most straightforward and intelligible way; +allowing inversion only when the subject can be made primary without +obscurity; thus, 'his present, and your pains, we thank you for' is +better than 'we thank you for his present and your pains,' because the +Dauphin's gift is by courtesy put before the Ambassador's pains; but +'when to these balls our rackets we have matched' would have spoiled the +style in a moment, because—I was going to have said, ball and racket +are of equal rank, and therefore only the natural order proper; but also +here the natural order is the desired one, the English racket to have +precedence of the French ball. In the fourth line the 'in France' comes +first, as announcing the most important resolution of action; the 'by +God's grace' next, as the only condition rendering resolution possible; +the detail of issue follows with the strictest limit in the final word. +The King does not say 'danger,' far less 'dishonour,' but 'hazard' only; +of <i>that</i> he is, humanly speaking, sure.</p> + +<p>C. Perfectly emphatic and clear utterance of the chosen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_209" id="Pg_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> words; slowly +in the degree of their importance, with omission however of every word +not absolutely required; and natural use of the familiar contractions of +final dissyllable. Thus, 'play a set shall strike' is better than 'play +a set <i>that</i> shall strike,' and 'match'd' is kingly short—no necessity +could have excused 'matched' instead. On the contrary, the three first +words, 'We are glad,' would have been spoken by the king more slowly and +fully than any other syllables in the whole passage, first pronouncing +the kingly 'we' at its proudest, and then the 'are' as a continuous +state, and then the 'glad,' as the exact contrary of what the +ambassadors expected him to be.<a name="FNanchor_190_190" id="FNanchor_190_190"></a><a href="#Footnote_190_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a></p> + +<p>D. Absolute spontaneity in doing all this, easily and necessarily as the +heart beats. The king <i>cannot</i> speak otherwise than he does—nor the +hero. The words not merely come to them, but are compelled to them. Even +lisping numbers 'come,' but mighty numbers are ordained, and inspired.</p> + +<p>E. Melody in the words, changeable with their passion fitted to it +exactly and the utmost of which the language is capable—the melody in +prose being Eolian and variable—in verse, nobler by submitting itself +to stricter law. I will enlarge upon this point presently.</p> + +<p>F. Utmost spiritual contents in the words; so that each carries not only +its instant meaning, but a cloudy companionship of higher or darker +meaning according to the passion—nearly always indicated by metaphor: +'play a set'—sometimes by abstraction—(thus in the second passage +'silence' for silent one) sometimes by description instead of direct +epithet ('coffined' for dead) but always indicative of there being more +in the speaker's mind than he has said, or than he can say, full though +his saying be. On the quantity of this attendant fulness depends the +majesty of style; that is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_210" id="Pg_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> say, virtually, on the quantity of +contained thought in briefest words, such thought being primarily loving +and true: and this the sum of all—that nothing can be well said, but +with truth, nor beautifully, but by love.</p> + +<p>These are the essential conditions of noble speech in prose and verse +alike, but the adoption of the form of verse, and especially rymed +verse, means the addition to all these qualities of one more; of music, +that is to say, not Eolian merely, but Apolline; a construction or +architecture of words fitted and befitting, under external laws of time +and harmony.</p> + +<p>When Byron says 'rhyme is of the rude,'<a name="FNanchor_191_191" id="FNanchor_191_191"></a><a href="#Footnote_191_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a> he means that Burns needs +it,—while Henry the Fifth does not, nor Plato, nor Isaiah—yet in this +need of it by the simple, it becomes all the more religious: and thus +the loveliest pieces of Christian language are all in ryme—the best of +Dante, Chaucer, Douglas, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney.</p> + +<p>I am not now able to keep abreast with the tide of modern scholarship; +(nor, to say the truth, do I make the effort, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_211" id="Pg_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> first edge of its +waves being mostly muddy, and apt to make a shallow sweep of the shore +refuse:) so that I have no better book of reference by me than the +confused essay on the antiquity of ryme at the end of Turner's +<i>Anglo-Saxons</i>. I cannot however conceive a more interesting piece of +work, if not yet done, than the collection of sifted earliest fragments +known of rymed song in European languages. Of Eastern I know nothing; +but, this side Hellespont, the substance of the matter is all given in +King Canute's impromptu</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Gaily (or is it sweetly?—I forget which, and it's no matter)<br /></span> +<span class="i4">sang the monks of Ely,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As Knut the king came sailing by;'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>much to be noted by any who make their religion lugubrious, and their +Sunday the eclipse of the week. And observe further, that if Milton does +not ryme, it is because his faculty of Song was concerning Loss, +chiefly; and he has little more than faculty of Croak, concerning Gain; +while Dante, though modern readers never go further with him than into +the Pit, is stayed only by Casella in the ascent to the Rose of Heaven. +So, Gibbon can write in <i>his</i> manner the Fall of Rome; but Virgil, in +<i>his</i> manner, the rise of it; and finally Douglas, in <i>his</i> manner, +bursts into such rymed passion of praise both of Rome and Virgil, as +befits a Christian Bishop, and a good subject of the Holy See.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Master of Masters—sweet source, and springing well,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wide where over all ringes thy heavenly bell;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">* * * *<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Why should I then with dull forehead and vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rude ingene, and barane, emptive brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bad harsh speech, and lewit barbare tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Presume to write, where thy sweet bell is rung,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or counterfeit thy precious wordis dear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Na, na—not so; but kneel when I them hear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But farther more—and lower to descend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgive me, Virgil, if I thee offend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pardon thy scolar, suffer him to ryme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since <i>thou</i> wast but ane mortal man sometime.'<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_212" id="Pg_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>'Before honour is humility.' Does not clearer light come for you on that +law after reading these nobly pious words? And note you <i>whose</i> +humility? How is it that the sound of the bell comes so instinctively +into his chiming verse? This gentle singer is the son of—Archibald +Bell-the-Cat!</p> + +<p>And now perhaps you can read with right sympathy the scene in <i>Marmion</i> +between his father and King James.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'His hand the monarch sudden took—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, by the Bruce's soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Angus, my hasty speech forgive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For sure as doth his spirit live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As he said of the Douglas old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I well may say of you,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That never king did subject hold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In speech more free, in war more bold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More tender and more true:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And while the king his hand did strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The old man's tears fell down like rain.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I believe the most infidel of scholastic readers can scarcely but +perceive the relation between the sweetness, simplicity, and melody of +expression in these passages, and the gentleness of the passions they +express, while men who are not scholastic, and yet are true scholars, +will recognise further in them that the simplicity of the educated is +lovelier than the simplicity of the rude. Hear next a piece of Spenser's +teaching how rudeness itself may become more beautiful even by its +mistakes, if the mistakes are made lovingly.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Ye shepherds' daughters that dwell on the green,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Hye you there apace;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let none come there but that virgins been<br /></span> +<span class="i6">To adorn her grace:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when you come, whereas she in place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See that your rudeness do not you disgrace;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Bind your fillets fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And gird in your waste,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For more fineness, with a taudry lace.'<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_213" id="Pg_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Bring hither the pink and purple cullumbine<br /></span> +<span class="i6">With gylliflowers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bring coronatiöns, and sops in wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Worn of paramours;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strow me the ground with daffadowndillies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies;<br /></span> +<span class="i6">The pretty paunce<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And the chevisaunce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall match with the fair flowre-delice.'<a name="FNanchor_192_192" id="FNanchor_192_192"></a><a href="#Footnote_192_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Two short pieces more only of master song, and we have enough to test +all by.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(2) 'No more, no more, since thou art dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">No more, at yearly festivals,<br /></span> +<span class="i16">We cowslip balls<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or chains of columbines shall make,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For this or that occasion's sake.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">No, no! our maiden pleasures be<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Wrapt in thy winding-sheet with thee.'<a name="FNanchor_193_193" id="FNanchor_193_193"></a><a href="#Footnote_193_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">(3) 'Death is now the phœnix rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And the turtle's loyal breast<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To eternity doth rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Truth may seem, but cannot be;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Beauty brag, but 'tis not she:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Truth and beauty buried be.'<a name="FNanchor_194_194" id="FNanchor_194_194"></a><a href="#Footnote_194_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If now, with the echo of these perfect verses in your mind, you turn to +Byron, and glance over, or recall to memory, enough of him to give means +of exact comparison, you will, or should, recognise these following +kinds of mischief in him. First, if any one offends him—as for instance +Mr. Southey, or Lord Elgin—'his manners have not that repose that marks +the caste,' &c. <i>This</i> defect in his Lordship's style, being myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_214" id="Pg_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +scrupulously and even painfully reserved in the use of vituperative +language, I need not say how deeply I deplore.<a name="FNanchor_195_195" id="FNanchor_195_195"></a><a href="#Footnote_195_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a></p> + +<p>Secondly. In the best and most violet-bedded bits of his work there is +yet, as compared with Elizabethan and earlier verse, a strange taint; +and indefinable—evening flavour of Covent Garden, as it were;—not to +say, escape of gas in the Strand. That is simply what it proclaims +itself—London air. If he had lived all his life in Green-head Ghyll, +things would of course have been different. But it was his fate to come +to town—modern town—like Michael's son; and modern London (and Venice) +are answerable for the state of their drains, not Byron.</p> + +<p>Thirdly. His melancholy is without any relief whatsoever; his jest +sadder than his earnest; while, in Elizabethan work, all lament is full +of hope, and all pain of balsam.</p> + +<p>Of this evil he has himself told you the cause in a single line, +prophetic of all things since and now. 'Where <i>he</i> gazed, a gloom +pervaded space.'<a name="FNanchor_196_196" id="FNanchor_196_196"></a><a href="#Footnote_196_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p> + +<p>So that, for instance, while Mr. Wordsworth, on a visit to town, being +an exemplary early riser, could walk, felicitous, on Westminster Bridge, +remarking how the city now did like a garment wear the beauty of the +morning; Byron, rising somewhat later, contemplated only the garment +which the beauty of the morning had by that time received for wear from +the city: and again, while Mr. Wordsworth, in irrepressible religious +rapture, calls God to witness that the houses seem asleep, Byron, lame +demon as he was, flying smoke-drifted, unroofs the houses at a glance, +and sees what the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_215" id="Pg_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> mighty cockney heart of them contains in the still +lying of it, and will stir up to purpose in the waking business of it,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The sordor of civilisation, mixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all the passions which Man's fall hath fixed.'<a name="FNanchor_197_197" id="FNanchor_197_197"></a><a href="#Footnote_197_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Fourthly, with this steadiness of bitter melancholy, there is joined a +sense of the material beauty, both of inanimate nature, the lower +animals, and human beings, which in the iridescence, colour-depth, and +morbid (I use the word deliberately) mystery and softness of it,—with +other qualities indescribable by any single words, and only to be +analysed by extreme care,—is found, to the full, only in five men that +I know of in modern times; namely Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Turner, and +myself,—differing totally and throughout the entire group of us, from +the delight in clear-struck beauty of Angelico and the Trecentisti; and +separated, much more singularly, from the cheerful joys of Chaucer, +Shakespeare, and Scott, by its unaccountable affection for 'Rokkes blak' +and other forms of terror and power, such as those of the ice-oceans, +which to Shakespeare were only Alpine rheum; and the Via Malas and +Diabolic Bridges which Dante would have condemned none but lost souls to +climb, or cross;—all this love of impending mountains, coiled +thunder-clouds, and dangerous sea, being joined in us with a sulky, +almost ferine, love of retreat in valleys of Charmettes, gulphs of +Spezzia, ravines of Olympus, low lodgings in Chelsea, and close +brushwood at Coniston.</p> + +<p>And, lastly, also in the whole group of us, glows volcanic instinct of +Astræan justice returning not to, but up out of, the earth, which will +not at all suffer us to rest any more in Pope's serene 'whatever is, is +right;' but holds, on the contrary, profound conviction that about +ninety-nine hundredths of whatever at present is, is wrong: conviction +making four of us,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_216" id="Pg_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> according to our several manners, leaders of +revolution for the poor, and declarers of political doctrine monstrous +to the ears of mercenary mankind; and driving the fifth, less sanguine, +into mere painted-melody of lament over the fallacy of Hope and the +implacableness of Fate.</p> + +<p>In Byron the indignation, the sorrow, and the effort are joined to the +death: and they are the parts of his nature (as of mine also in its +feebler terms), which the selfishly comfortable public have, literally, +no conception of whatever; and from which the piously sentimental +public, offering up daily the pure emotion of divine tranquillity, +shrink with anathema not unembittered by alarm.</p> + +<p>Concerning which matters I hope to speak further and with more precise +illustration in my next paper; but, seeing that this present one has +been hitherto somewhat sombre, and perhaps, to gentle readers, not a +little discomposing, I will conclude it with a piece of light biographic +study, necessary to my plan, and as conveniently admissible in this +place as afterwards;—namely, the account of the manner in which +Scott—whom we shall always find, as aforesaid, to be in salient and +palpable elements of character, of the World, worldly, as Burns is of +the Flesh, fleshly, and Byron of the Deuce, damnable,—spent his Sunday.</p> + +<p>As usual, from Lockhart's farrago we cannot find out the first thing we +want to know,—whether Scott worked after his week-day custom, on the +Sunday morning. But, I gather, not; at all events his household and his +cattle rested (L. iii. 108). I imagine he walked out into his woods, or +read quietly in his study. Immediately after breakfast, whoever was in +the house, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I shall read prayers at eleven, when I +expect you all to attend' (vii. 306). Question of college and other +externally unanimous prayers settled for us very briefly: 'if you have +no faith, have at least manners.' He read the Church of England service, +lessons and all, the latter, if interesting, eloquently (<i>ibid.</i>). After +the service, one of Jeremy Taylor's sermons (vi. 188). After the sermon, +if the weather was fine, walk with his family, dogs included and guests, +to <i>cold</i> picnic (iii. 109), followed by short extempore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_217" id="Pg_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> biblical +novelettes; for he had his Bible, the Old Testament especially, by +heart, it having been his mother's last gift to him (vi. 174). These +lessons to his children in Bible history were always given, whether +there was picnic or not. For the rest of the afternoon he took his +pleasure in the woods with Tom Purdie, who also always appeared at his +master's elbow on Sunday after dinner was over, and drank long life to +the laird and his lady and all the good company, in a quaigh of whiskey +or a tumbler of wine, according to his fancy (vi. 195). Whatever might +happen on the other evenings of the week, Scott always dined at home on +Sunday; and with old friends: never, unless inevitably, receiving any +person with whom he stood on ceremony (v. 335). He came into the room +rubbing his hands like a boy arriving at home for the holidays, his +Peppers and Mustards gambolling about him, 'and even the stately Maida +grinning and wagging his tail with sympathy.' For the usquebaugh of the +less honoured week-days, at the Sunday board he circulated the champagne +briskly during dinner, and considered a pint of claret each man's fair +share afterwards (v. 339). In the evening, music being to the Scottish +worldly mind indecorous, he read aloud some favourite author, for the +amusement or edification of his little circle. Shakespeare it might be, +or Dryden,—Johnson, or Joanna Baillie,—Crabbe, or Wordsworth. But in +those days 'Byron was pouring out his spirit fresh and full, and if a +new piece from <i>his</i> hand had appeared, it was <i>sure to be read by Scott +the Sunday evening afterwards</i>; and that with such delighted emphasis as +showed how completely the elder bard had kept up his enthusiasm for +poetry at pitch of youth, and all his admiration of genius, free, pure, +and unstained by the least drop of literary jealousy' (v. 341).</p> + +<p>With such necessary and easily imaginable varieties as chanced in having +Dandy Dinmont or Captain Brown for guests at Abbotsford, or Colonel +Mannering, Counsellor Pleydell, and Dr. Robertson in Castle Street, such +was Scott's habitual Sabbath: a day, we perceive, of eating the fat, +(<i>dinner</i>, presumably not cold, being a work of necessity and +mercy—thou also, even thou, Saint Thomas of Trumbull, hast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_218" id="Pg_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> thine!) and +drinking the sweet, abundant in the manner of Mr. Southey's cataract of +Lodore,—'Here it comes, sparkling.' A day bestrewn with coronatiöns and +sops in wine; deep in libations to good hope and fond memory; a day of +rest to beast, and mirth to man, (as also to sympathetic beasts that can +be merry,) and concluding itself in an Orphic hour of delight, +signifying peace on Tweedside, and goodwill to men, there or far +away;—always excepting the French, and Boney.</p> + +<p>'Yes, and see what it all came to in the end.'</p> + +<p>Not so, dark-virulent Minos-Mucklewrath; the end came of quite other +things: of <i>these</i>, came such length of days and peace as Scott had in +his Fatherland, and such immortality as he has in all lands.</p> + +<p>Nathless, firm, though deeply courteous, rebuke, for his sometimes +overmuch light-mindedness, was administered to him by the more grave and +thoughtful Byron. For the Lord Abbot of Newstead knew his Bible by heart +as well as Scott, though it had never been given him by his mother as +her dearest possession. Knew it, and, what was more, had thought of it, +and sought in it what Scott had never cared to think, nor been fain to +seek.</p> + +<p>And loving Scott well, and always doing him every possible pleasure in +the way he sees to be most agreeable to him—as, for instance, +remembering with precision, and writing down the very next morning, +every blessed word that the Prince Regent had been pleased to say of him +before courtly audience,—he yet conceived that such cheap ryming as his +own <i>Bride of Abydos</i>, for instance, which he had written from beginning +to end in four days, or even the travelling reflections of Harold and +Juan on men and women, were scarcely steady enough Sunday afternoon's +reading for a patriarch-Merlin like Scott. So he dedicates to him a work +of a truly religious tendency, on which for his own part he has done his +best,—the drama of <i>Cain</i>. Of which dedication the virtual significance +to Sir Walter might be translated thus. Dearest and last of Border +soothsayers, thou hast indeed told us of Black Dwarfs, and of White +Maidens, also of Grey Friars, and Green Fairies; also of sacred hollies +by the well, and haunted crooks in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_219" id="Pg_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> glen. But of the bushes that the +black dogs rend in the woods of Phlegethon; and of the crooks in the +glen, and the bickerings of the burnie where ghosts meet the mightiest +of us; and of the black misanthrope, who is by no means yet a dwarfed +one, and concerning whom wiser creatures than Hobbie Elliot may +tremblingly ask 'Gude guide us, what's yon?' hast thou yet known, seeing +that thou hast yet told, <i>nothing</i>.</p> + +<p>Scott may perhaps have his answer. We shall in good time hear.</p> + +<p class="right"> +John Ruskin +</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_154_154" id="Footnote_154_154"></a><a href="#FNanchor_154_154"><span class="label">[154]</span></a> Nell, in the <i>Old Curiosity Shop</i>, was simply killed for +the market, as a butcher kills a lamb (see Forster's <i>Life</i>), and Paul +was written under the same conditions of illness which affected Scott—a +part of the ominous palsies, grasping alike author and subject, both in +<i>Dombey</i> and <i>Little Dorrit</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_155_155" id="Footnote_155_155"></a><a href="#FNanchor_155_155"><span class="label">[155]</span></a> Chourineur' not striking with dagger-point, but ripping +with knife-edge. Yet I do him, and La Louve, injustice in classing them +with the two others; they are put together only as parts in the same +phantasm. Compare with La Louve, the strength of wild virtue in the +'Louvécienne' (Lucienne) of Gaboriau—she, province-born and bred; and +opposed to Parisian civilisation in the character of her sempstress +friend. 'De ce Paris, où elle était née, elle savait tout—elle +connaissait tout. Rien ne l'étonnait, nul ne l'intimidait. Sa science +des détails matériels de l'existence était inconcevable. Impossible de +la duper!—Eh bien! cette fille si laborieuse et si économe n'avait même +pas la plus vague notion des sentiments qui sont l'honneur de la femme. +Je n'avais pas idée d'une si complète absence de sens moral; d'une si +inconsciente dépravation, d'une impudence si effrontément +naïve.'—<i>L'Argent des autres</i>, vol. i. p. 358.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_156_156" id="Footnote_156_156"></a><a href="#FNanchor_156_156"><span class="label">[156]</span></a> The reader who cares to seek it may easily find medical +evidence of the physical effects of certain states of brain disease in +producing especially images of truncated and Hermes-like deformity, +complicated with grossness. Horace, in the <i>Epodes</i>, scoffs at it, but +not without horror. Luca Signorelli and Raphael in their arabesques are +deeply struck by it: Durer, defying and playing with it alternately, is +almost beaten down again and again in the distorted faces, hewing +halberts, and suspended satyrs of his arabesques round the polyglot +Lord's Prayer; it takes entire possession of Balzac in the <i>Contes +Drolatiques</i>; it struck Scott in the earliest days of his childish +'visions' intensified by the axe-stroke murder of his grand aunt; L. i. +142, and see close of this note. It chose for him the subject of the +<i>Heart of Midlothian</i>, and produced afterwards all the recurrent ideas +of executions, tainting <i>Nigel</i>, almost spoiling <i>Quentin +Durward</i>—utterly the <i>Fair Maid of Perth</i>: and culminating in +<i>Bizarro</i>, L. x. 149. It suggested all the deaths by falling, or +sinking, as in delirious sleep—Kennedy, Eveline Neville (nearly +repeated in Clara Mowbray), Amy Robsart, the Master of Ravenswood in the +quicksand, Morris, and Corporal Grace-be-here—compare the dream of +Gride, in <i>Nicholas Nickleby</i>, and Dickens's own last words, <i>on the +ground</i>, (so also, in my own inflammation of the brain, two years ago, I +dreamed that I fell through the earth and came out on the other side). +In its grotesque and distorting power, it produced all the figures of +the Lay Goblin, Pacolet, Flibbertigibbet, Cockledemoy, Geoffrey Hudson, +Fenella, and Nectabanus; in Dickens it in like manner gives Quilp, +Krook, Smike, Smallweed, Miss Mowcher, and the dwarfs and wax-work of +Nell's caravan; and runs entirely wild in <i>Barnaby Rudge</i>, where, with a +<i>corps de drame</i> composed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman fool who +is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, +a shrivelled virago, and a doll in ribands—carrying this company +through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the madmen, his +mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in a bloody duel, +and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness, he cannot +yet be content without shooting the spare lover's leg off, and marrying +him to the doll in a wooden one; the shapeless shop-boy being finally +also married in <i>two</i> wooden ones. It is this mutilation, observe, which +is the very sign manual of the plague; joined, in the artistic forms of +it, with a love of thorniness—(in their mystic root, the truncation of +the limbless serpent and the spines of the dragon's wing. Compare +<i>Modern Painters</i>, vol. iv., 'Chapter on the Mountain Gloom,' s. 19); +and in <i>all</i> forms of it, with petrifaction or loss of power by cold in +the blood, whence the last Darwinian process of the witches' +charm—'cool it with a baboon's <i>blood</i>, <i>then</i> the charm is firm and +good.' The two frescoes in the colossal handbills which have lately +decorated the streets of London (the baboon with the mirror, and the +Maskelyne and Cooke decapitation) are the final English forms of +Raphael's arabesque under this influence; and it is well worth while to +get the number for the week ending April 3, 1880, of <i>Young Folks</i>—'A +magazine of instructive and entertaining literature for boys and girls +of all ages,' containing 'A Sequel to Desdichado' (the modern +development of Ivanhoe), in which a quite monumental example of the kind +of art in question will be found as a leading illustration of this +characteristic sentence, "See, good Cerberus," said Sir Rupert, "<i>my +hand has been struck off. You must make me a hand of iron, one with +springs in it, so that I can make it grasp a dagger.</i>" The text is also, +as it professes to be, instructive; being the ultimate degeneration of +what I have above called the 'folly' of <i>Ivanhoe</i>; for folly begets +folly down, and down; and whatever Scott and Turner did wrong has +thousands of imitators—their wisdom none will so much as hear, how much +less follow! +</p><p> +In both of the Masters, it is always to be remembered that the evil and +good are alike conditions of literal <i>vision</i>: and therefore also, +inseparably connected with the state of the health. I believe the first +elements of all Scott's errors were in the milk of his consumptive +nurse, which all but killed him as an infant, L. i. 19—and was without +doubt the cause of the teething fever that ended in his lameness (L. i. +20). Then came (if the reader cares to know what I mean by Fors, let him +read the page carefully) the fearful accidents to his only sister, and +her death, L. i. 17; then the madness of his nurse, who planned his own +murder (21), then the stories continually told him of the executions at +Carlisle (24), his aunt's husband having seen them; issuing, he himself +scarcely knows how, in the unaccountable terror that came upon him at +the sight of statuary, 31—especially Jacob's ladder; then the murder of +Mrs. Swinton, and finally the nearly fatal bursting of the blood vessel +at Kelso, with the succeeding nervous illness, 65-67—solaced, while he +was being 'bled and blistered till he had scarcely a pulse left,' by +that history of the Knights of Malta—fondly dwelt on and realised by +actual modelling of their fortress, which returned to his mind for the +theme of its last effort in passing away.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_157_157" id="Footnote_157_157"></a><a href="#FNanchor_157_157"><span class="label">[157]</span></a> 'Se dit par dénigrement, d'un chrétien qui ne croit pas +les dogmes de sa religion.'—Fleming, vol. ii. p. 659.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_158_158" id="Footnote_158_158"></a><a href="#FNanchor_158_158"><span class="label">[158]</span></a> 'A son nom,' properly. The sentence is one of Victor +Cherbuliez's, in <i>Prosper Randoce</i>, which is full of other valuable +ones. See the old nurse's 'ici bas les choses vont de travers, comme un +chien qui va à vêpres, p. 93; and compare Prosper's treasures, 'la +petite Vénus, et le petit Christ d'ivoire,' p. 121; also Madame +Brehanne's request for the divertissement of 'quelque belle batterie à +coups de couteau' with Didier's answer. 'Hélas! madame, vous jouez de +malheur, ici dans la Drôme, l'on se massacre aussi peu que possible,' p. +33.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_159_159" id="Footnote_159_159"></a><a href="#FNanchor_159_159"><span class="label">[159]</span></a> Edgeworth's <i>Tales</i> (Hunter, 1827), 'Harrington and +Ormond,' vol. iii. p. 260.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_160_160" id="Footnote_160_160"></a><a href="#FNanchor_160_160"><span class="label">[160]</span></a> Alice of Salisbury, Alice Lee, Alice Bridgnorth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_161_161" id="Footnote_161_161"></a><a href="#FNanchor_161_161"><span class="label">[161]</span></a> Scott's father was habitually ascetic. 'I have heard his +son tell that it was common with him, if any one observed that the soup +was good, to taste it again, and say, "Yes—it is too good, bairns," and +dash a tumbler of cold water into his plate.'—Lockhart's <i>Life</i> (Black, +Edinburgh, 1869), vol. i. p. 312. In other places I refer to this book +in the simple form of 'L.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_162_162" id="Footnote_162_162"></a><a href="#FNanchor_162_162"><span class="label">[162]</span></a> A young lady sang to me, just before I copied out this +page for press, a Miss Somebody's 'great song,' 'Live, and Love, and +Die.' Had it been written for nothing better than silkworms, it should +at least have added—Spin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_163_163" id="Footnote_163_163"></a><a href="#FNanchor_163_163"><span class="label">[163]</span></a> See passage of introduction to <i>Ivanhoe</i>, wisely quoted +in L. vi. 106.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_164_164" id="Footnote_164_164"></a><a href="#FNanchor_164_164"><span class="label">[164]</span></a> See below, note, p. 25, on the conclusion of +<i>Woodstock</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_165_165" id="Footnote_165_165"></a><a href="#FNanchor_165_165"><span class="label">[165]</span></a> L. iv. 177.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_166_166" id="Footnote_166_166"></a><a href="#FNanchor_166_166"><span class="label">[166]</span></a> L. vi. 67.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_167_167" id="Footnote_167_167"></a><a href="#FNanchor_167_167"><span class="label">[167]</span></a> 'One other such novel, and there's an end; but who can +last for ever? who ever lasted so long?'—Sydney Smith (of the <i>Pirate</i>) +to Jeffrey, December 30, 1821. (<i>Letters</i>, vol. ii. p. 223.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_168_168" id="Footnote_168_168"></a><a href="#FNanchor_168_168"><span class="label">[168]</span></a> L. vi. p. 188. Compare the description of Fairy Dean, +vii. 192.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_169_169" id="Footnote_169_169"></a><a href="#FNanchor_169_169"><span class="label">[169]</span></a> All, alas! were now in a great measure so written. +<i>Ivanhoe</i>, <i>The Monastery</i>, <i>The Abbot</i> and <i>Kenilworth</i> were all +published between December 1819 and January 1821, Constable & Co. giving +five thousand guineas for the remaining copyright of them, Scott +clearing ten thousand before the bargain was completed; and before the +<i>Fortunes of Nigel</i> issued from the press Scott had exchanged +instruments and received his bookseller's bills for no less than four +'works of fiction,' not one of them otherwise described in the deeds of +agreement, to be produced in unbroken succession, <i>each of them to fill +up at least three volumes, but with proper saving clauses as to increase +of copy money in case any of them should run to four</i>; and within two +years all this anticipation had been wiped off by <i>Peveril of the Peak</i>, +<i>Quentin Durward</i>, <i>St. Ronan's Well</i>, and <i>Redgauntlet</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_170_170" id="Footnote_170_170"></a><a href="#FNanchor_170_170"><span class="label">[170]</span></a> <i>Woodstock</i> was finished 26th March 1826. He knew then of +his ruin; and wrote in bitterness, but not in weakness. The closing +pages are the most beautiful of the book. But a month afterwards Lady +Scott died; and he never wrote glad word more.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_171_171" id="Footnote_171_171"></a><a href="#FNanchor_171_171"><span class="label">[171]</span></a> Compare Mr. Spurgeon's not unfrequent orations on the +same subject.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_172_172" id="Footnote_172_172"></a><a href="#FNanchor_172_172"><span class="label">[172]</span></a> There are three definite and intentional portraits of +himself, in the novels, each giving a separate part of himself: Mr. +Oldbuck, Frank Osbaldistone, and Alan Fairford.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_173_173" id="Footnote_173_173"></a><a href="#FNanchor_173_173"><span class="label">[173]</span></a> Andrew knows Latin, and might have coined the word in his +conceit; but, writing to a kind friend in Glasgow, I find the brook was +called 'Molyndona' even before the building of the Sub-dean Mill in +1446. See also account of the locality in Mr. George's admirable volume, +<i>Old Glasgow</i>, pp. 129, 149, &c. The Protestantism of Glasgow, since +throwing that powder of saints into her brook Kidron, has presented it +with other pious offerings; and my friend goes on to say that the brook, +once famed for the purity of its waters (much used for bleaching), 'has +for nearly a hundred years been a crawling stream of loathsomeness. It +is now bricked over, and a carriage way made on the top of it; +underneath the foul mess still passes through the heart of the city, +till it falls into the Clyde close to the harbour.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_174_174" id="Footnote_174_174"></a><a href="#FNanchor_174_174"><span class="label">[174]</span></a> The following fragments out of the letters in my own +possession, written by Scott to the builder of Abbotsford, as the outer +decorations of the house were in process of completion, will show how +accurately Scott had pictured himself in Monkbarns. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Abbotsford: April 21, 1817.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +'Dear Sir,—Nothing can be more obliging than your attention to the old +stones. You have been as true as the sundial itself.' [The sundial had +just been erected.] 'Of the two I would prefer the larger one, as it is +to be in front of a parapet quite in the old taste. But in case of +accidents it will be safest in your custody till I come to town again on +the 12th of May. Your former favours (which were weighty as acceptable) +have come safely out here, and will be disposed of with great effect.' +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Abbotsford: July 30.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +'I fancy the Tolbooth still keeps its feet, but, as it must soon +descend, I hope you will remember me. I have an important use for the +niche above the door; and though many a man has got a niche <i>in</i> the +Tolbooth by building, I believe I am the first that ever got a niche out +of it on such an occasion. For which I have to thank your kindness, and +to remain very much your obliged humble servant, +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'<span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span>'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'August 16.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +'My dear Sir,—I trouble you with this [<i>sic</i>] few lines to thank you +for the very accurate drawings and measurements of the Tolbooth door, +and for your kind promise to attend to my interest and that of +Abbotsford in the matter of the Thistle and Fleur de Lis. Most of our +scutcheons are now mounted, and look very well, as the house is +something after the model of an old hall (not a castle), where such +things are well in character.' [Alas—Sir Walter, Sir Walter!] 'I intend +the old lion to predominate over a well which the children have +christened the Fountain of the Lions. His present den, however, +continues to be the hall at Castle Street.' +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'September 5.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +'Dear Sir,—I am greatly obliged to you for securing the stone. I am not +sure that I will put up the gate quite in the old form, but I would like +to secure the means of doing so. The ornamental stones are now put up, +and have a very happy effect. If you will have the kindness to let me +know when the Tolbooth door comes down, I will send in my carts for the +stones; I have an admirable situation for it. I suppose the door itself' +[he means, the wooden one] 'will be kept for the new jail; if not, and +not otherwise wanted, I would esteem it curious to possess it. Certainly +I hope so many sore hearts will not pass through the celebrated door +when in my possession as heretofore.' +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'September 8.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +'I should esteem it very fortunate if I could have the door also, though +I suppose it is modern, having been burned down at the time of +Porteous-mob. +</p><p> +'I am very much obliged to the gentlemen who thought these remains of +the Heart of Midlothian are not ill bestowed on their intended +possessor.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_175_175" id="Footnote_175_175"></a><a href="#FNanchor_175_175"><span class="label">[175]</span></a> Henceforward, not in affectation, but for the reader's +better convenience, I shall continue to spell 'Ryme' without our wrongly +added <i>h</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_176_176" id="Footnote_176_176"></a><a href="#FNanchor_176_176"><span class="label">[176]</span></a> L. ii. 278.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_177_177" id="Footnote_177_177"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177_177"><span class="label">[177]</span></a> 'Che nella mente mia <i>ragiona</i>.' Love—you observe, the +highest <i>Reasonableness</i>, instead of French <i>ivresse</i>, or even +Shakespearian 'mere folly'; and Beatrice as the Goddess of Wisdom in +this third song of the <i>Convito</i>, to be compared with the Revolutionary +Goddess of Reason; remembering of the whole poem chiefly the line:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Costei penso chi che mosso l'universo.'<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +(See Lyell's <i>Canzoniere</i>, p. 104.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_178_178" id="Footnote_178_178"></a><a href="#FNanchor_178_178"><span class="label">[178]</span></a> ὡραν της τερψιος—Plato, <i>Laws</i>, ii., Steph. +669. 'Hour' having here nearly the power of 'Fate' with added sense of +being a daughter of Themis.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_179_179" id="Footnote_179_179"></a><a href="#FNanchor_179_179"><span class="label">[179]</span></a> 'Gunpowder is one of the greatest inventions of modern +times, <i>and what has given such a superiority to civilised nations over +barbarous</i>'! (<i>Evenings at Home</i>—fifth evening.) No man can owe more +than I both to Mrs. Barbauld and Miss Edgeworth; and I only wish that in +the substance of what they wisely said, they had been more listened to. +Nevertheless, the germs of all modern conceit and error respecting +manufacture and industry, as rivals to Art and to Genius, are +concentrated in '<i>Evenings at Home</i>' and '<i>Harry and Lucy</i>'—being all +the while themselves works of real genius, and prophetic of things that +have yet to be learned and fulfilled. See for instance the paper, +'Things by their Right Names,' following the one from which I have just +quoted (The Ship), and closing the first volume of the old edition of +the <i>Evenings</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_180_180" id="Footnote_180_180"></a><a href="#FNanchor_180_180"><span class="label">[180]</span></a> Carlyle, <i>French Revolution</i> (Chapman, 1869), vol. ii. p. +70; conf. p. 25, and the <i>Ça ira</i> at Arras, vol. iii. p. 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_181_181" id="Footnote_181_181"></a><a href="#FNanchor_181_181"><span class="label">[181]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> iii. 26.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_182_182" id="Footnote_182_182"></a><a href="#FNanchor_182_182"><span class="label">[182]</span></a> Carlyle, <i>French Revolution</i>, iii. 106, the last sentence +altered in a word or two.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_183_183" id="Footnote_183_183"></a><a href="#FNanchor_183_183"><span class="label">[183]</span></a> I have been greatly disappointed, in taking soundings of +our most majestic mountain pools, to find them, in no case, verge on the +unfathomable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_184_184" id="Footnote_184_184"></a><a href="#FNanchor_184_184"><span class="label">[184]</span></a> 'It must be put by the original, stanza for stanza, and +verse for verse; and you will see what was permitted in a Catholic +country and a bigoted age to Churchmen, on the score of Religion—and so +tell those buffoons who accuse me of attacking the Liturgy. +</p><p> +'I write in the greatest haste, it being the hour of the Corso, and I +must go and buffoon with the rest. My daughter Allegra is just gone with +the Countess G. in Count G.'s coach and six. Our old Cardinal is dead, +and the new one not appointed yet—but the masquing goes on the same.' +(Letter to Murray, 355th in Moore, dated Ravenna, Feb. 7, 1828.) 'A +dreadfully moral place, for you must not look at anybody's wife, except +your neighbour's.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_185_185" id="Footnote_185_185"></a><a href="#FNanchor_185_185"><span class="label">[185]</span></a> See quoted <i>infra</i> the mock, by Byron, of himself and all +other modern poets, <i>Juan</i>, canto iii. stanza 86, and compare canto xiv. +stanza 8. In reference of future quotations the first numeral will stand +always for canto; the second for stanza; the third, if necessary, for +line.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_186_186" id="Footnote_186_186"></a><a href="#FNanchor_186_186"><span class="label">[186]</span></a> <i>Island</i>, ii. 16, where see context.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_187_187" id="Footnote_187_187"></a><a href="#FNanchor_187_187"><span class="label">[187]</span></a> <i>Juan</i>, viii. 5; but, by your Lordship's quotation, +Wordsworth says 'instrument'—not 'daughter.' Your Lordship had better +have said 'Infant' and taken the Woolwich authorities to witness: only +Infant would not have rymed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_188_188" id="Footnote_188_188"></a><a href="#FNanchor_188_188"><span class="label">[188]</span></a> <i>Juan</i>, viii. 3; compare 14 and 63, with all its lovely +context 61—68: then 82, and afterwards slowly and with thorough +attention, the Devil's speech, beginning, 'Yes, Sir, you forget' in +scene 2 of <i>The Deformed Transformed</i>: then Sardanapalus's, act i. scene +2, beginning 'he is gone, and on his finger bears my signet,' and +finally, the <i>Vision of Judgment</i>, stanzas 3 to 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_189_189" id="Footnote_189_189"></a><a href="#FNanchor_189_189"><span class="label">[189]</span></a> <i>Island</i>, iii. 3, and compare, of shore surf, the 'slings +its high flakes, shivered into sleet' of stanza 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_190_190" id="Footnote_190_190"></a><a href="#FNanchor_190_190"><span class="label">[190]</span></a> A modern editor—of whom I will not use the expressions +which occur to me—finding the 'we' a redundant syllable in the iambic +line, prints 'we're.' It is a little thing—but I do not recollect, in +the forty years of my literary experience, any piece of editor's retouch +quite so base. But I don't read the new editions much; that must be +allowed for.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_191_191" id="Footnote_191_191"></a><a href="#FNanchor_191_191"><span class="label">[191]</span></a> <i>Island</i>, ii. 5. I was going to say, 'Look to the +context.' but am fain to give it here; for the stanza, learned by heart, +ought to be our school-introduction to the literature of the world. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Such was this ditty of Tradition's days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But yields young history all to harmony;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For one long-cherish'd ballad's simple stave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For sages' labours or the student's dream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such was this rude rhyme—rhyme is of the rude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who came and conquer'd; such, wherever rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lands which no foes destroy or civilise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exist; and what can our accomplish'd art<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of verse do more than reach the a waken'd heart?'<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_192_192" id="Footnote_192_192"></a><a href="#FNanchor_192_192"><span class="label">[192]</span></a> <i>Shepherd's Calendar.</i> 'Coronatiön,' loyal-pastoral for +Carnation; 'sops in wine,' jolly-pastoral for double pink; 'paunce,' +thoughtless pastoral for pansy; 'chevisaunce' I don't know, (not in +Gerarde); 'flowre-delice'—pronounce dellice—half made up of 'delicate' +and 'delicious.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_193_193" id="Footnote_193_193"></a><a href="#FNanchor_193_193"><span class="label">[193]</span></a> Herrick, <i>Dirge for Jephthah's Daughter</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_194_194" id="Footnote_194_194"></a><a href="#FNanchor_194_194"><span class="label">[194]</span></a> <i>Passionate Pilgrim.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_195_195" id="Footnote_195_195"></a><a href="#FNanchor_195_195"><span class="label">[195]</span></a> In this point, compare the <i>Curse of Minerva</i> with the +<i>Tears of the Muses</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_196_196" id="Footnote_196_196"></a><a href="#FNanchor_196_196"><span class="label">[196]</span></a> 'He,'—Lucifer; (<i>Vision of Judgment</i>, 24). It is +precisely because Byron was <i>not</i> his servant, that he could see the +gloom. To the Devil's true servants, their Master's presence brings both +cheerfulness and prosperity;—with a delightful sense of their own +wisdom and virtue; and of the 'progress' of things in general:—in +smooth sea and fair weather,—and with no need either of helm touch, or +oar toil: as when once one is well within the edge of Maelstrom.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_197_197" id="Footnote_197_197"></a><a href="#FNanchor_197_197"><span class="label">[197]</span></a> <i>Island</i>, ii. 4; perfectly orthodox theology, you +observe; no denial of the fall,—nor substitution of Bacterian birth for +it. Nay, nearly Evangelical theology, in contempt for the human heart; +but with deeper than Evangelical humility, acknowledging also what is +sordid in its civilisation.</p></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE</h2> + +<h2>ELEMENTS OF DRAWING</h2> + +<h4>IN</h4> + +<h3>THREE LETTERS TO BEGINNERS</h3> + +<h4>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_223" id="Pg_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>It may perhaps be thought, that in prefacing a Manual of Drawing, I +ought to expatiate on the reasons why drawing should be learned; but +those reasons appear to me so many and so weighty, that I cannot quickly +state or enforce them. With the reader's permission, as this volume is +too large already, I will waive all discussion respecting the importance +of the subject, and touch only on those points which may appear +questionable in the method of its treatment.</p> + +<p>In the first place, the book is not calculated for the use of children +under the age of twelve or fourteen. I do not think it advisable to +engage a child in any but the most voluntary practice of art. If it has +talent for drawing, it will be continually scrawling on what paper it +can get; and should be allowed to scrawl at its own free will, due +praise being given for every appearance of care, or truth, in its +efforts. It should be allowed to amuse itself with cheap colours almost +as soon as it has sense enough to wish for them. If it merely daubs the +paper with shapeless stains, the colour-box may be taken away till it +knows better: but as soon as it begins painting red coats on soldiers, +striped flags to ships, etc., it should have colours at command; and, +without restraining its choice of subject in that imaginative and +historical art, of a military tendency, which children delight in, +(generally quite as valuable, by the way, as any historical art +delighted in by their elders,) it should be gently led by the parents to +try to draw, in such childish fashion as may be, the things it can see +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_224" id="Pg_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> likes,—birds, or butterflies, or flowers, or fruit. In later +years, the indulgence of using the colour should only be granted as a +reward, after it has shown care and progress in its drawings with +pencil. A limited number of good and amusing prints should always be +within a boy's reach: in these days of cheap illustration he can hardly +possess a volume of nursery tales without good woodcuts in it, and +should be encouraged to copy what he likes best of this kind; but should +be firmly restricted to a <i>few</i> prints and to a few books. If a child +has many toys, it will get tired of them and break them; if a boy has +many prints he will merely dawdle and scrawl over them; it is by the +limitation of the number of his possessions that his pleasure in them is +perfected, and his attention concentrated. The parents need give +themselves no trouble in instructing him, as far as drawing is +concerned, beyond insisting upon economical and neat habits with his +colours and paper, showing him the best way of holding pencil and rule, +and, so far as they take notice of his work, pointing out where a line +is too short or too long, or too crooked, when compared with the copy; +<i>accuracy</i> being the first and last thing they look for. If the child +shows talent for inventing or grouping figures, the parents should +neither check, nor praise it. They may laugh with it frankly, or show +pleasure in what it has done, just as they show pleasure in seeing it +well, or cheerful; but they must not praise it for being clever, any +more than they would praise it for being stout. They should praise it +only for what costs it self-denial, namely attention and hard work; +otherwise they will make it work for vanity's sake, and always badly. +The best books to put into its hands are those illustrated by George +Cruikshank or by Richter. (See Appendix.) At about the age of twelve or +fourteen, it is quite time enough to set youth or girl to serious work; +and then this book will, I think, be useful to them; and I have good +hope it may be so, likewise, to persons of more advanced age wishing to +know something of the first principles of art.</p> + +<p>Yet observe, that the method of study recommended is not brought forward +as absolutely the best, but only as the best which I can at present +devise for an isolated student. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_225" id="Pg_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> very likely that farther +experience in teaching may enable me to modify it with advantage in +several important respects; but I am sure the main principles of it are +sound, and most of the exercises as useful as they can be rendered +without a master's superintendence. The method differs, however, so +materially from that generally adopted by drawing-masters, that a word +or two of explanation may be needed to justify what might otherwise be +thought wilful eccentricity.</p> + +<p>The manuals at present published on the subject of drawing are all +directed, as far as I know, to one or other of two objects. Either they +propose to give the student a power of dexterous sketching with pencil +or water-colour, so as to emulate (at considerable distance) the +slighter work of our second-rate artists; or they propose to give him +such accurate command of mathematical forms as may afterwards enable him +to design rapidly and cheaply for manufactures. When drawing is taught +as an accomplishment, the first is the aim usually proposed; while the +second is the object kept chiefly in view at Marlborough House, and in +the branch Government Schools of Design.</p> + +<p>Of the fitness of the modes of study adopted in those schools, to the +end specially intended, judgment is hardly yet possible; only, it seems +to me, that we are all too much in the habit of confusing art as +<i>applied</i> to manufacture, with manufacture itself. For instance, the +skill by which an inventive workman designs and moulds a beautiful cup, +is skill of true art; but the skill by which that cup is copied and +afterwards multiplied a thousandfold, is skill of manufacture: and the +faculties which enable one workman to design and elaborate his original +piece, are not to be developed by the same system of instruction as +those which enable another to produce a maximum number of approximate +copies of it in a given time. Farther: it is surely inexpedient that any +reference to purposes of manufacture should interfere with the education +of the artist himself. Try first to manufacture a Raphael; then let +Raphael direct your manufacture. He will design you a plate, or cup, or +a house, or a palace, whenever you want it, and design them in the most +convenient and rational way; but do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_226" id="Pg_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> not let your anxiety to reach the +platter and the cup interfere with your education of the Raphael. Obtain +first the best work you can, and the ablest hands, irrespective of any +consideration of economy or facility of production. Then leave your +trained artist to determine how far art can be popularised, or +manufacture ennobled.</p> + +<p>Now, I believe that (irrespective of differences in individual temper +and character) the excellence of an artist, as such, depends wholly on +refinement of perception, and that it is this, mainly, which a master or +a school can teach; so that while powers of invention distinguish man +from man, powers of perception distinguish school from school. All great +schools enforce delicacy of drawing and subtlety of sight: and the only +rule which I have, as yet, found to be without exception respecting art, +is that all great art is delicate.</p> + +<p>Therefore, the chief aim and bent of the following system is to obtain, +first, a perfectly patient, and, to the utmost of the pupil's power, a +delicate method of work, such as may ensure his seeing truly. For I am +nearly convinced, that when once we see keenly enough, there is very +little difficulty in drawing what we see; but, even supposing that this +difficulty be still great, I believe that the sight is a more important +thing than the drawing; and I would rather teach drawing that my pupils +may learn to love Nature, than teach the looking at Nature that they may +learn to draw. It is surely also a more important thing for young people +and unprofessional students, to know how to appreciate the art of +others, than to gain much power in art themselves. Now the modes of +sketching ordinarily taught are inconsistent with this power of +judgment. No person trained to the superficial execution of modern +water-colour painting, can understand the work of Titian or Leonardo; +they must for ever remain blind to the refinement of such men's +pencilling, and the precision of their thinking. But, however slight a +degree of manipulative power the student may reach by pursuing the mode +recommended to him in these letters, I will answer for it that he cannot +go once through the advised exercises without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_227" id="Pg_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> beginning to understand +what masterly work means; and, by the time he has gained some +proficiency in them, he will have a pleasure in looking at the painting +of the great schools, and a new perception of the exquisiteness of +natural scenery, such as would repay him for much more labour than I +have asked him to undergo.</p> + +<p>That labour is, nevertheless, sufficiently irksome, nor is it possible +that it should be otherwise, so long as the pupil works unassisted by a +master. For the smooth and straight road which admits unembarrassed +progress must, I fear, be dull as well as smooth; and the hedges need to +be close and trim when there is no guide to warn or bring back the +erring traveller. The system followed in this work will, therefore, at +first, surprise somewhat sorrowfully those who are familiar with the +practice of our class at the Working Men's College; for there, the +pupil, having the master at his side to extricate him from such +embarrassments as his first efforts may lead into, is <i>at once</i> set to +draw from a solid object, and soon finds entertainment in his efforts +and interest in his difficulties. Of course the simplest object which it +is possible to set before the eye is a sphere; and practically, I find a +child's toy, a white leather ball, better than anything else; as the +gradations on balls of plaster of Paris, which I use sometimes to try +the strength of pupils who have had previous practice, are a little too +delicate for a beginner to perceive. It has been objected that a circle, +or the outline of a sphere, is one of the most difficult of all lines to +draw. It is so; but I do not want it to be drawn. All that his study of +the ball is to teach the pupil, is the way in which shade gives the +appearance of projection. This he learns most satisfactorily from a +sphere; because any solid form, terminated by straight lines or flat +surfaces, owes some of its appearance of projection to its perspective; +but in the sphere, what, without shade, was a flat circle, becomes, +merely by the added shade, the image of a solid ball; and this fact is +just as striking to the learner, whether his circular outline be true or +false. He is, therefore, never allowed to trouble himself about it; if +he makes the ball look as oval as an egg, the degree of error is simply +pointed out to him, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_228" id="Pg_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> he does better next time, and better still the +next. But his mind is always fixed on the gradation of shade, and the +outline left to take, in due time, care of itself. I call it outline, +for the sake of immediate intelligibility,—strictly speaking, it is +merely the edge of the shade; no pupil in my class being ever allowed to +draw an outline, in the ordinary sense. It is pointed out to him, from +the first, that Nature relieves one mass, or one tint, against another; +but outlines none. The outline exercise, the second suggested in this +letter, is recommended, not to enable the pupil to draw outlines, but as +the only means by which, unassisted, he can test his accuracy of eye, +and discipline his hand. When the master is by, errors in the form and +extent of shadows can be pointed out as easily as in outline, and the +handling can be gradually corrected in details of the work. But the +solitary student can only find out his own mistakes by help of the +traced limit, and can only test the firmness of his hand by an exercise +in which nothing but firmness is required; and during which all other +considerations (as of softness, complexity, &c.) are entirely excluded.</p> + +<p>Both the system adopted at the Working Men's College, and that +recommended here, agree, however, in one principle, which I consider the +most important and special of all that are involved in my teaching: +namely, the attaching its full importance, from the first, to local +colour. I believe that the endeavour to separate, in the course of +instruction, the observation of light and shade from that of local +colour, has always been, and must always be, destructive of the +student's power of accurate sight, and that it corrupts his taste as +much as it retards his progress. I will not occupy the reader's time by +any discussion of the principle here, but I wish him to note it as the +only distinctive one in my system, so far as it is a system. For the +recommendation to the pupil to copy faithfully, and without alteration, +whatever natural object he chooses to study, is serviceable, among other +reasons, just because it gets rid of systematic rules altogether, and +teaches people to draw, as country lads learn to ride, without saddle or +stirrups; my main object being, at first, not to get my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_229" id="Pg_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> pupils to hold +their reins prettily, but to "sit like a jackanapes, never off."</p> + +<p>In these written instructions, therefore, it has always been with regret +that I have seen myself forced to advise anything like monotonous or +formal discipline. But, to the unassisted student, such formalities are +indispensable, and I am not without hope that the sense of secure +advancement, and the pleasure of independent effort, may render the +following out of even the more tedious exercises here proposed, possible +to the solitary learner, without weariness. But if it should be +otherwise, and he finds the first steps painfully irksome, I can only +desire him to consider whether the acquirement of so great a power as +that of pictorial expression of thought be not worth some toil; or +whether it is likely, in the natural order of matters in this working +world, that so great a gift should be attainable by those who will give +no price for it.</p> + +<p>One task, however, of some difficulty, the student will find I have not +imposed upon him: namely, learning the laws of perspective. It would be +worth while to learn them, if he could do so easily; but without a +master's help, and in the way perspective is at present explained in +treatises, the difficulty is greater than the gain. For perspective is +not of the slightest use, except in rudimentary work. You can draw the +rounding line of a table in perspective, but you cannot draw the sweep +of a sea bay; you can foreshorten a log of wood by it, but you cannot +foreshorten an arm. Its laws are too gross and few to be applied to any +subtle form; therefore, as you must learn to draw the subtle forms by +the eye, certainly you may draw the simple ones. No great painters ever +trouble themselves about perspective, and very few of them know its +laws; they draw everything by the eye, and, naturally enough, disdain in +the easy parts of their work rules which cannot help them in difficult +ones. It would take about a month's labour to draw imperfectly, by laws +of perspective, what any great Venetian will draw perfectly in five +minutes, when he is throwing a wreath of leaves round a head, or bending +the curves of a pattern in and out among the folds of drapery. It is +true that when perspective was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_230" id="Pg_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> first discovered, everybody amused +themselves with it; and all the great painters put fine saloons and +arcades behind their madonnas, merely to show that they could draw in +perspective: but even this was generally done by them only to catch the +public eye, and they disdained the perspective so much, that though they +took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of a +crystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist their +capitals of columns and towers of churches about in the background in +the most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided only +they left just perspective enough to please the public. In modern days, +I doubt if any artist among us, except David Roberts, knows so much +perspective as would enable him to draw a Gothic arch to scale, at a +given angle and distance. Turner, though he was professor of perspective +to the Royal Academy, did not know what he professed, and never, as far +as I remember, drew a single building in true perspective in his life; +he drew them only with as much perspective as suited him. Prout also +knew nothing of perspective, and twisted his buildings, as Turner did, +into whatever shapes he liked. I do not justify this; and would +recommend the student at least to treat perspective with common +civility, but to pay no court to it. The best way he can learn it, by +himself, is by taking a pane of glass, fixed in a frame, so that it can +be set upright before the eye, at the distance at which the proposed +sketch is intended to be seen. Let the eye be placed at some fixed +point, opposite the middle of the pane of glass, but as high or as low +as the student likes; then with a brush at the end of a stick, and a +little body-colour that will adhere to the glass, the lines of the +landscape may be traced on the glass, as you see them through it. When +so traced they are all in true perspective. If the glass be sloped in +any direction, the lines are still in true perspective, only it is +perspective calculated for a sloping plane, while common perspective +always supposes the plane of the picture to be vertical. It is good, in +early practice, to accustom yourself to enclose your subject, before +sketching it, with a light frame of wood held upright before you; it +will show you what you may legitimately take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_231" id="Pg_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> into your picture, and +what choice there is between a narrow foreground near you, and a wide +one farther off; also, what height of tree or building you can properly +take in, &c.<a name="FNanchor_198_198" id="FNanchor_198_198"></a><a href="#Footnote_198_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a></p> + +<p>Of figure drawing, nothing is said in the following pages, because I do +not think figures, as chief subjects, can be drawn to any good purpose +by an amateur. As accessaries in landscape, they are just to be drawn on +the same principles as anything else.</p> + +<p>Lastly: If any of the directions given subsequently to the student +should be found obscure by him, or if at any stage of the recommended +practice he finds himself in difficulties which I have not provided +enough against, he may apply by letter to Mr. Ward, who is my under +drawing-master at the Working Men's College (45 Great Ormond Street), +and who will give any required assistance, on the lowest terms that can +remunerate him for the occupation of his time. I have not leisure myself +in general to answer letters of inquiry, however much I may desire to do +so; but Mr. Ward has always the power of referring any question to me +when he thinks it necessary. I have good hope, however, that enough +guidance is given in this work to prevent the occurrence of any serious +embarrassment; and I believe that the student who obeys its directions +will find, on the whole, that the best answer of questions is +perseverance; and the best drawing-masters are the woods and hills.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_198_198" id="Footnote_198_198"></a><a href="#FNanchor_198_198"><span class="label">[198]</span></a> If the student is fond of architecture, and wishes to +know more of perspective than he can learn in this rough way, Mr. +Runciman (of 40 Accacia Road, St. John's Wood), who was my first +drawing-master, and to whom I owe many happy hours, can teach it him +quickly, easily, and rightly.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_232" id="Pg_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE</h2> + +<h2>ELEMENTS OF DRAWING.</h2> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_233" id="Pg_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> +<h2>LETTER I.</h2> + +<h3>ON FIRST PRACTICE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Reader</span>:</p> + +<p>Whether this book is to be of use to you or not, depends wholly on your +reason for wishing to learn to draw. If you desire only to possess a +graceful accomplishment, to be able to converse in a fluent manner about +drawing, or to amuse yourself listlessly in listless hours, I cannot +help you: but if you wish to learn drawing that you may be able to set +down clearly, and usefully, records of such things as cannot be +described in words, either to assist your own memory of them, or to +convey distinct ideas of them to other people; if you wish to obtain +quicker perceptions of the beauty of the natural world, and to preserve +something like a true image of beautiful things that pass away, or which +you must yourself leave; if, also, you wish to understand the minds of +great painters, and to be able to appreciate their work sincerely, +seeing it for yourself, and loving it, not merely taking up the thoughts +of other people about it; then I <i>can</i> help you, or, which is better, +show you how to help yourself.</p> + +<p>Only you must understand, first of all, that these powers which indeed +are noble and desirable, cannot be got without work. It is much easier +to learn to draw well, than it is to learn to play well on any musical +instrument; but you know that it takes three or four years of practice, +giving three or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_234" id="Pg_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> four hours a day, to acquire even ordinary command over +the keys of a piano; and you must not think that a masterly command of +your pencil, and the knowledge of what may be done with it, can be +acquired without painstaking, or in a very short time. The kind of +drawing which is taught, or supposed to be taught, in our schools, in a +term or two, perhaps at the rate of an hour's practice a week, is not +drawing at all. It is only the performance of a few dexterous (not +always even that) evolutions on paper with a black-lead pencil; +profitless alike to performer and beholder, unless as a matter of +vanity, and that the smallest possible vanity. If any young person, +after being taught what is, in polite circles, called "drawing," will +try to copy the commonest piece of real <i>work</i>—suppose a lithograph on +the title-page of a new opera air, or a woodcut in the cheapest +illustrated newspaper of the day—they will find themselves entirely +beaten. And yet that common lithograph was drawn with coarse chalk, much +more difficult to manage than the pencil of which an accomplished young +lady is supposed to have command; and that woodcut was drawn in urgent +haste, and half spoiled in the cutting afterwards; and both were done by +people whom nobody thinks of as artists, or praises for their power; +both were done for daily bread, with no more artist's pride than any +simple handicraftsmen feel in the work they live by.</p> + +<p>Do not, therefore, think that you can learn drawing, any more than a new +language, without some hard and disagreeable labour. But do not, on the +other hand, if you are ready and willing to pay this price, fear that +you may be unable to get on for want of special talent. It is indeed +true that the persons who have peculiar talent for art, draw +instinctively and get on almost without teaching; though never without +toil. It is true, also, that of inferior talent for drawing there are +many degrees; it will take one person a much longer time than another to +attain the same results, and the results thus painfully attained are +never quite so satisfactory as those got with greater ease when the +faculties are naturally adapted to the study. But I have never yet, in +the experiments I have made, met with a person who could not learn to +draw at all;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_235" id="Pg_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> and, in general, there is a satisfactory and available +power in every one to learn drawing if he wishes, just as nearly all +persons have the power of learning French, Latin, or arithmetic, in a +decent and useful degree, if their lot in life requires them to possess +such knowledge.</p> + +<p>Supposing then that you are ready to take a certain amount of pains, and +to bear a little irksomeness and a few disappointments bravely, I can +promise you that an hour's practice a day for six months, or an hour's +practice every other day for twelve months, or, disposed in whatever way +you find convenient, some hundred and fifty hours' practice, will give +you sufficient power of drawing faithfully whatever you want to draw, +and a good judgment, up to a certain point, of other people's work: of +which hours, if you have one to spare at present, we may as well begin +at once.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE I.</h4> + +<p>Everything that you can see, in the world around you, presents itself to +your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colours +variously shaded.<a name="FNanchor_199_199" id="FNanchor_199_199"></a><a href="#Footnote_199_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> Some of these patches of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_236" id="Pg_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> colour have an +appearance of lines or texture within them, as a piece of cloth or silk +has of threads, or an animal's skin shows texture of hairs; but whether +this be the case or not, the first broad aspect of the thing is that of +a patch of some definite colour; and the first thing to be learned is, +how to produce extents of smooth colour, without texture.</p> + +<p>This can only be done properly with a brush; but a brush, being soft at +the point, causes so much uncertainty in the touch of an unpractised +hand, that it is hardly possible to learn to draw first with it, and it +is better to take, in early practice, some instrument with a hard and +fine point, both that we may give some support to the hand, and that by +working over the subject with so delicate a point, the attention may be +properly directed to all the most minute parts of it. Even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_237" id="Pg_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> the best +artists need occasionally to study subjects with a pointed instrument, +in order thus to discipline their attention: and a beginner must be +content to do so for a considerable period.</p> + +<p>Also, observe that before we trouble ourselves about differences of +colour, we must be able to lay on <i>one</i> colour properly, in whatever +gradations of depth and whatever shapes we want. We will try, therefore, +first to lay on tints or patches of <i>grey</i>, of whatever depth we want, +with a pointed instrument. Take any finely-pointed steel pen (one of +Gillott's lithographic crow-quills is best), and a piece of quite +smooth, but not shining, note-paper, cream-laid, and get some ink that +has stood already some time in the inkstand, so as to be quite black, +and as thick as it can be without clogging the pen. Take a rule, and +draw four straight lines, so as to enclose a square or nearly a square, +about as large as <i>a</i>, Fig. 1. I say nearly a square, because it does +not in the least matter whether it is quite square or not, the object +being merely to get a space enclosed by straight lines.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/746.jpg" width="448" height="149" alt="Fig. 1." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 1.</span> +</div> + +<p>Now, try to fill in that square space with crossed lines, so completely +and evenly that it shall look like a square patch of grey silk or cloth, +cut out and laid on the white paper, as at <i>b</i>. Cover it quickly, first +with straightish lines, in any direction you like, not troubling +yourself to draw them much closer or neater than those in the square +<i>a</i>. Let them quite dry before retouching them. (If you draw three or +four squares side by side, you may always be going on with one while the +others are drying). Then cover these lines with others in a different +direction, and let those dry; then in another direction still, and let +those dry. Always wait long enough to run no risk of blotting, and then +draw the lines as quickly as you can.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_238" id="Pg_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Each ought to be laid on as +swiftly as the dash of the pen of a good writer; but if you try to reach +this great speed at first you will go over the edge of the square, which +is a fault in this exercise. Yet it is better to do so now and then than +to draw the lines very slowly; for if you do, the pen leaves a little +dot of ink at the end of each line, and these dots spoil your work. So +draw each line quickly, stopping always as nearly as you can at the edge +of the square. The ends of lines which go over the edge are afterwards +to be removed with the penknife, but not till you have done the whole +work, otherwise you roughen the paper, and the next line that goes over +the edge makes a blot.</p> + +<p>When you have gone over the whole three or four times, you will find +some parts of the square look darker than other parts. Now try to make +the lighter parts as dark as the rest, so that the whole may be of equal +depth or darkness. You will find, on examining the work, that where it +looks darkest the lines are closest, or there are some much darker +lines, than elsewhere; therefore you must put in other lines, or little +scratches and dots, <i>between</i> the lines in the paler parts; and where +there are very conspicuous dark lines, scratch them out lightly with the +penknife, for the eye must not be attracted by any line in particular. +The more carefully and delicately you fill in the little gaps and holes +the better; you will get on faster by doing two or three squares +perfectly than a great many badly. As the tint gets closer and begins to +look even, work with very little ink in your pen, so as hardly to make +any mark on the paper; and at last, where it is too dark, use the edge +of your penknife very lightly, and for some time, to wear it softly into +an even tone. You will find that the greatest difficulty consists in +getting evenness: one bit will always look darker than another bit of +your square; or there will be a granulated and sandy look over the +whole. When you find your paper quite rough and in a mess, give it up +and begin another square, but do not rest satisfied till you have done +your best with every square. The tint at last ought <i>at least</i> to be as +close and even as that in <i>b</i>, Fig. 1. You will find, however, that it +is very difficult to get a <i>pale</i> tint; because,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_239" id="Pg_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> naturally, the ink +lines necessary to produce a close tint at all, blacken the paper more +than you want. You must get over this difficulty not so much by leaving +the lines wide apart as by trying to draw them excessively fine, lightly +and swiftly; being very cautious in filling in; and, at last, passing +the penknife over the whole. By keeping several squares in progress at +one time, and reserving your pen for the light one just when the ink is +nearly exhausted, you may get on better. The paper ought, at last, to +look lightly and evenly toned all over, with no lines distinctly +visible.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE II.</h4> + +<p>As this exercise in shading is very tiresome, it will be well to vary it +by proceeding with another at the same time. The power of shading +rightly depends mainly on <i>lightness</i> of hand and <i>keenness</i> of sight; +but there are other qualities required in drawing, dependent not merely +on lightness, but steadiness of hand; and the eye, to be perfect in its +power, must be made <i>accurate</i> as well as keen, and not only see +shrewdly, but measure justly.</p> + +<p>Possess yourself, therefore, of any cheap work on botany containing +<i>outline</i> plates of leaves and flowers, it does not matter whether bad +or good: "Baxter's British Flowering Plants" is quite good enough. Copy +any of the simplest outlines, first with a soft pencil, following it, by +the eye, as nearly as you can; if it does not look right in proportions, +rub out and correct it, always by the eye, till you think it is right: +when you have got it to your mind, lay tracing-paper on the book, on +this paper trace the outline you have been copying, and apply it to your +own; and having thus ascertained the faults, correct them all patiently, +till you have got it as nearly accurate as may be. Work with a very soft +pencil, and do not rub out so hard<a name="FNanchor_200_200" id="FNanchor_200_200"></a><a href="#Footnote_200_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a> as to spoil the surface of your +paper; never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_240" id="Pg_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> mind how <i>dirty</i> the paper gets, but do not roughen it; +and let the false outlines alone where they do not really interfere with +the true one. It is a good thing to accustom yourself to hew and shape +your drawing out of a dirty piece of paper. When you have got it as +right as you can, take a quill pen, not very fine at the point; rest +your hand on a book about an inch and a half thick, so as to hold the +pen long; and go over your pencil outline with ink, raising your pen +point as seldom as possible, and never leaning more heavily on one part +of the line than on another. In most outline drawings of the present +day, parts of the curves are thickened to give an effect of shade; all +such outlines are bad, but they will serve well enough for your +exercises, provided you do not imitate this character: it is better, +however, if you can, to choose a book of pure outlines. It does not in +the least matter whether your pen outline be thin or thick; but it +matters greatly that it should be <i>equal</i>, not heavier in one place than +in another. The power to be obtained is that of drawing an even line +slowly and in any direction; all <i>dashing</i> lines, or approximations to +penmanship, are bad. The pen should, as it were, walk slowly over the +ground, and you should be able at any moment to stop it, or to turn it +in any other direction, like a well-managed horse.</p> + +<p>As soon as you can copy every curve <i>slowly</i> and accurately, you have +made satisfactory progress; but you will find the difficulty is in the +<i>slowness</i>. It is easy to draw what appears to be a good line with a +sweep of the hand, or with what is called freedom;<a name="FNanchor_201_201" id="FNanchor_201_201"></a><a href="#Footnote_201_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> the real +difficulty and masterliness is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_241" id="Pg_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> never letting the hand <i>be</i> free, but +keeping it under entire control at every part of the line.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE III.</h4> + +<p>Meantime, you are always to be going on with your shaded squares, and +chiefly with these, the outline exercises being taken up only for rest.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;"> +<img src="images/750.jpg" width="425" height="33" alt="Fig. 2." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 2.</span> +</div> + +<p>As soon as you find you have some command of the pen as a shading +instrument, and can lay a pale or dark tint as you choose, try to +produce gradated spaces like Fig. 2., the dark tint passing gradually +into the lighter ones. Nearly <i>all</i> expression of form, in drawing, +depends on your power of gradating delicately; and the gradation is +always most skilful which passes from one tint into another <i>very +little</i> paler. Draw, therefore, two parallel lines for limits to your +work, as in Fig. 2., and try to gradate the shade evenly from white to +black, passing over the greatest possible distance, yet so that every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_242" id="Pg_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +part of the band may have visible change in it. The perception of +gradation is very deficient in all beginners (not to say, in many +artists), and you will probably, for some time, think your gradation +skilful enough when it is quite patchy and imperfect. By getting a piece +of grey shaded riband, and comparing it with your drawing, you may +arrive, in early stages of your work, at a wholesome dissatisfaction +with it. Widen your band little by little as you get more skilful, so as +to give the gradation more lateral space, and accustom yourself at the +same time to look for gradated spaces in Nature. The sky is the largest +and the most beautiful; watch it at twilight, after the sun is down, and +try to consider each pane of glass in the window you look through as a +piece of paper coloured blue, or grey, or purple, as it happens to be, +and observe how quietly and continuously the gradation extends over the +space in the window, of one or two feet square. Observe the shades on +the outside and inside of a common white cup or bowl, which make it look +round and hollow;<a name="FNanchor_202_202" id="FNanchor_202_202"></a><a href="#Footnote_202_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> and then on folds of white drapery; and thus +gradually you will be led to observe the more subtle transitions of the +light as it increases or declines on flat surfaces. At last, when your +eye gets keen and true, you will see gradation on everything in Nature.</p> + +<p>But it will not be in your power yet awhile to draw from any objects in +which the gradations are varied and complicated; nor will it be a bad +omen for your future progress, and for the use that art is to be made of +by you, if the first thing at which you aim should be a little bit of +sky. So take any narrow space of evening sky, that you can usually see, +between the boughs of a tree, or between two chimneys, or through the +corner of a pane in the window you like best to sit at, and try to +gradate a little space of white paper as evenly as that is gradated—as +<i>tenderly</i> you cannot gradate it without colour, no, nor with colour +either; but you may do it as evenly; or, if you get impatient with your +spots and lines of ink, when you look at the beauty of the sky, the +sense you will have gained of that beauty is something to be thankful +for. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_243" id="Pg_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> you ought not to be impatient with your pen and ink; for all +great painters, however delicate their perception of colour, are fond of +the peculiar effect of light which may be got in a pen-and-ink sketch, +and in a woodcut, by the gleaming of the white paper between the black +lines; and if you cannot gradate well with pure black lines, you will +never gradate well with pale ones. By looking at any common woodcuts, in +the cheap publications of the day, you may see how gradation is given to +the sky by leaving the lines farther and farther apart; but you must +make your lines as <i>fine</i> as you can, as well as far apart, towards the +light; and do not try to make them long or straight, but let them cross +irregularly in any direction easy to your hand, depending on nothing but +their gradation for your effect. On this point of direction of lines, +however, I shall have to tell you more presently; in the meantime, do +not trouble yourself about it.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE IV.</h4> + +<p>As soon as you find you can gradate tolerably with the pen, take an H. +or HH. pencil, using its point to produce shade, from the darkest +possible to the palest, in exactly the same manner as the pen, +lightening, however, now with India-rubber instead of the penknife. You +will find that all <i>pale</i> tints of shade are thus easily producible with +great precision and tenderness, but that you cannot get the same dark +power as with the pen and ink, and that the surface of the shade is apt +to become glossy and metallic, or dirty-looking, or sandy. Persevere, +however, in trying to bring it to evenness with the fine point, removing +any single speck or line that may be too black, with the <i>point</i> of the +knife: you must not scratch the whole with the knife as you do the ink. +If you find the texture very speckled-looking, lighten it all over with +India-rubber, and recover it again with sharp, and excessively fine +touches of the pencil point, bringing the parts that are too pale to +perfect evenness with the darker spots.</p> + +<p>You cannot use the point too delicately or cunningly in doing this; work +with it as if you were drawing the down on a butterfly's wing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_244" id="Pg_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>At this stage of your progress, if not before, you may be assured that +some clever friend will come in, and hold up his hands in mocking +amazement, and ask you who could set you to that "niggling;" and if you +persevere in it, you will have to sustain considerable persecution from +your artistical acquaintances generally, who will tell you that all good +drawing depends on "boldness." But never mind them. You do not hear them +tell a child, beginning music, to lay its little hand with a crash among +the keys, in imitation of the great masters; yet they might, as +reasonably as they may tell you to be bold in the present state of your +knowledge. Bold, in the sense of being undaunted, yes; but bold in the +sense of being careless, confident, or exhibitory,—no,—no, and a +thousand times no; for, even if you were not a beginner, it would be bad +advice that made you bold. Mischief may easily be done quickly, but good +and beautiful work is generally done slowly; you will find no boldness +in the way a flower or a bird's wing is painted; and if Nature is not +bold at <i>her</i> work, do you think you ought to be at <i>yours</i>? So never +mind what people say, but work with your pencil point very patiently; +and if you can trust me in anything, trust me when I tell you, that +though there are all kinds and ways of art,—large work for large +places, small work for narrow places, slow work for people who can wait, +and quick work for people who cannot,—there is one quality, and, I +think, only one, in which all great and good art agrees;—it is all +<i>delicate</i> art. Coarse art is always bad art. You cannot understand this +at present, because you do not know yet how much tender thought, and +subtle care, the great painters put into touches that at first look +coarse; but, believe me, it is true, and you will find it is so in due +time.</p> + +<p>You will be perhaps also troubled, in these first essays at pencil +drawing, by noticing that more delicate gradations are got in an instant +by a chance touch of the India-rubber, than by an hour's labour with the +point; and you may wonder why I tell you to produce tints so painfully, +which might, it appears, be obtained with ease. But there are two +reasons: the first, that when you come to draw forms, you must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_245" id="Pg_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> able +to gradate with absolute precision, in whatever place and direction you +wish; not in any wise vaguely, as the India-rubber does it; and, +secondly, that all natural shadows are more or less mingled with gleams +of light. In the darkness of ground there is the light of the little +pebbles or dust; in the darkness of foliage, the glitter of the leaves; +in the darkness of flesh, transparency; in that of a stone, granulation: +in every case there is some mingling of light, which cannot be +represented by the leaden tone which you get by rubbing, or by an +instrument known to artists as the "stump." When you can manage the +point properly, you will indeed be able to do much also with this +instrument, or with your fingers; but then you will have to retouch the +flat tints afterwards, so as to put life and light into them, and that +can only be done with the point. Labour on, therefore, courageously, +with that only.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE V.</h4> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/754.jpg" width="448" height="235" alt="Fig. 3." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 3.</span> +</div> + +<p>When you can manage to tint and gradate tenderly with the pencil point, +get a good large alphabet, and try to <i>tint</i> the letters into shape with +the pencil point. Do not outline them first, but measure their height +and extreme breadth with the compasses, as <i>a b</i>, <i>a c</i>, Fig. 3., and +then scratch in their shapes gradually; the letter A, enclosed within +the lines, being in what Turner would have called a "state of +forwardness."</p> + +<p>Then, when you are satisfied with the shape of the letter, draw pen and +ink lines firmly round the tint, as at <i>d</i>, and remove<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_246" id="Pg_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> any touches +outside the limit, first with the India-rubber, and then with the +penknife, so that all may look clear and right. If you rub out any of +the pencil inside the outline of the letter, retouch it, closing it up +to the inked line. The straight lines of the outline are all to be +<i>ruled</i>,<a name="FNanchor_203_203" id="FNanchor_203_203"></a><a href="#Footnote_203_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> but the curved lines are to be drawn by the eye and hand; +and you will soon find what good practice there is in getting the curved +letters, such as Bs, Cs, &c., to stand quite straight, and come into +accurate form.</p> + +<p>All these exercises are very irksome, and they are not to be persisted +in alone; neither is it necessary to acquire perfect power in any of +them. An entire master of the pencil or brush ought, indeed, to be able +to draw any form at once, as Giotto his circle; but such skill as this +is only to be expected of the consummate master, having pencil in hand +all his life, and all day long, hence the force of Giotto's proof of his +skill; and it is quite possible to draw very beautifully, without +attaining even an approximation to such a power; the main point being, +not that every line should be precisely what we intend or wish, but that +the line which we intended or wished to draw should be right. If we +always see rightly and mean rightly, we shall get on, though the hand +may stagger a little; but if we mean wrongly, or mean nothing, it does +not matter how firm the hand is. Do not, therefore, torment yourself +because you cannot do as well as you would like; but work patiently, +sure that every square and letter will give you a certain increase of +power; and as soon as you can draw your letters pretty well, here is a +more amusing exercise for you.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_247" id="Pg_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<h4>EXERCISE VI.</h4> + +<p>Choose any tree that you think pretty, which is nearly bare of leaves, +and which you can see against the sky, or against a pale wall, or other +light ground: it must not be against strong light, or you will find the +looking at it hurts your eyes; nor must it be in sunshine, or you will +be puzzled by the lights on the boughs. But the tree must be in shade; +and the sky blue, or grey, or dull white. A wholly grey or rainy day is +the best for this practice.</p> + +<p>You will see that <i>all</i> the boughs of the tree are <i>dark</i> against the +sky. Consider them as so many dark rivers, to be laid down in a map with +absolute accuracy; and, without the least thought about the <i>roundness</i> +of the stems, map them all out in flat shade, scrawling them in with +pencil, just as you did the limbs of your letters; then correct and +alter them, rubbing out and out again, never minding how much your paper +is dirtied (only not destroying its surface), until every bough is +exactly, or as near as your utmost power can bring it, right in +curvature and in thickness. Look at the white interstices between them +with as much scrupulousness as if they were little estates which you had +to survey, and draw maps of, for some important lawsuit, involving heavy +penalties if you cut the least bit of a corner off any of them, or gave +the hedge anywhere too deep a curve; and try continually to fancy the +whole tree nothing but a flat ramification on a white ground. Do not +take any trouble about the little twigs, which look like a confused +network or mist; leave them all out,<a name="FNanchor_204_204" id="FNanchor_204_204"></a><a href="#Footnote_204_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> drawing only the main branches +as far as you can see them distinctly, your object at present being not +to draw a tree, but to <i>learn how</i> to do so. When you have got the thing +as nearly right as you can—and it is better to make one good study than +twenty left unnecessarily inaccurate—take your pen, and put a fine +outline to all the boughs, as you did to your letter, taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_248" id="Pg_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> care, as +far as possible, to put the outline within the edge of the shade, so as +not to make the boughs thicker: the main use of the outline is to +<i>affirm</i> the whole more clearly; to do away with little accidental +roughnesses and excrescences, and especially to mark where boughs cross, +or come in front of each other, as at such points their arrangement in +this kind of sketch is unintelligible without the outline. It may +perfectly well happen that in Nature it should be less distinct than +your outline will make it; but it is better in this kind of sketch to +mark the facts clearly. The temptation is always to be slovenly and +careless, and the outline is like a bridle, and forces our indolence +into attention and precision. The outline should be about the thickness +of that in Fig. 4, which represents the ramification of a small stone +pine, only I have not endeavoured to represent the pencil shading within +the outline, as I could not easily express it in a woodcut; and you have +nothing to do at present with the indication of the foliage above, of +which in another place. You may also draw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_249" id="Pg_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> your trees as much larger +than this figure as you like; only, however large they may be, keep the +outline as delicate, and draw the branches far enough into their outer +sprays to give quite as slender ramification as you have in this figure, +otherwise you do not get good enough practice out of them.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;"> +<img src="images/757.jpg" width="336" height="353" alt="Fig. 4." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 4.</span> +</div> + +<p>You cannot do too many studies of this kind: every one will give you +some new notion about trees: but when you are tired of tree boughs, take +any forms whatever which are drawn in flat colour, one upon another; as +patterns on any kind of cloth, or flat china (tiles, for instance), +executed in two colours only; and practice drawing them of the right +shape and size by the eye, and filling them in with shade of the depth +required.</p> + +<p>In doing this, you will first have to meet the difficulty of +representing depth of colour by depth of shade. Thus a pattern of +ultramarine blue will have to be represented by a darker tint of grey +than a pattern of yellow.</p> + +<p>And now it is both time for you to begin to learn the mechanical use of +the brush, and necessary for you to do so in order to provide yourself +with the gradated scale of colour which you will want. If you can, by +any means, get acquainted with any ordinarily skilful water-colour +painter, and prevail on him to show you how to lay on tints with a +brush, by all means do so; not that you are yet, nor for a long while +yet, to begin to colour, but because the brush is often more convenient +than the pencil for laying on masses or tints of shade, and the sooner +you know how to manage it as an instrument the better. If, however, you +have no opportunity of seeing how water-colour is laid on by a workman +of any kind, the following directions will help you:—</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE VII.</h4> + +<p>Get a shilling cake of Prussian blue. Dip the end of it in water so as +to take up a drop, and rub it in a white saucer till you cannot rub much +more, and the colour gets dark, thick, and oily-looking. Put two +teaspoonfuls of water to the colour you have rubbed down, and mix it +well up with a camel's-hair brush about three quarters of an inch long.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_250" id="Pg_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then take a piece of smooth, but not glossy, Bristol board or +pasteboard; divide it, with your pencil and rule, into squares as large +as those of the very largest chess-board: they need not be perfect +squares, only as nearly so as you can quickly guess. Rest the pasteboard +on something sloping as much as an ordinary desk; then, dipping your +brush into the colour you have mixed, and taking up as much of the +liquid as it will carry, begin at the top of one of the squares, and lay +a pond or runlet of colour along the top edge. Lead this pond of colour +gradually downwards, not faster at one place than another, but as if you +were adding a row of bricks to a building, all along (only building down +instead of up), dipping the brush frequently so as to keep the colour as +full in that, and in as great quantity on the paper, as you can, so only +that it does not run down anywhere in a little stream. But if it should, +never mind; go on quietly with your square till you have covered it all +in. When you get to the bottom, the colour will lodge there in a great +wave. Have ready a piece of blotting-paper; dry your brush on it, and +with the dry brush take up the superfluous colour as you would with a +sponge, till it all looks even.</p> + +<p>In leading the colour down, you will find your brush continually go over +the edge of the square, or leave little gaps within it. Do not endeavour +to retouch these, nor take much care about them; the great thing is to +get the colour to lie smoothly where it reaches, not in alternate blots +and pale patches; try, therefore, to lead it over the square as fast as +possible, with such attention to your limit as you are able to give. The +use of the exercise is, indeed, to enable you finally to strike the +colour up to the limit with perfect accuracy; but the first thing is to +get it even, the power of rightly striking the edge comes only by time +and practice; even the greatest artists rarely can do this quite +perfectly.</p> + +<p>When you have done one square, proceed to do another which does not +communicate with it. When you have thus done all the alternate squares, +as on a chess-board, turn the pasteboard upside down, begin again with +the first, and put another coat over it, and so on over all the others. +The use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_251" id="Pg_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> of turning the paper upside down is to neutralise the increase +of darkness towards the bottom of the squares, which would otherwise +take place from the ponding of the colour.</p> + +<p>Be resolved to use blotting-paper, or a piece of rag, instead of your +lips, to dry the brush. The habit of doing so, once acquired, will save +you from much partial poisoning. Take care, however, always to draw the +brush from root to point, otherwise you will spoil it. You may even wipe +it as you would a pen when you want it very dry, without doing harm, +provided you do not crush it upwards. Get a good brush at first, and +cherish it; it will serve you longer and better than many bad ones.</p> + +<p>When you have done the squares all over again, do them a third time, +always trying to keep your edges as neat as possible. When your colour +is exhausted, mix more in the same proportions, two teaspoonfuls to as +much as you can grind with a drop; and when you have done the alternate +squares three times over, as the paper will be getting very damp, and +dry more slowly, begin on the white squares, and bring them up to the +same tint in the same way. The amount of jagged dark line which then +will mark the limits of the squares will be the exact measure of your +unskilfulness.</p> + +<p>As soon as you tire of squares draw circles (with compasses); and then +draw straight lines irregularly across circles, and fill up the spaces +so produced between the straight line and the circumference; and then +draw any simple shapes of leaves, according to the exercise No. 2., and +fill up those, until you can lay on colour quite evenly in any shape you +want.</p> + +<p>You will find in the course of this practice, as you cannot always put +exactly the same quantity of water to the colour, that the darker the +colour is, the more difficult it becomes to lay it on evenly. Therefore, +when you have gained some definite degree of power, try to fill in the +forms required with a full brush, and a dark tint, at once, instead of +laying several coats one over another; always taking care that the tint, +however dark, be quite liquid; and that, after being laid on, so much of +it is absorbed as to prevent its forming a black line<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_252" id="Pg_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> at the edge as it +dries. A little experience will teach you how apt the colour is to do +this, and how to prevent it; not that it needs always to be prevented, +for a great master in water-colours will sometimes draw a firm outline, +when he <i>wants</i> one, simply by letting the colour dry in this way at the +edge.</p> + +<p>When, however, you begin to cover complicated forms with the darker +colour, no rapidity will prevent the tint from drying irregularly as it +is led on from part to part. You will then find the following method +useful. Lay in the colour very pale and liquid; so pale, indeed, that +you can only just see where it is on the paper. Lead it up to all the +outlines, and make it precise in form, keeping it thoroughly wet +everywhere. Then, when it is all in shape, take the darker colour, and +lay some of it <i>into</i> the middle of the liquid colour. It will spread +gradually in a branchy kind of way, and you may now lead it up to the +outlines already determined, and play it with the brush till it fills +its place well; then let it dry, and it will be as flat and pure as a +single dash, yet defining all the complicated forms accurately.</p> + +<p>Having thus obtained the power of laying on a tolerably flat tint, you +must try to lay on a gradated one. Prepare the colour with three or four +teaspoonfuls of water; then, when it is mixed, pour away about +two-thirds of it, keeping a teaspoonful of pale colour. Sloping your +paper as before, draw two pencil lines all the way down, leaving a space +between them of the width of a square on your chess-board. Begin at the +top of your paper, between the lines; and having struck on the first +brushful of colour, and led it down a little, dip your brush deep in +water, and mix up the colour on the plate quickly with as much more +water as the brush takes up at that one dip: then, with this paler +colour, lead the tint farther down. Dip in water again, mix the colour +again, and thus lead down the tint, always dipping in water once between +each replenishing of the brush, and stirring the colour on the plate +well, but as quickly as you can. Go on until the colour has become so +pale that you cannot see it; then wash your brush thoroughly in water, +and carry the wave down a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_253" id="Pg_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> farther with that, and then absorb it +with the dry brush, and leave it to dry.</p> + +<p>If you get to the bottom of your paper before your colour gets pale, you +may either take longer paper, or begin, with the tint as it was when you +left off, on another sheet; but be sure to exhaust it to pure whiteness +at last. When all is quite dry, recommence at the top with another +similar mixture of colour, and go down in the same way. Then again, and +then again, and so continually until the colour at the top of the paper +is as dark as your cake of Prussian blue, and passes down into pure +white paper at the end of your column, with a perfectly smooth gradation +from one into the other.</p> + +<p>You will find at first that the paper gets mottled or wavy, instead of +evenly gradated; this is because at some places you have taken up more +water in your brush than at others, or not mixed it thoroughly on the +plate, or led one tint too far before replenishing with the next. +Practice only will enable you to do it well; the best artists cannot +always get gradations of this kind quite to their minds; nor do they +ever leave them on their pictures without after touching.</p> + +<p>As you get more power, and can strike the colour more quickly down, you +will be able to gradate in less compass;<a name="FNanchor_205_205" id="FNanchor_205_205"></a><a href="#Footnote_205_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> beginning with a small +quantity of colour, and adding a drop of water, instead of a brushful; +with finer brushes, also, you may gradate to a less scale. But slight +skill will enable you to test the relations of colour to shade as far as +is necessary for your immediate progress, which is to be done thus:—</p> + +<p>Take cakes of lake, of gamboge, of sepia, of blue-black, of cobalt, and +vermilion; and prepare gradated columns (exactly as you have done with +the Prussian blue) of the lake and blue-black.<a name="FNanchor_206_206" id="FNanchor_206_206"></a><a href="#Footnote_206_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> Cut a narrow slip +all the way down, of each gradated colour, and set the three slips side +by side; fasten them down, and rule lines at equal distances across all +the three, so as to divide them into fifty degrees, and number the +degrees<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_254" id="Pg_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> of each, from light to dark, 1, 2, 3, &c. If you have gradated +them rightly, the darkest part either of the red or blue will be nearly +equal in power to the darkest part of the blue-black, and any degree of +the black slip will also, accurately enough for our purpose, balance in +weight the degree similarly numbered in the red or the blue slip. Then, +when you are drawing from objects of a crimson or blue colour, if you +can match their colour by any compartment of the crimson or blue in your +scales, the grey in the compartment of the grey scale marked with the +same number is the grey which must represent that crimson or blue in +your light and shade drawing.</p> + +<p>Next, prepare scales with gamboge, cobalt, and vermilion. You will find +that you cannot darken these beyond a certain point;<a name="FNanchor_207_207" id="FNanchor_207_207"></a><a href="#Footnote_207_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> for yellow and +scarlet, so long as they remain yellow and scarlet, cannot approach to +black; we cannot have, properly speaking, a dark yellow or dark scarlet. +Make your scales of full yellow, blue, and scarlet, half-way down; +passing <i>then</i> gradually to white. Afterwards use lake to darken the +upper half of the vermilion and gamboge; and Prussian blue to darken the +cobalt. You will thus have three more scales, passing from white nearly +to black, through yellow and orange, through sky-blue, and through +scarlet. By mixing the gamboge and Prussian blue you may make another +with green; mixing the cobalt and lake, another with violet; the sepia +alone will make a forcible brown one; and so on, until you have as many +scales as you like, passing from black to white through different +colours. Then, supposing your scales properly gradated and equally +divided, the compartment or degree No. 1. of the grey will represent in +chiaroscuro the No. 1. of all the other colours; No. 2. of grey the No. +2. of the other colours, and so on.</p> + +<p>It is only necessary, however, in this matter that you should understand +the principle; for it would never be possible for you to gradate your +scales so truly as to make them practically accurate and serviceable; +and even if you could, unless you had about ten thousand scales, and +were able to change<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_255" id="Pg_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> them faster than ever juggler changed cards, you +could not in a day measure the tints on so much as one side of a +frost-bitten apple: but when once you fully understand the principle, +and see how all colours contain as it were a certain quantity of +darkness, or power of dark relief from white—some more, some less; and +how this pitch or power of each may be represented by equivalent values +of grey, you will soon be able to arrive shrewdly at an approximation by +a glance of the eye, without any measuring scale at all.</p> + +<p>You must now go on, again with the pen, drawing patterns, and any shapes +of shade that you think pretty, as veinings in marble, or +tortoise-shell, spots in surfaces of shells, &c., as tenderly as you +can, in the darknesses that correspond to their colours; and when you +find you can do this successfully, it is time to begin rounding.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE VIII.</h4> + +<p>Go out into your garden, or into the road, and pick up the first round +or oval stone you can find, not very white, nor very dark; and the +smoother it is the better, only it must not <i>shine</i>. Draw your table +near the window, and put the stone, which I will suppose is about the +size of <i>a</i> in Fig. 5. (it had better not be much larger), on a piece of +not very white paper, on the table in front of you. Sit so that the +light may come from your left, else the shadow of the pencil point +interferes with your sight of your work. You must not let the <i>sun</i> fall +on the stone, but only ordinary light: therefore choose a window which +the sun does not come in at. If you can shut the shutters of the other +windows in the room it will be all the better; but this is not of much +consequence.</p> + +<p>Now, if you can draw that stone, you can draw anything: I mean, anything +that is drawable. Many things (sea foam, for instance) cannot be drawn +at all, only the idea of them more or less suggested; but if you can +draw the stone <i>rightly</i>, every thing within reach of art is also within +yours.</p> + +<p>For all drawing depends, primarily, on your power of representing +<i>Roundness</i>. If you can once do that, all the rest is easy and +straightforward; if you cannot do that, nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_256" id="Pg_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> else that you may be +able to do will be of any use. For Nature is all made up of roundnesses; +not the roundness of perfect globes, but of variously curved surfaces. +Boughs are rounded, leaves are rounded, stones are rounded, clouds are +rounded, cheeks are rounded, and curls are rounded: there is no more +flatness in the natural world than there is vacancy. The world itself is +round, and so is all that is in it, more or less, except human work, +which is often very flat indeed.</p> + +<p>Therefore, set yourself steadily to conquer that round stone, and you +have won the battle.</p> + +<p>Look your stone antagonist boldly in the face. You will see that the +side of it next the window is lighter than most of the paper: that the +side of it farthest from the window is darker than the paper; and that +the light passes into the dark gradually, while a shadow is thrown to +the right <i>on</i> the paper itself by the stone: the general appearance of +things being more or less as in <i>a</i>, Fig. 5., the spots on the stone +excepted, of which more presently.</p> + +<p>Now, remember always what was stated in the outset, that every thing you +can see in Nature is seen only so far as it is lighter or darker than +the things about it, or of a different colour from them. It is either +seen as a patch of one colour on a ground of another; or as a pale thing +relieved from a dark thing, or a dark thing from a pale thing. And if +you can put on patches of colour or shade of exactly the same size, +shape, and gradations as those on the object and its ground, you will +produce the appearance of the object and its ground. The best +draughtsman—Titian and Paul Veronese themselves—could do no more than +this; and you will soon be able to get some power of doing it in an +inferior way, if you once understand the exceeding simplicity of what is +to be done. Suppose you have a brown book on a white sheet of paper, on +a red tablecloth. You have nothing to do but to put on spaces of red, +white, and brown, in the same shape, and gradated from dark to light in +the same degrees, and your drawing is done. If you will not look at what +you see, if you try to put on brighter or duller colours than are there, +if you try to put them on with a dash or a blot, or to cover<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_257" id="Pg_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> your paper +with "vigorous" lines, or to produce anything, in fact, but the plain, +unaffected, and finished tranquillity of the thing before you, you need +not hope to get on. Nature will show you nothing if you set yourself up +for her master. But forget yourself, and try to obey <i>her</i>, and you will +find obedience easier and happier than you think.</p> + +<p>The real difficulties are to get the <i>refinement</i> of the forms and the +<i>evenness</i> of the gradations. You may depend upon it, when you are +dissatisfied with your work, it is always too coarse or too uneven. It +may not be wrong—in all probability is not wrong, in any (so-called) +<i>great</i> point. But its edges are not true enough in outline; and its +shades are in blotches, or scratches, or full of white holes. Get it +more tender and more true, and you will find it is more powerful.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/766.jpg" width="448" height="180" alt="Fig. 5." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 5.</span> +</div> + +<p>Do not, therefore, think your drawing must be weak because you have a +finely pointed pen in your hand. Till you can draw with that, you can +draw with nothing; when you can draw with that, you can draw with a log +of wood charred at the end. True boldness and power are only to be +gained by care. Even in fencing and dancing, all ultimate ease depends +on early precision in the commencement; much more in singing or +drawing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_258" id="Pg_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, I do not want you to copy Fig. 5., but to copy the stone before you +in the way that Fig. 5. is done. To which end, first measure the extreme +length of the stone with compasses, and mark that length on your paper; +then, between the points marked, leave something like the form of the +stone in light, scrawling the paper all over, round it, as at <i>b</i>, Fig. +5. You cannot rightly see what the form of the stone really is till you +begin finishing, so sketch it in quite rudely; only rather leave too +<i>much</i> room for the high light, than too little: and then more +cautiously fill in the shade, shutting the light gradually up, and +putting in the dark cautiously on the dark side. You need not plague +yourself about accuracy of shape, because, till you have practised a +great deal, it is impossible for you to draw that shape quite truly, and +you must gradually gain correctness by means of these various exercises: +what you have mainly to do at present is, to get the stone to look solid +and round, not much minding what its exact contour is—only draw it as +nearly right as you can without vexation; and you will get it <i>more</i> +right by thus feeling your way to it in shade, than if you tried to draw +the outline at first. For you can <i>see</i> no outline; what you see is only +a certain space of gradated shade, with other such spaces about it; and +those pieces of shade you are to imitate as nearly as you can, by +scrawling the paper over till you get them to the right shape, with the +same gradations which they have in Nature. And this is really more +likely to be done well, if you have to fight your way through a little +confusion in the sketch, than if you have an accurately traced outline. +For instance, I was going to draw, beside <i>a</i>, another effect on the +stone; reflected light bringing its dark side out from the background: +but when I had laid on the first few touches, I thought it would be +better to stop, and let you see how I had begun it, at <i>b</i>. In which +beginning it will be observed that nothing is so determined but that I +can more or less modify, and add to or diminish the contour as I work +on, the lines which suggest the outline being blended with the others if +I do not want them; and the having to fill up the vacancies and conquer +the irregularities of such a sketch, will probably secure a higher<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_259" id="Pg_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +completion at last, than if half an hour had been spent in getting a +true outline before beginning.</p> + +<p>In doing this, however, take care not to get the drawing too dark. In +order to ascertain what the shades of it really are, cut a round hole, +about half the size of a pea, in a piece of white paper, the colour of +that you use to draw on. Hold this bit of paper, with the hole in it, +between you and your stone; and pass the paper backwards and forwards, +so as to see the different portions of the stone (or other subject) +through the hole. You will find that, thus, the circular hole looks like +one of the patches of colour you have been accustomed to match, only +changing in depth as it lets different pieces of the stone be seen +through it. You will be able thus actually to <i>match</i> the colour of the +stone, at any part of it, by tinting the paper beside the circular +opening. And you will find that this opening never looks quite <i>black</i>, +but that all the roundings of the stone are given by subdued greys.<a name="FNanchor_208_208" id="FNanchor_208_208"></a><a href="#Footnote_208_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a></p> + +<p>You will probably find, also, that some parts of the stone, or of the +paper it lies on, look luminous through the opening, so that the little +circle then tells as a light spot instead of a dark spot. When this is +so, you cannot imitate it, for you have no means of getting light +brighter than white paper: but by holding the paper more sloped towards +the light, you will find that many parts of the stone, which before +looked light through the hole, then look dark through it; and if you can +place the paper in such a position that every part of the stone looks +slightly dark, the little hole will tell always as a spot of shade, and +if your drawing is put in the same light, you can imitate or match every +gradation. You will be amazed to find, under these circumstances, how +slight the differences of tint are, by which, through infinite delicacy +of gradation, Nature can express form.</p> + +<p>If any part of your subject will obstinately show itself as a light +through the hole, that part you need not hope to imitate. Leave it +white, you can do no more.</p> + +<p>When you have done the best you can to get the general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_260" id="Pg_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> form, proceed to +finish, by imitating the texture and all the cracks and stains of the +stone as closely as you can; and note, in doing this, that cracks or +fissures of any kind, whether between stones in walls, or in the grain +of timber or rocks, or in any of the thousand other conditions they +present, are never expressible by single black lines, or lines of simple +shadow. A crack must always have its complete system of light and shade, +however small its scale. It is in reality a little <i>ravine</i>, with a dark +or shady side, and light or sunny side, and, usually, shadow in the +bottom. This is one of the instances in which it may be as well to +understand the reason of the appearance; it is not often so in drawing, +for the aspects of things are so subtle and confused that they cannot in +general be explained; and in the endeavour to explain some, we are sure +to lose sight of others, while the natural overestimate of the +importance of those on which the attention is fixed, causes us to +exaggerate them, so that merely <i>scientific</i> draughtsmen caricature a +third part of Nature, and miss two-thirds. The best scholar is he whose +eye is so keen as to see at once how the thing looks, and who need not, +therefore, trouble himself with any reasons why it looks so: but few +people have this acuteness of perception; and to those who are destitute +of it, a little pointing out of rule and reason will be a help, +especially when a master is not near them. I never allow my own pupils +to ask the reason of anything, because, as I watch their work, I can +always show them how the thing is, and what appearance they are missing +in it; but when a master is not by to direct the sight, science may, +here and there, be allowed to do so in his stead.</p> + +<p>Generally, then, every solid illumined object—for instance, the stone +you are drawing—has a light side turned towards the light, a dark side +turned away from the light, and a shadow, which is cast on something +else (as by the stone on the paper it is set upon). You may sometimes be +placed so as to see only the light side and shadow, and sometimes only +the dark side and shadow, and sometimes both, or either, without the +shadow; but in most positions solid objects will show all the three, as +the stone does here.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_261" id="Pg_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hold up your hand with the edge of it towards you, as you sit now with +your side to the window, so that the flat of your hand is turned to the +window. You will see one side of your hand distinctly lighted, the other +distinctly in shade. Here are light side and dark side, with no seen +shadow; the shadow being detached, perhaps on the table, perhaps on the +other side of the room; you need not look for it at present.</p> + +<p>Take a sheet of note-paper, and holding it edgeways, as you hold your +hand, wave it up and down past the side of your hand which is turned +from the light, the paper being, of course, farther from the window. You +will see, as it passes a strong gleam of light strike on your hand, and +light it considerably on its dark side. This light is <i>reflected</i> light. +It is thrown back from the paper (on which it strikes first in coming +from the window) to the surface of your hand, just as a ball would be if +somebody threw it through the window at the wall and you caught it at +the rebound.</p> + +<p>Next, instead of the note-paper, take a red book, or a piece of scarlet +cloth. You will see that the gleam of light falling on your hand, as you +wave the book is now reddened. Take a blue book, and you will find the +gleam is blue. Thus every object will cast some of its own colour back +in the light that it reflects.</p> + +<p>Now it is not only these books or papers that reflect light to your +hand: every object in the room, on that side of it, reflects some, but +more feebly, and the colours mixing all together form a neutral<a name="FNanchor_209_209" id="FNanchor_209_209"></a><a href="#Footnote_209_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> +light, which lets the colour of your hand itself be more distinctly seen +than that of any object which reflects light to it; but if there were no +reflected light, that side of your hand would look as black as a coal.</p> + +<p>Objects are seen, therefore in general, partly by direct light, and +partly by light reflected from the objects around them, or from the +atmosphere and clouds. The colour of their light sides depends much on +that of the direct light, and that of the dark sides on the colours of +the objects near them. It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_262" id="Pg_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> therefore impossible to say beforehand +what colour an object will have at any point of its surface, that colour +depending partly on its own tint, and partly on infinite combinations of +rays reflected from other things. The only certain fact about dark sides +is, that their colour will be changeful, and that a picture which gives +them merely darker shades of the colour of the light sides must +assuredly be bad.</p> + +<p>Now, lay your hand flat on the white paper you are drawing on. You will +see one side of each finger lighted, one side dark, and the shadow of +your hand on the paper. Here, therefore, are the three divisions of +shade seen at once. And although the paper is white, and your hand of a +rosy colour somewhat darker than white, yet you will see that the shadow +all along, just under the finger which casts it, is darker than the +flesh, and is of a very deep grey. The reason of this is, that much +light is reflected from the paper to the dark side of your finger, but +very little is reflected from other things to the paper itself in that +chink under your finger.</p> + +<p>In general, for this reason, a shadow, or, at any rate, the part of the +shadow nearest the object, is darker than the dark side of the object. I +say in general, because a thousand accidents may interfere to prevent +its being so. Take a little bit of glass, as a wine-glass, or the +ink-bottle, and play it about a little on the side of your hand farthest +from the window; you will presently find you are throwing gleams of +light all over the dark side of your hand, and in some positions of the +glass the reflection from it will annihilate the shadow altogether, and +you will see your hand dark on the white paper. Now a stupid painter +would represent, for instance, a drinking-glass beside the hand of one +of his figures, and because he had been taught by rule that "shadow was +darker than the dark side," he would never think of the reflection from +the glass, but paint a dark grey under the hand, just as if no glass +were there. But a great painter would be sure to think of the true +effect, and paint it; and then comes the stupid critic, and wonders why +the hand is so light on its dark side.</p> + +<p>Thus it is always dangerous to assert anything as a <i>rule</i> in matters of +art; yet it is useful for you to remember that, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_263" id="Pg_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> a general way, a +shadow is darker than the dark side of the thing that casts it, +supposing the colours otherwise the same; that is to say, when a white +object casts a shadow on a white surface, or a dark object on a dark +surface: the rule will not hold if the colours are different, the shadow +of a black object on a white surface being, of course, not so dark, +usually, as the black thing casting it. The only way to ascertain the +ultimate truth in such matters is to <i>look</i> for it; but, in the +meantime, you will be helped by noticing that the cracks in the stone +are little ravines, on one side of which the light strikes sharply, +while the other is in shade. This dark side usually casts a little +darker shadow at the bottom of the crack; and the general tone of the +stone surface is not so bright as the light bank of the ravine. And, +therefore, if you get the surface of the object of a uniform tint, more +or less indicative of shade, and then scratch out a white spot or streak +in it of any shape; by putting a dark touch beside this white one, you +may turn it, as you choose, into either a ridge or an incision, into +either a boss or a cavity. If you put the dark touch on the side of it +nearest the sun, or rather, nearest the place that the light comes from, +you will make it a cut or cavity; if you put it on the opposite side, +you will make it a ridge or mound: and the complete success of the +effect depends less on depth of shade than on the rightness of the +drawing; that is to say, on the evident correspondence of the form of +the shadow with the form that casts it. In drawing rocks, or wood, or +anything irregularly shaped, you will gain far more by a little patience +in following the forms carefully, though with slight touches, than by +laboured finishing of textures of surface and transparencies of shadow.</p> + +<p>When you have got the whole well into shape, proceed to lay on the +stains and spots with great care, quite as much as you gave to the +forms. Very often, spots or bars of local colour do more to express form +than even the light and shade, and they are always interesting as the +means by which Nature carries light into her shadows, and shade into her +lights, an art of which we shall have more to say hereafter, in speaking +of composition. Fig. 5. is a rough sketch of a fossil sea-urchin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_264" id="Pg_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> in +which the projections of the shell are of black flint, coming through a +chalky surface. These projections form dark spots in the light; and +their sides, rising out of the shadow, form smaller whitish spots in the +dark. You may take such scattered lights as these out with the penknife, +provided you are just as careful to place them rightly, as if you got +them by a more laborious process.</p> + +<p>When you have once got the feeling of the way in which gradation +expresses roundness and projection, you may try your strength on +anything natural or artificial that happens to take your fancy, provided +it be not too complicated in form. I have asked you to draw a stone +first, because any irregularities and failures in your shading will be +less offensive to you, as being partly characteristic of the rough stone +surface, than they would be in a more delicate subject; and you may as +well go on drawing rounded stones of different shapes for a little +while, till you find you can really shade delicately. You may then take +up folds of thick white drapery, a napkin or towel thrown carelessly on +the table is as good as anything, and try to express them in the same +way; only now you will find that your shades must be wrought with +perfect unity and tenderness, or you will lose the flow of the folds. +Always remember that a little bit perfected is worth more than many +scrawls; whenever you feel yourself inclined to scrawl, give up work +resolutely, and do not go back to it till next day. Of course your towel +or napkin must be put on something that may be locked up, so that its +folds shall not be disturbed till you have finished. If you find that +the folds will not look right, get a photograph of a piece of drapery +(there are plenty now to be bought, taken from the sculpture of the +cathedrals of Rheims, Amiens, and Chartres, which will at once educate +your hand and your taste), and copy some piece of that; you will then +ascertain what it is that is wanting in your studies from nature, +whether more gradation, or greater watchfulness of the disposition of +the folds. Probably for some time you will find yourself failing +painfully in both, for drapery is very difficult to follow in its +sweeps; but do not lose courage, for the greater the difficulty, the +greater the gain in the effort. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_265" id="Pg_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> your eye is more just in measurement +of form than delicate in perception of tint, a pattern on the folded +surface will help you. Try whether it does or not; and if the patterned +drapery confuses you, keep for a time to the simple white one; but if it +helps you, continue to choose patterned stuffs (tartans, and simple +chequered designs are better at first than flowered ones), and even +though it should confuse you, begin pretty soon to use a pattern +occasionally, copying all the distortions and perspective modifications +of it among the folds with scrupulous care.</p> + +<p>Neither must you suppose yourself condescending in doing this. The +greatest masters are always fond of drawing patterns; and the greater +they are, the more pains they take to do it truly.<a name="FNanchor_210_210" id="FNanchor_210_210"></a><a href="#Footnote_210_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> Nor can there be +better practice at any time, as introductory to the nobler complication +of natural detail. For when you can draw the spots which follow the +folds of a printed stuff, you will have some chance of following the +spots which fall into the folds of the skin of a leopard as he leaps; +but if you cannot draw the manufacture, assuredly you will never be able +to draw the creature. So the cloudings on a piece of wood, carefully +drawn, will be the best introduction to the drawing of the clouds of the +sky, or the waves of the sea; and the dead leaf-patterns on a damask +drapery, well rendered, will enable you to disentangle masterfully the +living leaf-patterns of a thorn thicket, or a violet bank.</p> + +<p>Observe, however, in drawing any stuffs, or bindings of books, or other +finely textured substances, do not trouble yourself, as yet, much about +the woolliness or gauziness of the thing; but get it right in shade and +fold, and true in pattern. We shall see, in the course of +after-practice, how the penned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_266" id="Pg_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> lines may be made indicative of texture; +but at present attend only to the light, and shade, and pattern. You +will be puzzled at first by <i>lustrous</i> surfaces, but a little attention +will show you that the expression of these depends merely on the right +drawing of their light, and shade, and reflections. Put a small black +japanned tray on the table in front of some books; and you will see it +reflects the objects beyond it as in a little black rippled pond; its +own colour mingling always with that of the reflected objects. Draw +these reflections of the books properly, making them dark and distorted, +as you will see that they are, and you will find that this gives the +lustre to your tray. It is not well, however, to draw polished objects +in general practice; only you should do one or two in order to +understand the aspect of any lustrous portion of other things, such as +you cannot avoid; the gold, for instance, on the edges of books, or the +shining of silk and damask, in which lies a great part of the expression +of their folds. Observe, also, that there are very few things which are +totally without lustre: you will frequently find a light which puzzles +you, on some apparently dull surface, to be the dim image of another +object.</p> + +<p>And now, as soon as you can conscientiously assure me that with the +point of the pen or pencil you can lay on any form and shade you like, I +give you leave to use the brush with one colour,—sepia, or blue-black, +or mixed cobalt and blue-black, or neutral tint; and this will much +facilitate your study, and refresh you. But, preliminarily, you must do +one or two more exercises in tinting.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE IX.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Prepare</span> your colour as before directed. Take a brush full of it, and +strike it on the paper in any irregular shape; as the brush gets dry +sweep the surface of the paper with it as if you were dusting the paper +very lightly; every such sweep of the brush will leave a number of more +or less minute interstices in the colour. The lighter and faster every +dash the better. Then leave the whole to dry, and as soon as it is dry, +with little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_267" id="Pg_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> colour in your brush, so that you can bring it to a fine +point, fill up all the little interstices one by one, so as to make the +whole as even as you can, and fill in the larger gaps with more colour, +always trying to let the edges of the first and of the newly applied +colour exactly meet, and not lap over each other. When your new colour +dries, you will find it in places a little paler than the first. Retouch +it, therefore, trying to get the whole to look quite one piece. A very +small bit of colour thus filled up with your very best care, and brought +to look as if it had been quite even from the first, will give you +better practice and more skill than a great deal filled in carelessly; +so do it with your best patience, not leaving the most minute spot of +white; and do not fill in the large pieces first and then go to the +small, but quietly and steadily cover in the whole up to a marked limit; +then advance a little farther, and so on; thus always seeing distinctly +what is done and what undone.</p> + + +<h4>EXERCISE X.</h4> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lay</span> a coat of the blue, prepared as usual, over a whole square of paper. +Let it dry. Then another coat over four-fifths of the square, or +thereabouts, leaving the edge rather irregular than straight, and let it +dry. Then another coat over three-fifths; another over two-fifths; and +the last over one-fifth; so that the square may present the appearance +of gradual increase in darkness in five bands, each darker than the one +beyond it. Then, with the brush rather dry (as in the former exercise, +when filling up the interstices), try, with small touches, like those +used in the pen etching, only a little broader, to add shade delicately +beyond each edge, so as to lead the darker tints into the paler ones +imperceptibly. By touching the paper very lightly, and putting a +multitude of little touches, crossing and recrossing in every direction, +you will gradually be able to work up to the darker tints, outside of +each, so as quite to efface their edges, and unite them tenderly with +the next tint. The whole square, when done, should look evenly shaded +from dark to pale, with no bars;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_268" id="Pg_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> only a crossing texture of touches, +something like chopped straw, over the whole.<a name="FNanchor_211_211" id="FNanchor_211_211"></a><a href="#Footnote_211_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></p> + +<p>Next, take your rounded pebble; arrange it in any light and shade you +like; outline it very loosely with the pencil. Put on a wash of colour, +prepared <i>very</i> pale, quite flat over all of it, except the highest +light, leaving the edge of your colour quite sharp. Then another wash, +extending only over the darker parts, leaving the edge of that sharp +also, as in tinting the square. Then another wash over the still darker +parts, and another over the darkest, leaving each edge to dry sharp. +Then, with the small touches, efface the edges, reinforce the darks, and +work the whole delicately together, as you would with the pen, till you +have got it to the likeness of the true light and shade. You will find +that the tint underneath is a great help, and that you can now get +effects much more subtle and complete than with the pen merely.</p> + +<p>The use of leaving the edges always sharp is that you may not trouble or +vex the colour, but let it lie as it falls suddenly on the paper; colour +looks much more lovely when it has been laid on with a dash of the +brush, and left to dry in its own way, than when it has been dragged +about and disturbed; so that it is always better to let the edges and +forms be a <i>little</i> wrong, even if one cannot correct them afterwards, +than to lose this fresh quality of the tint. Very great masters in +water-colour can lay on the true forms at once with a dash, and <i>bad</i> +masters in water-colour lay on grossly false forms with a dash, and +leave them false; for people in general, not knowing false from true, +are as much pleased with the appearance of power in the irregular blot +as with the presence of power in the determined one; but <i>we</i>, in our +beginnings, must do as much as we can with the broad dash, and then +correct with the point, till we are quite right. We must take care to be +right, at whatever cost of pains; and then gradually we shall find we +can be right with freedom.</p> + +<p>I have hitherto limited you to colour mixed with two or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_269" id="Pg_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> three +teaspoonfuls of water; but in finishing your light and shade from the +stone, you may, as you efface the edge of the palest coat towards the +light, use the colour for the small touches with more and more water, +till it is so pale as not to be perceptible. Thus you may obtain a +<i>perfect</i> gradation to the light. And in reinforcing the darks, when +they are very dark, you may use less and less water. If you take the +colour tolerably dark on your brush, only always liquid (not pasty), and +dash away the superfluous colour on blotting-paper, you will find that, +touching the paper very lightly with the dry brush, you can, by repeated +touches, produce a dusty kind of bloom, very valuable in giving depth to +shadow; but it requires great patience and delicacy of hand to do this +properly. You will find much of this kind of work in the grounds and +shadows of William Hunt's drawings.<a name="FNanchor_212_212" id="FNanchor_212_212"></a><a href="#Footnote_212_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a></p> + +<p>As you get used to the brush and colour, you will gradually find out +their ways for yourself, and get the management of them. Nothing but +practice will do this perfectly; but you will often save yourself much +discouragement by remembering what I have so often asserted,—that if +anything goes wrong, it is nearly sure to be refinement that is wanting, +not force; and connexion, not alteration. If you dislike the state your +drawing is in, do not lose patience with it, nor dash at it, nor alter +its plan, nor rub it desperately out, at the place you think wrong; but +look if there are no shadows you can gradate more perfectly; no little +gaps and rents you can fill; no forms you can more delicately define: +and do not <i>rush</i> at any of the errors or incompletions thus discerned, +but efface or supply slowly, and you will soon find your drawing take +another look. A very useful expedient in producing some effects, is to +wet the paper, and then lay the colour on it, more or less wet, +according to the effect you want. You will soon see how prettily it +gradates itself as it dries; when dry, you can reinforce it with +delicate stippling when you want it darker. Also, while the colour is +still damp on the paper, by drying your brush thoroughly, and touching +the colour with the brush so dried, you may take out soft lights with +great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_270" id="Pg_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> tenderness and precision. Try all sorts of experiments of this +kind, noticing how the colour behaves; but remembering always that your +final results must be obtained, and can only be obtained, by pure work +with the point, as much as in the pen drawing.</p> + +<p>You will find also, as you deal with more and more complicated subjects, +that Nature's resources in light and shade are so much richer than +yours, that you cannot possibly get all, or anything <i>like</i> all, the +gradations of shadow in any given group. When this is the case, +determine first to keep the broad masses of things distinct: if, for +instance, there is a green book, and a white piece of paper, and a black +inkstand in the group, be sure to keep the white paper as a light mass, +the green book as a middle tint mass, the black inkstand as a dark mass; +and do not shade the folds in the paper, or corners of the book, so as +to equal in depth the darkness of the inkstand. The great difference +between the masters of light and shade, and imperfect artists, is the +power of the former to draw so delicately as to express form in a +dark-coloured object with little light, and in a light-coloured object +with little darkness; and it is better even to leave the forms here and +there unsatisfactorily rendered than to lose the general relations of +the great masses. And this observe, not because masses are grand or +desirable things in your composition (for with composition at present +you have nothing whatever to do), but because it is a <i>fact</i> that things +do so present themselves to the eyes of men, and that we see paper, +book, and inkstand as three separate things, before we see the wrinkles, +or chinks, or corners of any of the three. Understand, therefore, at +once, that no detail can be as strongly expressed in drawing as it is in +the reality; and strive to keep all your shadows and marks and minor +markings on the masses, lighter than they appear to be in Nature, you +are sure otherwise to get them too dark. You will in doing this find +that you cannot get the <i>projection</i> of things sufficiently shown; but +never mind that; there is no need that they should appear to project, +but great need that their relations of shade to each other should be +preserved. All deceptive projection is obtained by partial exaggeration +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_271" id="Pg_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> shadow; and whenever you see it, you may be sure the drawing is more +or less bad; a thoroughly fine drawing or painting will always show a +slight tendency towards <i>flatness</i>.</p> + +<p>Observe, on the other hand, that however white an object may be, there +is always some small point of it whiter than the rest. You must +therefore have a slight tone of grey over everything in your picture +except on the extreme high lights; even the piece of white paper, in +your subject, must be toned slightly down, unless (and there are a +thousand chances to one against its being so) it should all be turned so +as fully to front the light. By examining the treatment of the white +objects in any pictures accessible to you by Paul Veronese or Titian, +you will soon understand this.<a name="FNanchor_213_213" id="FNanchor_213_213"></a><a href="#Footnote_213_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a></p> + +<p>As soon as you feel yourself capable of expressing with the brush the +undulations of surfaces and the relations of masses, you may proceed to +draw more complicated and beautiful things.<a name="FNanchor_214_214" id="FNanchor_214_214"></a><a href="#Footnote_214_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> And first, the boughs +of trees, now not in mere dark relief, but in full rounding. Take the +first bit of branch or stump that comes to hand, with a fork in it; cut +off the ends of the forking branches, so as to leave the whole only +about a foot in length; get a piece of paper the same size, fix your bit +of branch in some place where its position will not be altered, and draw +it thoroughly, in all its light and shade, full size; striving, above +all things, to get an accurate expression of its structure at the fork +of the branch. When once you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_272" id="Pg_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> have mastered the tree at its <i>armpits</i>, +you will have little more trouble with it.</p> + +<p>Always draw whatever the background happens to be, exactly as you see +it. Wherever you have fastened the bough, you must draw whatever is +behind it, ugly or not, else you will never know whether the light and +shade are right; they may appear quite wrong to you, only for want of +the background. And this general law is to be observed in all your +studies: whatever you draw, draw completely and unalteringly, else you +never know if what you have done is right, or whether you <i>could</i> have +done it rightly had you tried. There is nothing <i>visible</i> out of which +you may not get useful practice.</p> + +<p>Next, to put the leaves on your boughs. Gather a small twig with four or +five leaves on it, put it into water, put a sheet of light-coloured or +white paper behind it, so that all the leaves may be relieved in dark +from the white field; then sketch in their dark shape carefully with +pencil as you did the complicated boughs, in order to be sure that all +their masses and interstices are right in shape before you begin +shading, and complete as far as you can with pen and ink, in the manner +of Fig. 6., which is a young shoot of lilac.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/781.jpg" width="200" height="448" alt="Fig. 6." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 6.</span> +</div> + +<p>You will probably, in spite of all your pattern drawings, be at first +puzzled by leaf foreshortening; especially because the look of +retirement or projection depends not so much on the perspective of the +leaves themselves as on the double sight of the two eyes. Now there are +certain artifices by which good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_273" id="Pg_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> painters can partly conquer this +difficulty; as slight exaggerations of force or colour in the nearer +parts, and of obscurity in the more distant ones; but you must not +attempt anything of this kind. When you are first sketching the leaves, +shut one of your eyes, fix a point in the background, to bring the point +of one of the leaves against, and so sketch the whole bough as you see +it in a fixed position, looking with one eye only. Your drawing never +can be made to look like the object itself, as you see that object with +<i>both</i> eyes,<a name="FNanchor_215_215" id="FNanchor_215_215"></a><a href="#Footnote_215_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> but it can be made perfectly like the object seen with +one, and you must be content when you have got a resemblance on these +terms.</p> + +<p>In order to get clearly at the notion of the thing to be done, take a +single long leaf, hold it with its point towards you, and as flat as you +can, so as to see nothing of it but its thinness, as if you wanted to +know how thin it was; outline it so. Then slope it down gradually +towards you, and watch it as it lengthens out to its full length, held +perpendicularly down before you. Draw it in three or four different +positions between these extremes, with its ribs as they appear in each +position, and you will soon find out how it must be.</p> + +<p>Draw first only two or three of the leaves; then larger clusters; and +practise, in this way, more and more complicated pieces of bough and +leafage, till you find you can master the most difficult arrangements, +not consisting of more than ten or twelve leaves. You will find as you +do this, if you have an opportunity of visiting any gallery of pictures, +that you take a much more lively interest than before in the work of the +great masters; you will see that very often their best backgrounds are +composed of little more than a few sprays of leafage, carefully studied, +brought against the distant sky; and that another wreath or two form the +chief interest of their foregrounds. If you live in London you may test +your progress <i>accurately</i> by the degree of admiration you feel for the +leaves of vine round the head of the Bacchus, in Titian's Bacchus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_274" id="Pg_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> and +Ariadne. All this, however, will not enable you to draw a mass of +foliage. You will find, on looking at any rich piece of vegetation, that +it is only one or two of the nearer clusters that you can by any +possibility draw in this complete manner. The mass is too vast, and too +intricate, to be thus dealt with.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/783.jpg" width="448" height="239" alt="Fig. 7." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 7.</span> +</div> + +<p>You must now therefore have recourse to some confused mode of execution, +capable of expressing the confusion of Nature. And, first, you must +understand what the character of that confusion is. If you look +carefully at the outer sprays of any tree at twenty or thirty yards' +distance, you will see them defined against the sky in masses, which, at +first, look quite definite; but if you examine them, you will see, +mingled with the real shapes of leaves, many indistinct lines, which +are, some of them, stalks of leaves, and some, leaves seen with the edge +turned towards you, and coming into sight in a broken way; for, +supposing the real leaf shape to be as at <i>a</i>, Fig. 7., this, when +removed some yards from the eye, will appear dark against the sky, as at +<i>b</i>; then, when removed some yards farther still, the stalk and point +disappear altogether, the middle of the leaf becomes little more than a +line; and the result is the condition at <i>c</i>, only with this farther +subtlety in the look of it, inexpressible in the woodcut, that the stalk +and point of the leaf, though they have disappeared to the eye, have yet +some influence in <i>checking the light</i> at the places where they exist, +and cause a slight dimness about the part of the leaf which remains +visible, so that its perfect effect could only be rendered by two layers +of colour, one subduing the sky tone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_275" id="Pg_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> a little, the next drawing the +broken portions of the leaf, as at <i>c</i>, and carefully indicating the +greater darkness of the spot in the middle, where the under side of the +leaf is.</p> + +<p>This is the perfect theory of the matter. In practice we cannot reach +such accuracy; but we shall be able to render the general look of the +foliage satisfactorily by the following mode of practice.</p> + +<p>Gather a spray of any tree, about a foot or eighteen inches long. Fix it +firmly by the stem in anything that will support it steadily; put it +about eight feet away from you, or ten if you are far-sighted. Put a +sheet of not very white paper behind it, as usual. Then draw very +carefully, first placing them with pencil, and then filling them up with +ink, every leaf, mass and stalk of it in simple black profile, as you +see them against the paper: Fig. 8. is a bough of Phillyrea so drawn. Do +not be afraid of running the leaves into a black mass when they come +together; this exercise is only to teach you what the actual shapes of +such masses are when seen against the sky.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 440px;"> +<img src="images/784.jpg" width="440" height="336" alt="Fig. 8." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 8.</span> +</div> + +<p>Make two careful studies of this kind of one bough of every common +tree—oak, ash, elm, birch, beech, &c.; in fact, if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_276" id="Pg_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> are good, and +industrious, you will make one such study carefully at least three times +a week, until you have examples of every sort of tree and shrub you can +get branches of. You are to make two studies of each bough, for this +reason—all masses of foliage have an upper and under surface, and the +side view of them, or profile, shows a wholly different organisation of +branches from that seen in the view from above. They are generally seen +more or less in profile, as you look at the whole tree, and Nature puts +her best composition into the profile arrangement. But the view from +above or below occurs not unfrequently, also, and it is quite necessary +you should draw it if you wish to understand the anatomy of the tree. +The difference between the two views is often far greater than you could +easily conceive. For instance, in Fig. 9., <i>a</i> is the upper view, and +<i>b</i> the profile, of a single spray of Phillyrea. Fig. 8. is an +intermediate view of a larger bough; seen from beneath, but at some +lateral distance also.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/785.jpg" width="448" height="193" alt="Fig. 9." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 9.</span> +</div> + +<p>When you have done a few branches in this manner, take one of the +<i>drawings</i>, and put it first a yard away from you, then a yard and a +half, then two yards; observe how the thinner stalks and leaves +gradually disappear, leaving only a vague and slight darkness where they +were, and make another study of the effect at each distance, taking care +to draw nothing more than you really see, for in this consists all the +difference between what would be merely a <i>miniature</i> drawing of the +leaves seen <i>near</i>, and a <i>full-size</i> drawing of the same leaves at a +distance. By full size, I mean the size which they would really appear +of if their outline were traced through a pane of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_277" id="Pg_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> glass held at the +same distance from the eye at which you mean to hold your drawing. You +can always ascertain this full size of any object by holding your paper +upright before you, at the distance from your eye at which you wish your +drawing to be seen. Bring its edge across the object you have to draw, +and mark upon this edge the points where the outline of the object +crosses, or goes behind, the edge of the paper. You will always find it, +thus measured, smaller than you supposed.</p> + +<p>When you have made a few careful experiments of this kind on your own +drawings, (which are better for practice, at first, than the real trees, +because the black profile in the drawing is quite stable, and does not +shake, and is not confused by sparkles of lustre on the leaves,) you may +try the extremities of the real trees, only not doing much at a time, +for the brightness of the sky will dazzle and perplex your sight. And +this brightness causes, I believe, some loss of the outline itself; at +least the chemical action of the light in a photograph extends much +within the edges of the leaves, and, as it were, eats them away so that +no tree extremity, stand it ever so still, nor any other form coming +against bright sky, is truly drawn by a photograph; and if you once +succeed in drawing a few sprays rightly, you will find the result much +more lovely and interesting than any photograph can be.</p> + +<p>All this difficulty, however, attaches to the rendering merely the dark +form of the sprays as they come against the sky. Within those sprays, +and in the heart of the tree, there is a complexity of a much more +embarrassing kind; for nearly all leaves have some lustre, and <i>all</i> are +more or less translucent (letting light through them); therefore, in any +given leaf, besides the intricacies of its own proper shadows and +foreshortenings, there are three series of circumstances which alter or +hide its forms. First, shadows cast on it by other leaves—often very +forcibly. Secondly, light reflected from its lustrous surface, sometimes +the blue of the sky, sometimes the white of clouds, or the sun itself +flashing like a star. Thirdly, forms and shadows of other leaves, seen +as darkness <i>through</i> the translucent parts of the leaf; a most +important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_278" id="Pg_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> element of foliage effect, but wholly neglected by landscape +artists in general.</p> + +<p>The consequence of all this is, that except now and then by chance, the +form of a complete leaf is never seen; but a marvellous and quaint +confusion, very definite, indeed, in its evidence of direction of +growth, and unity of action, but wholly indefinable and inextricable, +part by part, by any amount of patience. You cannot possibly work it out +in fac simile, though you took a twelvemonth's time to a tree; and you +must therefore try to discover some mode of execution which will more or +less imitate, by its own variety and mystery, the variety and mystery of +Nature, without absolute delineation of detail.</p> + +<p>Now I have led you to this conclusion by observation of tree form only, +because in that the thing to be proved is clearest. But no natural +object exists which does not involve in some part or parts of it this +inimitableness, this mystery of quantity, which needs peculiarity of +handling and trick of touch to express it completely. If leaves are +intricate, so is moss, so is foam, so is rock cleavage, so are fur and +hair, and texture of drapery, and of clouds. And although methods and +dexterities of handling are wholly useless if you have not gained first +the thorough knowledge of the form of the thing; so that if you cannot +draw a branch perfectly, then much less a tree; and if not a wreath of +mist perfectly, much less a flock of clouds; and if not a single grass +blade perfectly, much less a grass bank; yet having once got this power +over decisive form, you may safely—and must, in order to perfection of +work—carry out your knowledge by every aid of method and dexterity of +hand.</p> + +<p>But, in order to find out what method can do, you must now look at Art +as well as at Nature, and see what means painters and engravers have +actually employed for the expression of these subtleties. Whereupon +arises the question, what opportunity have you to obtain engravings? You +ought, if it is at all in your power, to possess yourself of a certain +number of good examples of Turner's engraved works: if this be not in +your power, you must just make the best use you can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_279" id="Pg_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> of the shop +windows, or of any plates of which you can obtain a loan. Very possibly, +the difficulty of getting sight of them may stimulate you to put them to +better use. But, supposing your means admit of your doing so, possess +yourself, first, of the illustrated edition either of Rogers's Italy or +Rogers's Poems, and then of about a dozen of the plates named in the +annexed lists. The prefixed letters indicate the particular points +deserving your study in each engraving.<a name="FNanchor_216_216" id="FNanchor_216_216"></a><a href="#Footnote_216_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> Be sure,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_280" id="Pg_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> therefore, that +your selection includes, at all events, one plate marked with each +letter—of course the plates marked with two or three letters are, for +the most part, the best. Do not get more than twelve of these plates, +nor even all the twelve at first. For the more engravings you have, the +less attention you will pay to them. It is a general truth, that the +enjoyment derivable from art cannot be increased in quantity, beyond a +certain point, by quantity of possession; it is only spread, as it were, +over a larger surface, and very often dulled by finding ideas repeated +in different works. Now, for a beginner, it is always better that his +attention should be concentrated on one or two good things, and all his +enjoyment founded on them, than that he should look at many, with +divided thoughts. He has much to discover; and his best way of +discovering it is to think long over few things, and watch them +earnestly. It is one of the worst errors of this age to try to know and +to see too much: the men who seem to know everything, never in reality +know anything rightly. Beware of <i>hand-book</i> knowledge.</p> + +<p>These engravings are, in general, more for you to look at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_281" id="Pg_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> than to copy; +and they will be of more use to you when we come to talk of composition, +than they are at present; still, it will do you a great deal of good, +sometimes to try how far you can get their delicate texture, or +gradations of tone; as your pen-and-ink drawing will be apt to incline +too much to a scratchy and broken kind of shade. For instance, the +texture of the white convent wall, and the drawing of its tiled roof, in +the vignette at p. 227. of Rogers's Poems, is as exquisite as work can +possibly be; and it will be a great and profitable achievement if you +can at all approach it. In like manner, if you can at all imitate the +dark distant country at p. 7., or the sky at p. 80., of the same volume, +or the foliage at pp. 12. and 144., it will be good gain; and if you can +once draw the rolling clouds and running river at p. 9. of the "Italy," +or the city in the vignette of Aosta at p. 25., or the moonlight at p. +223., you will find that even Nature herself cannot afterwards very +terribly puzzle you with her torrents, or towers, or moonlight.</p> + +<p>You need not copy touch for touch, but try to get the same effect. And +if you feel discouraged by the delicacy required, and begin to think +that engraving is not drawing, and that copying it cannot help you to +draw, remember that it differs from common drawing only by the +difficulties it has to encounter. You perhaps have got into a careless +habit of thinking that engraving is a mere <i>business</i>, easy enough when +one has got into the knack of it. On the contrary, it is a form of +drawing more difficult than common drawing, by exactly so much as it is +more difficult to cut steel than to move the pencil over paper. It is +true that there are certain mechanical aids and methods which reduce it +at certain stages either to pure machine work, or to more or less a +habit of hand and arm; but this is not so in the foliage you are trying +to copy, of which the best and prettiest parts are always etched—that +is, drawn with a fine steel point and free hand: only the line made is +white instead of black, which renders it much more difficult to judge of +what you are about. And the trying to copy these plates will be good for +you, because it will awaken you to the real labour and skill of the +engraver, and make you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_282" id="Pg_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> understand a little how people must work, in +this world, who have really to <i>do</i> anything in it.</p> + +<p>Do not, however, suppose that I give you the engraving as a model—far +from it; but it is necessary you should be able to do as well<a name="FNanchor_217_217" id="FNanchor_217_217"></a><a href="#Footnote_217_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> +before you think of doing better, and you will find many little helps +and hints in the various work of it. Only remember that <i>all</i> engravers' +foregrounds are bad; whenever you see the peculiar wriggling parallel +lines of modern engravings become distinct, you must not copy; nor +admire: it is only the softer masses, and distances; and portions of the +foliage in the plates marked <i>f</i>, which you may copy. The best for this +purpose, if you can get it, is the "Chain bridge over the Tees," of the +England series; the thicket on the right is very beautiful and +instructive, and very like Turner. The foliage in the "Ludlow" and +"Powis" is also remarkably good.</p> + +<p>Besides these line engravings, and to protect you from what harm there +is in their influence, you are to provide yourself, if possible, with a +Rembrandt etching, or a photograph of one (of figures, not landscape). +It does not matter of what subject, or whether a sketchy or finished +one, but the sketchy ones are generally cheapest, and will teach you +most. Copy it as well as you can, noticing especially that Rembrandt's +most rapid lines have steady purpose; and that they are laid with almost +inconceivable precision when the object becomes at all interesting. The +"Prodigal Son," "Death of the Virgin," "Abraham and Isaac," and such +others, containing incident and character rather than chiaroscuro, will +be the most instructive. You can buy one; copy it well; then exchange +it, at little loss, for another; and so, gradually, obtain a good +knowledge of his system. Whenever you have an opportunity of examining +his work at museums, &c., do so with the greatest care, not looking at +<i>many</i> things, but a long time at each. You must also provide yourself, +if possible, with an engraving of Albert Durer's. This you will not be +able to copy; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_283" id="Pg_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> you must keep it beside you, and refer to it as a +standard of precision in line. If you can get one with a <i>wing</i> in it, +it will be best. The crest with the cock, that with the skull and satyr, +and the "Melancholy," are the best you could have, but any will do. +Perfection in chiaroscuro drawing lies between these two masters, +Rembrandt and Durer. Rembrandt is often too loose and vague; and Durer +has little or no effect of mist or uncertainty. If you can see anywhere +a drawing by Leonardo, you will find it balanced between the two +characters; but there are no engravings which present this perfection, +and your style will be best formed, therefore, by alternate study of +Rembrandt and Durer. Lean rather to Durer; it is better for amateurs to +err on the side of precision than on that of vagueness: and though, as I +have just said, you cannot copy a Durer, yet try every now and then a +quarter of an inch square or so, and see how much nearer you can come; +you cannot possibly try to draw the leafly crown of the "Melancholia" +too often.</p> + +<p>If you cannot get either a Rembrandt or a Durer, you may still learn +much by carefully studying any of George Cruikshank's etchings, or +Leech's woodcuts in Punch, on the free side; with Alfred Rethel's and +Richter's<a name="FNanchor_218_218" id="FNanchor_218_218"></a><a href="#Footnote_218_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> on the severe side. But in so doing you will need to +notice the following points:</p> + +<p>When either the material (as the copper or wood) or the time of an +artist, does not permit him to make a perfect drawing,—that is to say, +one in which no lines shall be prominently visible,—and he is reduced +to show the black lines, either drawn by the pen, or on the wood, it is +better to make these lines help, as far as may be, the expression of +texture and form. You will thus find many textures, as of cloth or grass +or flesh, and many subtle effects of light, expressed by Leech with +zigzag or crossed or curiously broken lines; and you will see that +Alfred Rethel and Richter constantly express the direction and rounding +of surfaces by the direction of the lines which shade them. All these +various means of expression will be useful to you, as far as you can +learn them, provided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_284" id="Pg_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> you remember that they are merely a kind of +shorthand; telling certain facts, not in quite the <i>right</i> way, but in +the only possible way under the conditions: and provided in any after +use of such means, you never try to show your own dexterity; but only to +get as much record of the object as you can in a given time; and that +you continually make efforts to go beyond shorthand, and draw portions +of the objects rightly.</p> + +<p>And touching this question of <i>direction</i> of lines as indicating that of +surface, observe these few points:</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/793.jpg" width="448" height="238" alt="Fig. 10." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 10.</span> +</div> + +<p>If lines are to be distinctly shown, it is better that, so far as they +<i>can</i> indicate any thing by their direction, they should explain rather +than oppose the general character of the object. Thus, in the piece of +woodcut from Titian, Fig. 10., the lines are serviceable by expressing, +not only the shade of the trunk, but partly also its roundness, and the +flow of its grain. And Albert Durer, whose work was chiefly engraving, +sets himself always thus to make his lines as <i>valuable</i> as possible; +telling much by them, both of shade and direction of surface: and if you +were always to be limited to engraving on copper (and did not want to +express effects of mist or darkness, as well as delicate forms), Albert +Durer's way of work would be the best example for you. But, inasmuch as +the perfect way of drawing is by shade without lines, and the great +painters always conceive their subject as complete, even when they are +sketching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_285" id="Pg_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> it most rapidly, you will find that, when they are not +limited in means, they do not much trust to direction of line, but will +often scratch in the shade of a rounded surface with nearly straight +lines, that is to say, with the easiest and quickest lines possible to +themselves. When the hand is free, the easiest line for it to draw is +one inclining from the left upward to the right, or <i>vice versâ</i>, from +the right downwards to the left; and when done very quickly, the line is +hooked a little at the end by the effort at return to the next. Hence, +you will always find the pencil, chalk, or pen sketch of a <i>very</i> great +master full of these kind of lines; and even if he draws carefully, you +will find him using simple straight lines from left to right, when an +inferior master will have used curved ones. Fig. 11. is a fair facsimile +of part of a sketch of Raphael's, which exhibits these characters very +distinctly. Even the careful drawings of Leonardo da Vinci are shaded +most commonly with straight lines; and you may always assume it as a +point increasing the probability of a drawing being by a great master if +you find rounded surfaces, such as those of cheeks or lips, shaded with +straight lines.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 214px;"> +<img src="images/794.jpg" width="214" height="409" alt="Fig. 11." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 11.</span> +</div> + +<p>But you will also now understand how easy it must be for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_286" id="Pg_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> dishonest +dealers to forge or imitate scrawled sketches like Figure 11., and pass +them for the work of great masters; and how the power of determining the +genuineness of a drawing depends entirely on your knowing the <i>facts</i> of +the object drawn, and perceiving whether the hasty handling is <i>all</i> +conducive to the expression of those truths. In a great man's work, at +its fastest, no line is thrown away, and it is not by the rapidity, but +the <i>economy</i> of the execution that you know him to be great. Now to +judge of this economy, you must know exactly what he meant to do, +otherwise you cannot of course discern how far he has done it; that is, +you must know the beauty and nature of the thing he was drawing. All +judgment of art thus finally founds itself on knowledge of Nature.</p> + +<p>But farther observe, that this scrawled, or economic, or impetuous +execution is never <i>affectedly</i> impetuous. If a great man is not in a +hurry, he never pretends to be; if he has no eagerness in his heart, he +puts none into his hand; if he thinks his effect would be better got +with <i>two</i> lines, he never, to show his dexterity, tries to do it with +one. Be assured, therefore (and this is a matter of great importance), +that you will never produce a great drawing by imitating the <i>execution</i> +of a great master. Acquire his knowledge and share his feelings, and the +easy execution will fall from your hand as it did from his; but if you +merely scrawl because he scrawled, or blot because he blotted, you will +not only never advance in power, but every able draughtsman, and every +judge whose opinion is worth having, will know you for a cheat, and +despise you accordingly.</p> + +<p>Again, observe respecting the use of outline:</p> + +<p>All merely outlined drawings are bad, for the simple reason, that an +artist of any power can always do more, and tell more, by quitting his +outlines occasionally, and scratching in a few lines for shade, than he +can by restricting himself to outline only. Hence the fact of his so +restricting himself, whatever may be the occasion, shows him to be a bad +draughtsman, and not to know how to apply his power economically. This +hard law, however, bears only on drawings meant to remain in the state +in which you see them; not on those which were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_287" id="Pg_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> meant to be proceeded +with, or for some mechanical use. It is sometimes necessary to draw pure +outlines, as an incipient arrangement of a composition, to be filled up +afterwards with colour, or to be pricked through and used as patterns or +tracings; but if, with no such ultimate object, making the drawing +wholly for its own sake, and meaning it to remain in the state he leaves +it, an artist restricts himself to outline, he is a bad draughtsman, and +his work is bad. There is no exception to this law. A good artist +habitually sees masses, not edges, and can in every case make his +drawing more expressive (with any given quantity of work) by rapid shade +than by contours; so that all good work whatever is more or less touched +with shade, and more or less interrupted as outline.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 162px;"> +<img src="images/796.jpg" width="162" height="170" alt="Fig. 12." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 12.</span> +</div> + +<p>Hence, the published works of Retsch, and all the English imitations of +them, and all outline engravings from pictures, are bad work, and only +serve to corrupt the public taste, and of such outlines, the worst are +those which are darkened in some part of their course by way of +expressing the dark side, as Flaxman's from Dante, and such others; +because an outline can only be true so long as it accurately represents +the form of the given object with <i>one</i> of its edges. Thus, the outline +<i>a</i> and the outline <i>b</i>, Fig. 12., are both <i>true</i> outlines of a ball; +because, however thick the line may be, whether we take the interior or +exterior edge of it, that edge of it always draws a true circle. But <i>c</i> +is a false outline of a ball, because either the inner or outer edge of +the black line must be an untrue circle, else the line could not be +thicker in one place than another. Hence all "force," as it is called, +is gained by falsification of the contours; so that no artist whose eye +is true and fine could endure to look at it. It does indeed often happen +that a painter, sketching rapidly, and trying again and again for some +line which he cannot quite strike, blackens or loads the first line by +setting others beside and across it; and then a careless observer +supposes it has been thickened on purpose; or, sometimes also, at a +place where shade is afterwards to enclose the form, the painter will +strike a broad dash of this shade beside his outline at once, looking as +if he meant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_288" id="Pg_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> to thicken the outline; whereas this broad line is only the +first instalment of the future shadow, and the outline is really drawn +with its inner edge. And thus, far from good draughtsmen darkening the +lines which turn away from the light, the <i>tendency</i> with them is rather +to darken them towards the light, for it is there in general that shade +will ultimately enclose them. The best example of this treatment that I +know is Raphael's sketch, in the Louvre, of the head of the angel +pursuing Heliodorus, the one that shows part of the left eye; where the +dark strong lines which terminate the nose and forehead towards the +light are opposed to tender and light ones behind the ear, and in other +places towards the shade. You will see in Fig. 11. the same principle +variously exemplified; the principal dark lines, in the head and drapery +of the arms, being on the side turned to the light.</p> + +<p>All these refinements and ultimate principles, however, do not affect +your drawing for the present. You must try to make your outlines as +<i>equal</i> as possible; and employ pure outline only for the two following +purposes: either (1.) to steady your hand, as in Exercise II., for if +you cannot draw the line itself, you will never be able to terminate +your shadow in the precise shape required, when the line is absent; or +(2.) to give you shorthand memoranda of forms, when you are pressed for +time. Thus the forms of distant trees in groups are defined, for the +most part, by the light edge of the rounded mass of the nearer one being +shown against the darker part of the rounded mass of a more distant one; +and to draw this properly, nearly as much work is required to round each +tree as to round the stone in Fig. 5. Of course you cannot often get +time to do this; but if you mark the terminal line of each tree as is +done by Durer in Fig. 13., you will get a most useful memorandum of +their arrangement, and a very interesting drawing. Only observe in doing +this, you must not, because the procedure is a quick one, hurry that +procedure itself. You will find, on copying that bit of Durer, that +every one of his lines is firm, deliberate, and accurately descriptive +as far as it goes. It means a bush of such a size<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_289" id="Pg_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> and such a shape, +definitely observed and set down; it contains a true "signalement" of +every nut-tree, and apple-tree, and higher bit of hedge, all round that +village. If you have not time to draw thus carefully, do not draw at +all—you are merely wasting your work and spoiling your taste. When you +have had four or five years' practice you may be able to make useful +memoranda at a rapid rate, but not yet; except sometimes of light and +shade, in a way of which I will tell you presently. And this use of +outline, note farther, is wholly confined to objects which have <i>edges</i> +or <i>limits</i>. You can outline line a tree or a stone, when it rises +against another tree or stone; but you cannot outline folds in drapery, +or waves in water; if these are to be expressed at all it must be by +some sort of shade, and therefore the rule that no good drawing can +consist throughout of pure outline remains absolute. You see, in that +woodcut of Durer's, his reason for even limiting himself so much to +outline as he has, in those distant woods and plains, is that he may +leave them in bright light, to be thrown out still more by the dark sky +and the dark village spire; and the scene becomes real and sunny only by +the addition of these shades.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 420px;"> +<img src="images/798.jpg" width="420" height="258" alt="Fig. 13." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 13.</span> +</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_290" id="Pg_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> + +<p>Understanding, then, thus much of the use of outline, we will go back to +our question about tree drawing left unanswered at page 60.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 355px;"> +<img src="images/799a.jpg" width="355" height="336" alt="Fig. 14." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 14.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 258px;"> +<img src="images/799b.jpg" width="258" height="439" alt="Fig. 15." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 15.</span> +</div> + +<p>We were, you remember, in pursuit of mystery among the leaves. Now, it +is quite easy to obtain mystery and disorder, to any extent; but the +difficulty is to keep organisation in the midst of mystery. And you will +never succeed in doing this unless you lean always to the definite side, +and allow yourself rarely to become quite vague, at least through all +your early practice. So, after your single groups of leaves, your first +step must be to conditions like Figs. 14. and 15., which are careful +facsimiles of two portions of a beautiful woodcut of Durer's, the Flight +into Egypt. Copy these carefully,—never mind how little at a time, but +thoroughly; then trace the Durer, and apply it to your drawing, and do +not be content till the one fits the other, else your eye is not true +enough to carry you safely through meshes of real leaves. And in the +course of doing this, you will find that not a line nor dot of Durer's +can be displaced without harm; that all add to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_291" id="Pg_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> the effect, and either +express something, or illumine something, or relieve something. If, +afterwards, you copy any of the pieces of modern tree drawing, of which +so many rich examples are given constantly in our cheap illustrated +periodicals (any of the Christmas numbers of last year's <i>Illustrated +News</i> or <i>Times</i> are full of them), you will see that, though good and +forcible general effect is produced, the lines are thrown in by +thousands without special intention, and might just as well go one way +as another, so only that there be enough of them to produce all together +a well-shaped effect of intricacy: and you will find that a little +careless scratching about with your pen will bring you very near the +same result without an effort; but that no scratching of pen, nor any +fortunate chance, nor anything but downright skill and thought, will +imitate so much as one leaf of Durer's. Yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_292" id="Pg_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> there is considerable +intricacy and glittering confusion in the interstices of those vine +leaves of his, as well as of the grass.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 394px;"> +<img src="images/800.jpg" width="394" height="336" alt="Fig. 16." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 16.</span> +</div> + +<p>When you have got familiarised to this firm manner, you may draw from +Nature as much as you like in the same way, and when you are tired of +the intense care required for this, you may fall into a little more easy +massing of the leaves, as in Fig. 10. p. 66. This is facsimiled from an +engraving after Titian, but an engraving not quite first-rate in manner, +the leaves being a little too formal; still, it is a good enough model +for your times of rest; and when you cannot carry the thing even so far +as this, you may sketch the forms of the masses, as in Fig. 16.,<a name="FNanchor_219_219" id="FNanchor_219_219"></a><a href="#Footnote_219_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a> +taking care always to have thorough command over your hand; that is, not +to let the mass take a free shape because your hand ran glibly over the +paper, but because in nature it has actually a free and noble shape, and +you have faithfully followed the same.</p> + +<p>And now that we have come to questions of <i>noble</i> shape, as well as true +shape, and that we are going to draw from nature at our pleasure, other +considerations enter into the business, which are by no means confined +to <i>first</i> practice, but extend to all practice; these (as this letter +is long enough, I should think, to satisfy even the most exacting of +correspondents) I will arrange in a second letter; praying you only to +excuse the tiresomeness of this first one—tiresomeness inseparable from +directions touching the beginning of any art,—and to believe me, even +though I am trying to set you to dull and hard work.</p> + +<p class="right"> +Very faithfully yours,<br /> +J. Ruskin. +</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_199_199" id="Footnote_199_199"></a><a href="#FNanchor_199_199"><span class="label">[199]</span></a> (N. B. This note is only for the satisfaction of +incredulous or curious readers. You may miss it if you are in a hurry, +or are willing to take the statement in the text on trust.) +</p><p> +The perception of solid Form is entirely a matter of experience. We +<i>see</i> nothing but flat colours; and it is only by a series of +experiments that we find out that a stain of black or grey indicates the +dark side of a solid substance, or that a faint hue indicates that the +object in which it appears is far away. The whole technical power of +painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the <i>innocence of +the eye</i>; that is to say, a sort of childish perception of these flat +stains of colour, merely as such, without consciousness of what they +signify, as a blind man would see them if suddenly gifted with sight. +</p><p> +For instance; when grass is lighted strongly by the sun in certain +directions, it is turned from green into a peculiar and somewhat +dusty-looking yellow. If we had been born blind, and were suddenly +endowed with sight on a piece of grass thus lighted in some parts by the +sun, it would appear to us that part of the grass was green, and part a +dusty yellow (very nearly of the colour of primroses); and, if there +were primroses near, we should think that the sunlighted grass was +another mass of plants of the same sulphur-yellow colour. We should try +to gather some of them, and then find that the colour went away from the +grass when we stood between it and the sun, but not from the primroses; +and by a series of experiments we should find out that the sun was +really the cause of the colour in the one,—not in the other. We go +through such processes of experiment unconsciously in childhood; and +having once come to conclusions touching the signification of certain +colours, we always suppose that we <i>see</i> what we only know, and have +hardly any consciousness of the real aspect of the signs we have learned +to interpret. Very few people have any idea that sunlighted grass is +yellow. +</p><p> +Now, a highly accomplished artist has always reduced himself as nearly +as possible to this condition of infantine sight. He sees the colours of +nature exactly as they are, and therefore perceives at once in the +sunlighted grass the precise relation between the two colours that form +its shade and light. To him it does not seem shade and light, but bluish +green barred with gold. +</p><p> +Strive, therefore, first of all, to convince yourself of this great fact +about sight. This, in your hand, which you know by experience and touch +to be a book, is to your eye nothing but a patch of white, variously +gradated and spotted; this other thing near you, which by experience you +know to be a table, is to your eye only a patch of brown, variously +darkened and veined; and so on: and the whole art of Painting consists +merely in perceiving the shape and depth of these patches of colour, and +putting patches of the same size, depth, and shape on canvas. The only +obstacle to the success of painting is, that many of the real colours +are brighter and paler than it is possible to put on canvas: we must put +darker ones to represent them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_200_200" id="Footnote_200_200"></a><a href="#FNanchor_200_200"><span class="label">[200]</span></a> Stale crumb of bread is better, if you are making a +delicate drawing, than India-rubber, for it disturbs the surface of the +paper less: but it crumbles about the room and makes a mess; and, +besides, you waste the good bread, which is wrong; and your drawing will +not for a long while be worth the crumbs. So use India-rubber very +lightly; or, if heavily pressing it only, not passing it over the paper, +and leave what pencil marks that will not come away so, without minding +them. In a finished drawing the uneffaced penciling is often +serviceable, helping the general tone, and enabling you to take out +little bright lights.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_201_201" id="Footnote_201_201"></a><a href="#FNanchor_201_201"><span class="label">[201]</span></a> What is usually so much sought after under the term +"freedom" is the character of the drawing of a great master in a hurry, +whose hand is so thoroughly disciplined, that when pressed for time he +can let it fly as it will, and it will not go far wrong. But the hand of +a great master at real <i>work</i> is <i>never</i> free: its swiftest dash is +under perfect government. Paul Veronese or Tintoret could pause within a +hair's breadth of any appointed mark, in their fastest touches; and +follow, within a hair's breadth, the previously intended curve. You must +never, therefore, aim at freedom. It is not required of your drawing +that it should be free, but that it should be <i>right</i>: in time you will +be able to do right easily, and then your work will be free in the best +sense; but there is no merit in doing <i>wrong</i> easily. +</p><p> +These remarks, however, do not apply to the lines used in shading, +which, it will be remembered, are to be made as <i>quickly</i> as possible. +The reason of this is, that the quicker a line is drawn, the lighter it +is at the ends, and therefore the more easily joined with other lines, +and concealed by them; the object in perfect shading being to conceal +the lines as much as possible. +</p><p> +And observe, in this exercise, the object is more to get firmness of +hand than accuracy of eye for outline; for there are no outlines in +Nature, and the ordinary student is sure to draw them falsely if he +draws them at all. Do not, therefore, be discouraged if you find +mistakes continue to occur in your outlines; be content at present if +you find your hand gaining command over the curves.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_202_202" id="Footnote_202_202"></a><a href="#FNanchor_202_202"><span class="label">[202]</span></a> If you can get any pieces of <i>dead</i> white porcelain, not +glazed, they will be useful models.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_203_203" id="Footnote_203_203"></a><a href="#FNanchor_203_203"><span class="label">[203]</span></a> Artists who glance at this book may be surprised at this +permission. My chief reason is, that I think it more necessary that the +pupil's eye should be trained to accurate perception of the relations of +curve and right lines, by having the latter absolutely true, than that +he should practice drawing straight lines. But also, I believe, though I +am not quite sure of this, that he never <i>ought</i> to be able to draw a +straight line. I do not believe a perfectly trained hand ever can draw a +line without some curvature in it, or some variety of direction. Prout +could draw a straight line, but I do not believe Raphael could, nor +Tintoret. A great draughtsman can, as far as I have observed, draw every +line <i>but</i> a straight one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_204_204" id="Footnote_204_204"></a><a href="#FNanchor_204_204"><span class="label">[204]</span></a> Or, if you feel able to do so, scratch them in with +confused quick touches, indicating the general shape of the cloud or +mist of twigs round the main branches; but do not take much trouble +about them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_205_205" id="Footnote_205_205"></a><a href="#FNanchor_205_205"><span class="label">[205]</span></a> It is more difficult, at first, to get, in colour, a +narrow gradation than an extended one; but the ultimate difficulty is, +as with the pen, to make the gradation go <i>far</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_206_206" id="Footnote_206_206"></a><a href="#FNanchor_206_206"><span class="label">[206]</span></a> Of course, all the columns of colour are to be of equal +length.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_207_207" id="Footnote_207_207"></a><a href="#FNanchor_207_207"><span class="label">[207]</span></a> The degree of darkness you can reach with the given +colour is always indicated by the colour of the solid cake in the box.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_208_208" id="Footnote_208_208"></a><a href="#FNanchor_208_208"><span class="label">[208]</span></a> The figure <i>a</i>, Fig. 5., is very dark, but this is to +give an example of all kinds of depth of tint, without repeated +figures.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_209_209" id="Footnote_209_209"></a><a href="#FNanchor_209_209"><span class="label">[209]</span></a> Nearly neutral in ordinary circumstances, but yet with +quite different tones in its neutrality, according to the colours of the +various reflected rays that compose it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_210_210" id="Footnote_210_210"></a><a href="#FNanchor_210_210"><span class="label">[210]</span></a> If we had any business with the reasons of this, I might, +perhaps, be able to show you some metaphysical ones for the enjoyment, +by truly artistical minds, of the changes wrought by light, and shade, +and perspective in patterned surfaces; but this is at present not to the +point; and all that you need to know is that the drawing of such things +is good exercise, and moreover a kind of exercise which Titian, +Veronese, Tintoret, Giorgione, and Turner, all enjoyed, and strove to +excel in.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_211_211" id="Footnote_211_211"></a><a href="#FNanchor_211_211"><span class="label">[211]</span></a> The use of acquiring this habit of execution is that you +may be able, when you begin to colour, to let one hue be seen in minute +portions, gleaming between the touches of another.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_212_212" id="Footnote_212_212"></a><a href="#FNanchor_212_212"><span class="label">[212]</span></a> William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour Society.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_213_213" id="Footnote_213_213"></a><a href="#FNanchor_213_213"><span class="label">[213]</span></a> At Marlborough House, among the four principal examples +of Turner's later water-colour drawing, perhaps the most neglected is +that of fishing-boats and fish at sunset. It is one of his most +wonderful works, though unfinished. If you examine the larger white +fishing-boat sail, you will find it has a little spark of pure white in +its right-hand upper corner, about as large as a minute pin's head, and +that all the surface of the sail is gradated to that focus. Try to copy +this sail once or twice, and you will begin to understand Turner's work. +Similarly, the wing of the Cupid in Correggio's large picture in the +National Gallery is focussed to two little grains of white at the top of +it. The points of light on the white flower in the wreath round the head +of the dancing child-faun, in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, exemplify +the same thing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_214_214" id="Footnote_214_214"></a><a href="#FNanchor_214_214"><span class="label">[214]</span></a> I shall not henceforward <i>number</i> the exercises +recommended; as they are distinguished only by increasing difficulty of +subject, not by difference of method.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_215_215" id="Footnote_215_215"></a><a href="#FNanchor_215_215"><span class="label">[215]</span></a> If you understand the principle of the stereoscope you +will know why; if not, it does not matter; trust me for the truth of the +statement, as I cannot explain the principle without diagrams and much +loss of time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_216_216" id="Footnote_216_216"></a><a href="#FNanchor_216_216"><span class="label">[216]</span></a> If you can, get first the plates marked with a star. The +letters mean as follows:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>a</i> stands for architecture, including distant grouping of towns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">cottages, &c.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c</i> clouds, including mist and aërial effects.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f</i> foliage.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>g</i> ground, including low hills, when not rocky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>l</i> effects of light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>m</i> mountains, or bold rocky ground.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>p</i> power of general arrangement and effect.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>q</i> quiet water.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>r</i> running or rough water; or rivers, even if calm, when their line of<br /></span> +<span class="i0">flow is beautifully marked.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p> +<i>From the England Series.</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>a c f r.</i> Arundel.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a f l.</i> Ashby de la Zouche.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l q r.</i> Barnard Castle.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f m r.</i> Bolton Abbey.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f g r.</i> Buckfastleigh.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l p.</i> Caernarvon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c l q.</i> Castle Upnor.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a f l.</i> Colchester.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>l q.</i> Cowes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c f p.</i> Dartmouth Cove.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c l q.</i> Flint Castle.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a f g l.</i> Knaresborough.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>m r.</i> High Force of Tees.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a f q.</i> Trematon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a f p.</i> Lancaster.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c l m r.</i> Lancaster Sands.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a g f.</i> Launceston.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c f l r.</i> Leicester Abbey.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f r.</i> Ludlow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a f l.</i> Margate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l q.</i> Orford.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c p.</i> Plymouth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f.</i> Powis Castle.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>l m q.</i> Prudhoe Castle.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f l m r.</i> Chain Bridge over Tees.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>m q.</i> Ulleswater.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f m.</i> Valle Crucis.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>From the Keepsake.</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>m p q.</i> Arona.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>m.</i> Drachenfells.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f l.</i> Marley.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>p.</i> St. Germain en Laye.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>l p q.</i> Florence.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>l m.</i> Ballyburgh Ness.*<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>From the Bible Series.</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>f m.</i> Mount Lebanon.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>m.</i> Rock of Moses at Sinai.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l m.</i> Jericho.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a c g.</i> Joppa.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c l p q.</i> Solomon's Pools.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l.</i> Santa Saba.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l.</i> Pool of Bethesda.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>From Scott's Works.</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>p r.</i> Melrose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f r.</i> Dryburgh.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c m.</i> Glencoe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c m.</i> Loch Coriskin.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l.</i> Caerlaverock.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>From the "Rivers of France."</i> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>a q.</i> Château of Amboise, with large bridge on right.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>l p r.</i> Rouen, looking down the river, poplars on right.*<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a l p.</i> Rouen, with cathedral and rainbow, avenue on the left.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a p.</i> Rouen Cathedral.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f p.</i> Pont de l'Arche.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>f l p.</i> View on the Seine, with avenue.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>a c p.</i> Bridge of Meulan.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>c g p r.</i> Caudebec.*<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_217_217" id="Footnote_217_217"></a><a href="#FNanchor_217_217"><span class="label">[217]</span></a> As <i>well</i>;—not as minutely: the diamond cuts finer lines +on the steel than you can draw on paper with your pen; but you must be +able to get tones as even, and touches as firm.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_218_218" id="Footnote_218_218"></a><a href="#FNanchor_218_218"><span class="label">[218]</span></a> See, for account of these plates, the Appendix on "Works +to be studied."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_219_219" id="Footnote_219_219"></a><a href="#FNanchor_219_219"><span class="label">[219]</span></a> This sketch is not of a tree standing on its head, though +it looks like it. You will find it explained presently.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_293" id="Pg_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> +<h2>LETTER II.</h2> + +<h3>SKETCHING FROM NATURE.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Reader</span>:—</p> + +<p>The work we have already gone through together has, I hope, enabled you +to draw with fair success, either rounded and simple masses, like +stones, or complicated arrangements of form, like those of leaves; +provided only these masses or complexities will stay quiet for you to +copy, and do not extend into quantity so great as to baffle your +patience. But if we are now to go out to the fields, and to draw +anything like a complete landscape, neither of these conditions will any +more be observed for us. The clouds will not wait while we copy their +heaps or clefts; the shadows will escape from us as we try to shape +them, each, in its stealthy minute march, still leaving light where its +tremulous edge had rested the moment before, and involving in eclipse +objects that had seemed safe from its influence; and instead of the +small clusters of leaves which we could reckon point by point, +embarrassing enough even though numerable, we have now leaves as little +to be counted as the sands of the sea, and restless, perhaps, as its +foam.</p> + +<p>In all that we have to do now, therefore, direct imitation becomes more +or less impossible. It is always to be aimed at so far as it <i>is</i> +possible; and when you have time and opportunity, some portions of a +landscape may, as you gain greater skill, be rendered with an +approximation almost to mirrored portraiture. Still, whatever skill you +may reach, there will always be need of judgment to choose, and of speed +to seize, certain things that are principal or fugitive; and you must +give more and more effort daily to the observance of characteristic +points, and the attainment of concise methods.</p> + +<p>I have directed your attention early to foliage for two reasons. First, +that it is always accessible as a study; and secondly, that its modes of +growth present simple examples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_294" id="Pg_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> of the importance of leading or +governing lines. It is by seizing these leading lines, when we cannot +seize <i>all</i>, that likeness and expression are given to a portrait, and +grace and a kind of <i>vital</i> truth to the rendering of every natural +form. I call it <i>vital</i> truth, because these chief lines are always +expressive of the past history and present action of the thing. They +show in a mountain, first, how it was built or heaped up; and secondly, +how it is now being worn away, and from what quarter the wildest storms +strike it. In a tree, they show what kind of fortune it has had to +endure from its childhood; how troublesome trees have come in its way, +and pushed it aside, and tried to strangle or starve it; where and when +kind trees have sheltered it, and grown up lovingly together with it, +bending as it bent; what winds torment it most; what boughs of it behave +best, and bear most fruit; and so on. In a wave or cloud, these leading +lines show the run of the tide and of the wind, and the sort of change +which the water or vapour is at any moment enduring in its form, as it +meets shore, or counterwave, or melting sunshine. Now remember, nothing +distinguishes great men from inferior men more than their always, +whether in life or in art, <i>knowing the way things are going</i>. Your +dunce thinks they are standing still, and draws them all fixed; your +wise man sees the change or changing in them, and draws them so—the +animal in its motion, the tree in its growth, the cloud in its course, +the mountain in its wearing away. Try always, whenever you look at a +form, to see the lines in it which have had power over its past fate, +and will have power over its futurity. Those are its <i>awful</i> lines; see +that you seize on those, whatever else you miss. Thus, the leafage in +Fig. 16. (p. 291.) grew round the root of a stone pine, on the brow of a +crag at Sestri, near Genoa, and all the sprays of it are thrust away in +their first budding by the great rude root, and spring out in every +direction round it, as water splashes when a heavy stone is thrown into +it. Then, when they have got clear of the root, they begin to bend up +again; some of them, being little stone pines themselves, have a great +notion of growing upright, if they can; and this struggle of theirs to +recover their straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_295" id="Pg_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> road towards the sky, after being obliged to +grow sideways in their early years, is the effort that will mainly +influence their future destiny, and determine if they are to be crabbed, +forky pines, striking from that rock of Sestri, whose clefts nourish +them, with bared red lightning of angry arms towards the sea; or if they +are to be goodly and solemn pines, with trunks like pillars of temples, +and the purple burning of their branches sheathed in deep globes of +cloudy green. Those, then, are their fateful lines; see that you give +that spring and resilience, whatever you leave ungiven: depend upon it, +their chief beauty is in these.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/804.jpg" width="448" height="207" alt="Fig. 17." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 17.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/805a.jpg" width="448" height="184" alt="Fig. 18." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 18.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 424px;"> +<img src="images/805b.jpg" width="424" height="214" alt="Fig. 19." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 19.</span> +</div> + +<p>So in trees in general and bushes, large or small, you will notice that, +though the boughs spring irregularly and at various angles, there is a +tendency in all to stoop less and less as they near the top of the tree. +This structure, typified in the simplest possible terms at <i>c</i>, Fig. +17., is common to all trees, that I know of, and it gives them a certain +plumy character, and aspect of unity in the hearts of their branches, +which are essential to their beauty. The stem does not merely send off a +wild branch here and there to take its own way, but all the branches +share in one great fountain-like impulse; each has a curve and a path to +take which fills a definite place, and each terminates all its minor +branches at its outer extremity, so as to form a great outer curve, +whose character and proportion are peculiar for each species; that is to +say, the general type or idea of a tree is not as <i>a</i>, Fig. 17., but as +<i>b</i>, in which, observe, the boughs all carry their minor divisions right +out to the bounding curve; not but that smaller branches, by thousands, +terminate in the heart of the tree, but the idea and main purpose in +every branch are to carry all its child branches well out to the air and +light, and let each of them, however small, take its part in filling the +united flow of the bounding curve, so that the type of each separate +bough is again not <i>a</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_296" id="Pg_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> but <i>b</i>, Fig. 18.; approximating, that is to +say, so far to the structure of a plant of broccoli as to throw the +great mass of spray and leafage out to a rounded surface; therefore, +beware of getting into a careless habit of drawing boughs with +successive sweeps of the pen or brush, one hanging to the other, as in +Fig. 19. If you look at the tree-boughs in any painting of Wilson's, you +will see this structure, and nearly every other that is to be avoided, +in their intensest types. You will also notice that Wilson never +conceives a tree as a round mass, but flat, as if it had been pressed +and dried. Most people, in drawing pines, seem to fancy, in the same +way, that the boughs come out only on two sides of the trunk, instead of +all round it; always, therefore, take more pains in trying to draw the +boughs of trees that grow <i>towards</i> you, than those that go off to the +sides; anybody can draw the latter, but the foreshortened ones are not +so easy. It will help you in drawing them to observe that in most trees +the ramification of each branch, though not of the tree itself, is more +or less flattened, and approximates, in its position, to the look of a +hand held out to receive something, or shelter something. If you take a +looking-glass, and hold your hand before it slightly hollowed, with the +palm upwards, and the fingers open, as if you were going to support the +base of some great bowl, larger than you could easily hold, and sketch +your hand as you see it in the glass, with the points of the fingers +towards you, it will materially help you in understanding the way trees +generally hold out their hands; and if then you will turn yours with its +palm downwards, as if you were going to try to hide something, but with +the fingers expanded, you will get a good type<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_297" id="Pg_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> of the action of the +lower boughs in cedars and such other spreading trees.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 321px;"> +<img src="images/806.jpg" width="321" height="412" alt="Fig. 20." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 20.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 20. will give you a good idea of the simplest way in which these +and other such facts can be rapidly expressed; if you copy it carefully, +you will be surprised to find how the touches all group together, in +expressing the plumy toss of the tree branches, and the springing of the +bushes out of the bank,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_298" id="Pg_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> and the undulation of the ground: note the +careful drawing of the footsteps made by the climbers of the little +mound on the left.<a name="FNanchor_220_220" id="FNanchor_220_220"></a><a href="#Footnote_220_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> It is facsimiled from an etching of Turner's, +and is as good an example as you can have of the use of pure and firm +lines; it will also show you how the particular action in foliage, or +anything else to which you wish to direct attention, may be intensified +by the adjuncts. The tall and upright trees are made to look more tall +and upright still, because their line is continued below by the figure +of the farmer with his stick; and the rounded bushes on the bank are +made to look more rounded because their line is continued in one broad +sweep by the black dog and the boy climbing the wall. These figures are +placed entirely with this object, as we shall see more fully hereafter +when we come to talk about composition; but, if you please, we will not +talk about that yet awhile. What I have been telling you about the +beautiful lines and action of foliage has nothing to do with +composition, but only with fact, and the brief and expressive +representation of fact. But there will be no harm in your looking +forward, if you like to do so, to the account, in Letter III. of the +"Law of Radiation," and reading what it said there about tree growth: +indeed it would in some respects have been better to have said it here +than there, only it would have broken up the account of the principles +of composition somewhat awkwardly.</p> + +<p>Now, although the lines indicative of action are not always quite so +manifest in other things as in trees, a little attention will soon +enable you to see that there <i>are</i> such lines in everything. In an old +house roof, a bad observer and bad draughtsman will only see and draw +the spotty irregularity of tiles or slates all over; but a good +draughtsman will see all the bends of the under timbers, where they are +weakest and the weight is telling on them most, and the tracks of the +run of the water in time of rain, where it runs off fastest, and where +it lies long and feeds the moss; and he will be careful, however few +slates he draws, to mark the way they bend together towards those +hollows (which have the future fate of the roof in them), and crowd +gradually together at the top of the gable,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_299" id="Pg_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> partly diminishing in +perspective, partly, perhaps, diminished on purpose (they are so in most +English old houses) by the slate-layer. So in ground, there is always +the direction of the run of the water to be noticed, which rounds the +earth and cuts it into hollows; and, generally, in any bank, or height +worth drawing, a trace of bedded or other internal structure besides. +The figure 20. will give you some idea of the way in which such facts +may be expressed by a few lines. Do you not feel the depression in the +ground all down the hill where the footsteps are, and how the people +always turn to the left at the top, losing breath a little, and then how +the water runs down in that other hollow towards the valley, behind the +roots of the trees?</p> + +<p>Now, I want you in your first sketches from nature to aim exclusively at +understanding and representing these vital facts of form; using the +pen—not now the steel, but the quill—firmly and steadily, never +scrawling with it, but saying to yourself before you lay on a single +touch,—"<i>That</i> leaf is the main one, <i>that</i> bough is the guiding one, +and this touch, <i>so</i> long, <i>so</i> broad, means that part of it,"—point or +side or knot, as the case may be. Resolve always, as you look at the +thing, what you will take, and what miss of it, and never let your hand +run away with you, or get into any habit or method of touch. If you want +a continuous line, your hand should pass calmly from one end of it to +the other, without a tremor; if you want a shaking and broken line, your +hand should shake, or break off, as easily as a musician's finger shakes +or stops on a note: only remember this, that there is no general way of +doing <i>any</i> thing; no recipe can be given you for so much as the drawing +of a cluster of grass. The grass may be ragged and stiff, or tender and +flowing; sunburnt and sheep-bitten, or rank and languid; fresh or dry; +lustrous or dull: look at it, and try to draw it as it is, and don't +think how somebody "told you to <i>do</i> grass." So a stone may be round and +angular, polished or rough, cracked all over like an ill-glazed teacup, +or as united and broad as the breast of Hercules. It may be as flaky as +a wafer, as powdery as a field puff-ball; it may be knotted like a +ship's hawser, or kneaded like hammered iron, or knit like a Damascus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_300" id="Pg_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +sabre, or fused like a glass bottle, or crystallised like a hoar-frost, +or veined like a forest leaf: look at it, and don't try to remember how +anybody told you to "do a stone."</p> + +<p>As soon as you find that your hand obeys you thoroughly and that you can +render any form with a firmness and truth approaching that of Turner's +and Durer's work,<a name="FNanchor_221_221" id="FNanchor_221_221"></a><a href="#Footnote_221_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> you must add a simple but equally careful light +and shade to your pen drawing, so as to make each study as complete as +possible: for which you must prepare yourself thus. Get, if you have the +means, a good impression of one plate of Turner's Liber Studiorum; if +possible, one of the subjects named in the note below.<a name="FNanchor_222_222" id="FNanchor_222_222"></a><a href="#Footnote_222_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_301" id="Pg_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p><p>If you cannot obtain, or even borrow for a little while, any of these +engravings, you must use a photograph instead (how, I will tell you +presently); but, if you can get the Turner, it will be best. You will +see that it is composed of a firm etching in line, with mezzotint shadow +laid over it. You must first copy the etched part of it accurately; to +which end put the print against the window, and trace slowly with the +<i>greatest</i> care every black line; retrace this on smooth drawing-paper; +and, finally, go over the whole with your pen, looking at the original +plate always, so that if you err at all, it may be on the right side, +not making a line which is too curved or too straight already in the +tracing, <i>more</i> curved or <i>more</i> straight, as you go over it. And in +doing this, never work after you are tired, nor to "get the thing done," +for if it is badly done, it will be of no use to you. The true zeal and +patience of a quarter of an hour are better than the sulky and +inattentive labour of a whole day. If you have not made the touches +right at the first going over with the pen, retouch them delicately, +with little ink in your pen, thickening or reinforcing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_302" id="Pg_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> them as they +need: you cannot give too much care to the facsimile. Then keep this +etched outline by you, in order to study at your ease the way in which +Turner uses his line as preparatory for the subsequent shadow;<a name="FNanchor_223_223" id="FNanchor_223_223"></a><a href="#Footnote_223_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> it +is only in getting the two separate that you will be able to reason on +this. Next, copy once more, though for the fourth time, any part of this +etching which you like, and put on the light and shade with the brush, +and any brown colour that matches that of the plate;<a name="FNanchor_224_224" id="FNanchor_224_224"></a><a href="#Footnote_224_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> working it +with the point of the brush as delicately as if you were drawing with +pencil, and dotting and cross-hatching as lightly as you can touch the +paper, till you get the gradations of Turner's engraving. In this +exercise, as in the former one, a quarter of an inch worked to close +resemblance of the copy is worth more than the whole subject carelessly +done. Not that in drawing afterwards from nature, you are to be obliged +to finish every gradation in this way, but that, once having fully +accomplished the drawing <i>something</i> rightly, you will thenceforward +feel and aim at a higher perfection than you could otherwise have +conceived, and the brush will obey you, and bring out quickly and +clearly the loveliest results, with a submissiveness which it would have +wholly refused if you had not put it to severest work. Nothing is more +strange in art than the way that chance and materials seem to favour +you, when once you have thoroughly conquered them. Make yourself quite +independent of chance, get your result in spite of it, and from that day +forward all things will somehow fall as you would have them. Show the +camel's-hair, and the colour in it, that no bending nor blotting are of +any use to escape your will; that the touch and the shade <i>shall</i> +finally be right, if it cost you a year's toil; and from that hour of +corrective conviction, said camel's-hair will bend itself to all your +wishes, and no blot will dare to transgress its appointed border. If you +cannot obtain a print from the Liber Studiorum, get a photograph<a name="FNanchor_225_225" id="FNanchor_225_225"></a><a href="#Footnote_225_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_303" id="Pg_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +of some general landscape subject, with high hills and a village, or +picturesque town, in the middle distance, and some calm water of varied +character (a stream with stones in it, if possible), and copy any part +of it you like, in this same brown colour, working, as I have just +directed you to do from the Liber, a great deal with the point of the +brush. You are under a twofold disadvantage here, however; first, there +are portions in every photograph too delicately done for you at present +to be at all able to copy; and secondly, there are portions always more +obscure or dark than there would be in the real scene, and involved in a +mystery which you will not be able, as yet, to decipher. Both these +characters will be advantageous to you for future study, after you have +gained experience, but they are a little against you in early attempts +at tinting; still you must fight through the difficulty, and get the +power of producing delicate gradations with brown or grey, like those of +the photograph.</p> + +<p>Now observe; the perfection of work would be tinted shadow, like +photography, <i>without</i> any obscurity or exaggerated darkness; and as +long as your effect depends in anywise on visible <i>lines</i>, your art is +not perfect, though it may be first-rate of its kind. But to get +complete results in tints merely, requires both long time and consummate +skill; and you will find that a few well-put pen lines, with a tint +dashed over or under them, get more expression of facts than you could +reach in any other way, by the same expenditure of time. The use of the +Liber Studiorum print to you is chiefly as an example of the simplest +shorthand of this kind, a shorthand which is yet capable of dealing with +the most subtle natural effects; for the firm etching gets at the +expression of complicated details, as leaves, masonry, textures of +ground, &c., while the overlaid tint enables you to express the most +tender distances of sky, and forms of playing light, mist or cloud. Most +of the best drawings by the old masters are executed on this principle, +the touches of the pen being useful also to give a look of transparency +to shadows, which could not otherwise be attained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_304" id="Pg_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> but by great finish +of tinting; and if you have access to any ordinarily good public +gallery, or can make friends of any print-sellers who have folios of old +drawings, or facsimiles of them, you will not be at a loss to find some +example of this unity of pen with tinting. Multitudes of photographs +also are now taken from the best drawings by the old masters, and I hope +that our Mechanics' Institutes, and other societies organized with a +view to public instruction, will not fail to possess themselves of +examples of these, and to make them accessible to students of drawing in +the vicinity; a single print from Turner's Liber, to show the unison of +tint with pen etching, and the "St. Catherine," lately photographed by +Thurston Thompson, from Raphael's drawing in the Louvre, to show the +unity of the soft tinting of the stump with chalk, would be all that is +necessary, and would, I believe, be in many cases more serviceable than +a larger collection, and certainly than a whole gallery of second-rate +prints. Two such examples are peculiarly desirable, because all other +modes of drawing, with pen separately, or chalk separately, or colour +separately, may be seen by the poorest student in any cheap illustrated +book, or in shop windows. But this unity of tinting with line he cannot +generally see but by some especial enquiry, and in some out of the way +places he could not find a single example of it. Supposing that this +should be so in your own case, and that you cannot meet with any example +of this kind, try to make the matter out alone, thus:</p> + +<p>Take a small and simple photograph; allow yourself half an hour to +express its subjects with the pen only, using some permanent liquid +colour instead of ink, outlining its buildings or trees firmly, and +laying in the deeper shadows, as you have been accustomed to do in your +bolder pen drawings; then, when this etching is dry, take your sepia or +grey, and tint it over, getting now the finer gradations of the +photograph; and finally, taking out the higher lights with penknife or +blotting-paper. You will soon find what can be done in this way; and by +a series of experiments you may ascertain for yourself how far the pen +may be made serviceable to reinforce shadows,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_305" id="Pg_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> mark characters of +texture, outline unintelligible masses, and so on. The more time you +have, the more delicate you may make the pen drawing, blending it with +the tint; the less you have, the more distinct you must keep the two. +Practice in this way from one photograph, allowing yourself sometimes +only a quarter of an hour for the whole thing, sometimes an hour, +sometimes two or three hours; in each case drawing the whole subject in +full depth of light and shade, but with such degree of finish in the +parts as is possible in the given time. And this exercise, observe, you +will do well to repeat frequently whether you can get prints and +drawings as well as photographs, or not.</p> + +<p>And now at last, when you can copy a piece of Liber Studiorum, or its +photographic substitute, faithfully, you have the complete means in your +power of working from nature on all subjects that interest you, which +you should do in four different ways.</p> + +<p>First. When you have full time, and your subject is one that will stay +quiet for you, make perfect light and shade studies, or as nearly +perfect as you can, with grey or brown colour of any kind, reinforced +and defined with the pen.</p> + +<p>Secondly. When your time is short, or the subject is so rich in detail +that you feel you cannot complete it intelligibly in light and shade, +make a hasty study of the effect, and give the rest of the time to a +Dureresque expression of the details. If the subject seems to you +interesting, and there are points about it which you cannot understand, +try to get five spare minutes to go close up to it, and make a nearer +memorandum; not that you are ever to bring the details of this nearer +sketch into the farther one, but that you may thus perfect your +experience of the aspect of things, and know that such and such a look +of a tower or cottage at five hundred yards off means <i>that</i> sort of +tower or cottage near; while, also, this nearer sketch will be useful to +prevent any future misinterpretation of your own work. If you have time, +however far your light and shade study in the distance may have been +carried, it is always well, for these reasons, to make also your +Dureresque and your near memoranda; for if your light and shade drawing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_306" id="Pg_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +be good, much of the interesting detail must be lost in it, or +disguised.</p> + +<p>Your hasty study of effect may be made most easily and quickly with a +soft pencil, dashed over when done with one tolerably deep tone of grey, +which will fix the pencil. While this fixing colour is wet, take out the +higher lights with the dry brush; and, when it is quite dry, scratch out +the highest lights with the penknife. Five minutes, carefully applied, +will do much by these means. Of course the paper is to be white. I do +not like studies on grey paper so well; for you can get more gradation +by the taking off your wet tint, and laying it on cunningly a little +darker here and there, than you can with body-colour white, unless you +are consummately skilful. There is no objection to your making your +Dureresque memoranda on grey or yellow paper, and touching or relieving +them with white; only, do not depend much on your white touches, nor +make the sketch for their sake.</p> + +<p>Thirdly. When you have neither time for careful study nor for Dureresque +detail, sketch the outline with pencil, then dash in the shadows with +the brush boldly, trying to do as much as you possibly can at once, and +to get a habit of expedition and decision; laying more colour again and +again into the tints as they dry, using every expedient which your +practice has suggested to you of carrying out your chiaroscuro in the +manageable and moist material, taking the colour off here with the dry +brush, scratching out lights in it there with the wooden handle of the +brush, rubbing it in with your fingers, drying it off with your sponge, +&c. Then, when the colour is in, take your pen and mark the outline +characters vigorously, in the manner of the Liber Studiorum. This kind +of study is very convenient for carrying away pieces of effect which +depend not so much on refinement as on complexity, strange shapes of +involved shadows, sudden effects of sky, &c.; and it is most useful as a +safeguard against any too servile or slow habits which the minute +copying may induce in you; for although the endeavour to obtain velocity +merely for velocity's sake, and dash for display's sake, is as baneful +as it is despicable; there <i>are</i> a velocity and a dash which not only +are compatible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_307" id="Pg_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> with perfect drawing, but obtain certain results which +cannot be had otherwise. And it is perfectly safe for you to study +occasionally for speed and decision, while your continual course of +practice is such as to ensure your retaining an accurate judgment and a +tender touch. Speed, under such circumstances, is rather fatiguing than +tempting; and you will find yourself always beguiled rather into +elaboration than negligence.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 448px;"> +<img src="images/816.jpg" width="448" height="271" alt="Fig. 21." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 21.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fourthly. You will find it of great use, whatever kind of landscape +scenery you are passing through, to get into the habit of making +memoranda of the shapes of shadows. You will find that many objects of +no essential interest in themselves, and neither deserving a finished +study, nor a Dureresque one, may yet become of singular value in +consequence of the fantastic shapes of their shadows; for it happens +often, in distant effect, that the shadow is by much a more important +element than the substance. Thus, in the Alpine bridge, Fig. 21., seen +within a few yards of it, as in the figure, the arrangement of timbers +to which the shadows are owing is perceptible; but at half a mile's +distance, in bright sunlight, the timbers would not be seen; and a good +painter's expression of the bridge would be merely the large spot, and +the crossed bars, of pure grey; wholly without indication of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_308" id="Pg_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +cause, as in Fig. 22. <i>a</i>; and if we saw it at still greater distances, +it would appear, as in Fig. 22. <i>b</i> and <i>c</i>, diminishing at last to a +strange, unintelligible, spider-like spot of grey on the light +hill-side. A perfectly great painter, throughout his distances, +continually reduces his objects to these shadow abstracts; and the +singular, and to many persons unaccountable, effect of the confused +touches in Turner's distances, is owing chiefly to this thorough +accuracy and intense meaning of the shadow abstracts.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 199px;"> +<img src="images/817.jpg" width="199" height="414" alt="Fig. 22. a b c" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 22.</span> +</div> + +<p>Studies of this kind are easily made when you are in haste, with an F. +or HB. pencil: it requires some hardness of the point to ensure your +drawing delicately enough when the forms of the shadows are very subtle; +they are sure to be so somewhere, and are generally so everywhere. The +pencil is indeed a very precious instrument after you are master of the +pen and brush, for the pencil, cunningly used, is both, and will draw a +line with the precision of the one and the gradation of the other; +nevertheless, it is so unsatisfactory to see the sharp touches, on which +the best of the detail depends, getting gradually deadened by time, or +to find the places where force was wanted look shiny, and like a +fire-grate, that I should recommend rather the steady use of the pen, or +brush, and colour, whenever time admits of it; keeping only a small +memorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its well-cut, sheathed +pencil, ready for notes on passing opportunities: but never being +without this.</p> + +<p>Thus much, then, respecting the <i>manner</i> in which you are at first to +draw from nature. But it may perhaps be serviceable to you, if I also +note one or two points respecting your <i>choice</i> of subjects for study, +and the best special methods of treating some of them; for one of by no +means the least difficulties which you have at first to encounter is a +peculiar instinct, common, as far as I have noticed, to all beginners, +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_309" id="Pg_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> fix on exactly the most unmanageable feature in the given scene. +There are many things in every landscape which can be drawn, if at all, +only by the most accomplished artists; and I have noticed that it is +nearly always these which a beginner will dash at; or, if not these, it +will be something which, though pleasing to him in itself, is unfit for +a picture, and in which, when he has drawn it, he will have little +pleasure. As some slight protection against this evil genius of +beginners, the following general warnings may be useful:</p> + +<p>1. Do not draw things that you love, on account of their associations; +or at least do not draw them because you love them; but merely when you +cannot get anything else to draw. If you try to draw places that you +love, you are sure to be always entangled amongst neat brick walls, iron +railings, gravel walks, greenhouses, and quickset hedges; besides that +you will be continually led into some endeavour to make your drawing +pretty, or complete, which will be fatal to your progress. You need +never hope to get on, if you are the least anxious that the drawing you +are actually at work upon should look nice when it is done. All you have +to care about is to make it <i>right</i>, and to learn as much in doing it as +possible. So then, though when you are sitting in your friend's parlour, +or in your own, and have nothing else to do, you may draw any thing that +is there, for practice; even the fire-irons or the pattern on the +carpet: be sure that it <i>is</i> for practice, and not because it is a +beloved carpet, nor a friendly poker and tongs, nor because you wish to +please your friend by drawing her room.</p> + +<p>Also, never make presents of your drawings. Of course I am addressing +you as a <i>beginner</i>—a time may come when your work will be precious to +everybody; but be resolute not to give it away till you know that it is +worth something (as soon as it is worth anything you will know that it +is so). If any one asks you for a present of a drawing, send them a +couple of cakes of colour and a piece of Bristol board: those materials +are, for the present, of more value in that form than if you had spread +the one over the other.</p> + +<p>The main reason for this rule is, however, that its observance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_310" id="Pg_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> will +much protect you from the great danger of trying to make your drawings +pretty.</p> + +<p>2. Never, by choice, draw anything polished; especially if complicated +in form. Avoid all brass rods and curtain ornaments, chandeliers, plate, +glass, and fine steel. A shining knob of a piece of furniture does not +matter if it comes in your way; but do not fret yourself if it will not +look right, and choose only things that do not shine.</p> + +<p>3. Avoid all very neat things. They are exceedingly difficult to draw, +and very ugly when drawn. Choose rough, worn, and clumsy-looking things +as much as possible; for instance, you cannot have a more difficult or +profitless study than a newly-painted Thames wherry, nor a better study +than an old empty coal-barge, lying ashore at low-tide: in general, +everything that you think very ugly will be good for you to draw.</p> + +<p>4. Avoid, as much as possible, studies in which one thing is seen +<i>through</i> another. You will constantly find a thin tree standing before +your chosen cottage, or between you and the turn of the river; its near +branches all entangled with the distance. It is intensely difficult to +represent this; and though, when the tree <i>is</i> there, you must not +imaginarily cut it down, but do it as well as you can, yet always look +for subjects that fall into definite masses, not into network; that is, +rather for a cottage with a dark tree <i>beside</i> it, than for one with a +thin tree in front of it; rather for a mass of wood, soft, blue, and +rounded, than for a ragged copse, or confusion of intricate stems.</p> + +<p>5. Avoid, as far as possible, country divided by hedges. Perhaps nothing +in the whole compass of landscape is so utterly unpicturesque and +unmanageable as the ordinary English patchwork of field and hedge, with +trees dotted over it in independent spots, gnawed straight at the cattle +line.</p> + +<p>Still, do not be discouraged if you find you have chosen ill, and that +the subject overmasters you. It is much better that it should, than that +you should think you had entirely mastered <i>it</i>. But at first, and even +for some time, you must be prepared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_311" id="Pg_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> for very discomfortable failure; +which, nevertheless, will not be without some wholesome result.</p> + +<p>As, however, I have told you what most definitely to avoid, I may, +perhaps, help you a little by saying what to seek. In general, all +<i>banks</i> are beautiful things, and will reward work better than large +landscapes. If you live in a lowland country, you must look for places +where the ground is broken to the river's edges, with decayed posts, or +roots of trees; or, if by great good luck there should be such things +within your reach, for remnants of stone quays or steps, mossy +mill-dams, &c. Nearly every other mile of road in chalk country will +present beautiful bits of broken bank at its sides; better in form and +colour than high chalk cliffs. In woods, one or two trunks, with the +flowery ground below, are at once the richest and easiest kind of study: +a not very thick trunk, say nine inches or a foot in diameter, with ivy +running up it sparingly, is an easy, and always a rewarding subject.</p> + +<p>Large nests of buildings in the middle distance are always beautiful, +when drawn carefully, provided they are not modern rows of pattern +cottages; or villas with Ionic and Doric porticos. Any old English +village, or cluster of farm-houses, drawn with all its ins and outs, and +haystacks, and palings, is sure to be lovely; much more a French one. +French landscape is generally as much superior to English as Swiss +landscape is to French; in some respects, the French is incomparable. +Such scenes as that avenue on the Seine, which I have recommended you to +buy the engraving of, admit no rivalship in their expression of graceful +rusticity and cheerful peace, and in the beauty of component lines.</p> + +<p>In drawing villages, take great pains with the gardens; a rustic garden +is in every way beautiful. If you have time, draw all the rows of +cabbages, and hollyhocks, and broken fences, and wandering eglantines, +and bossy roses: you cannot have better practice, nor be kept by +anything in purer thoughts.</p> + +<p>Make intimate friends of all the brooks in your neighbourhood, and study +them ripple by ripple.</p> + +<p>Village churches in England are not often good subjects;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_312" id="Pg_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> there is a +peculiar meanness about most of them, and awkwardness of line. Old +manor-houses are often pretty. Ruins are usually, with us, too prim, and +cathedrals too orderly. I do not think there is a single cathedral in +England from which it is possible to obtain <i>one</i> subject for an +impressive drawing. There is always some discordant civility, or jarring +vergerism about them.</p> + +<p>If you live in a mountain or hill country, your only danger is +redundance of subject. Be resolved, in the first place, to draw a piece +of rounded rock, with its variegated lichens, quite rightly, getting its +complete roundings, and all the patterns of the lichen in true local +colour. Till you can do this, it is of no use your thinking of sketching +among hills; but when once you have done this, the forms of distant +hills will be comparatively easy.</p> + +<p>When you have practised for a little time from such of these subjects as +may be accessible to you, you will certainly find difficulties arising +which will make you wish more than ever for a master's help: these +difficulties will vary according to the character of your own mind (one +question occurring to one person, and one to another), so that it is +impossible to anticipate them all; and it would make this too large a +book if I answered all that I <i>can</i> anticipate; you must be content to +work on, in good hope that nature will, in her own time, interpret to +you much for herself; that farther experience on your own part will make +some difficulties disappear; and that others will be removed by the +occasional observation of such artists' work as may come in your way. +Nevertheless, I will not close this letter without a few general +remarks, such as may be useful to you after you are somewhat advanced in +power; and these remarks may, I think, be conveniently arranged under +three heads, having reference to the drawing of vegetation, water, and +skies.</p> + +<p>And, first, of vegetation. You may think, perhaps, we have said enough +about trees already; yet if you have done as you were bid, and tried to +draw them frequently enough, and carefully enough, you will be ready by +this time to hear a little more of them. You will also recollect that we +left our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_313" id="Pg_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> question, respecting the mode of expressing intricacy of +leafage, partly unsettled in the first letter. I left it so because I +wanted you to learn the real structure of leaves, by drawing them for +yourself, before I troubled you with the most subtle considerations as +to <i>method</i> in drawing them. And by this time, I imagine, you must have +found out two principal things, universal facts, about leaves; namely, +that they always, in the main tendencies of their lines, indicate a +beautiful divergence of growth, according to the law of radiation, +already referred to;<a name="FNanchor_226_226" id="FNanchor_226_226"></a><a href="#Footnote_226_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> and the second, that this divergence is never +formal, but carried out with endless variety of individual line. I must +now press both these facts on your attention a little farther.</p> + +<p>You may perhaps have been surprised that I have not yet spoken of the +works of J. D. Harding, especially if you happen to have met with the +passages referring to them in "Modern Painters," in which they are +highly praised. They are deservedly praised, for they are the only works +by a modern draughtsman which express in any wise the energy of trees, +and the laws of growth, of which we have been speaking. There are no +lithographic sketches which, for truth of general character, obtained +with little cost of time, at all rival Harding's. Calame, Robert, and +the other lithographic landscape sketchers are altogether inferior in +power, though sometimes a little deeper in meaning. But you must not +take even Harding for a model, though you may use his works for +occasional reference; and if you can afford to buy his "Lessons on +Trees,"<a name="FNanchor_227_227" id="FNanchor_227_227"></a><a href="#Footnote_227_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> it will be serviceable to you in various ways, and will at +present help me to explain the point under consideration. And it is well +that I should illustrate this point by reference to Harding's works, +because their great influence on young students renders it desirable +that their real character should be thoroughly understood.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_314" id="Pg_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p><p>You will find, first, in the title-page of the "Lessons on Trees," a +pretty woodcut, in which the tree stems are drawn with great truth, and +in a very interesting arrangement of lines. Plate 1. is not quite worthy +of Mr. Harding, tending too much to make his pupil, at starting, think +everything depends on black dots; still the main lines are good, and +very characteristic of tree growth. Then, in Plate 2., we come to the +point at issue. The first examples in that plate are given to the pupil +that he may practise from them till his hand gets into the habit of +arranging lines freely in a similar manner; and they are stated by Mr. +Harding to be universal in application; "all outlines expressive of +foliage," he says, "are but modifications of them." They consist of +groups of lines, more or less resembling our Fig. 23.; and the +characters especially insisted upon are, that they "tend at their inner +ends to a common centre;" that "their ends terminate in [are enclosed +by] ovoid curves;" and that "the outer ends are most emphatic."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 377px;"> +<img src="images/823.jpg" width="377" height="214" alt="Fig. 23." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 23.</span> +</div> + +<p>Now, as thus expressive of the great laws of radiation and enclosure, +the main principle of this method of execution confirms, in a very +interesting way, our conclusions respecting foliage composition. The +reason of the last rule, that the outer end of the line is to be most +emphatic, does not indeed at first appear; for the line at one end of a +natural leaf is not more emphatic than the line at the other: but +ultimately, in Harding's method, this darker part of the touch stands +more or less for the shade at the outer extremity of the leaf mass; and, +as Harding uses these touches, they express as much of tree character as +any mere habit of touch <i>can</i> express. But, unfortunately, there is +another law of tree growth, quite as fixed as the law of radiation, +which this and all other conventional modes of execution wholly lose +sight of. This second law is, that the radiating tendency shall be +carried out only as a ruling spirit in reconcilement with perpetual +individual caprice on the part of the separate leaves. So that the +moment a touch is monotonous, it must be also false, the liberty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_315" id="Pg_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> of the +leaf individually being just as essential a truth, as its unity of +growth with its companions in the radiating group.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 345px;"> +<img src="images/824.jpg" width="345" height="292" alt="Fig. 24." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 24.</span> +</div> + +<p>It does not matter how small or apparently symmetrical the cluster may +be, nor how large or vague. You can hardly have a more formal one than +<i>b</i> in Fig. 9. p. 276., nor a less formal one than this shoot of Spanish +chestnut, shedding its leaves, Fig. 24.; but in either of them, even the +general reader, unpractised in any of the previously recommended +exercises, must see that there are wandering lines mixed with the +radiating ones, and radiating lines with the wild ones: and if he takes +the pen and tries to copy either of these examples, he will find that +neither play of hand to left nor to right, neither a free touch nor a +firm touch, nor any learnable or describable touch whatsoever, will +enable him to produce, currently, a resemblance of it; but that he must +either draw it slowly, or give it up. And (which makes the matter worse +still) though gathering the bough, and putting it close to you, or +seeing a piece of near foliage against the sky, you may draw the entire +outline of the leaves, yet if the spray has light upon it, and is ever +so little a way off, you will miss, as we have seen, a point of a leaf +here, and an edge there; some of the surfaces will be confused by +glitter, and some spotted with shade; and if you look carefully through +this confusion for the edges or dark stems which you really <i>can see</i>, +and put only those down, the result will be neither like Fig. 9. nor +Fig. 24., but such an interrupted and puzzling piece of work as Fig. +25.<a name="FNanchor_228_228" id="FNanchor_228_228"></a><a href="#Footnote_228_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_316" id="Pg_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> +<p>Now, it is in the perfect acknowledgment and expression of these <i>three</i> +laws that all good drawing of landscape consists. There is, first, the +organic unity; the law, whether of radiation, or parallelism, or +concurrent action, which rules the masses of herbs and trees, of rocks, +and clouds, and waves; secondly, the individual liberty of the members +subjected to these laws of unity; and, lastly, the mystery under which +the separate character of each is more or less concealed.</p> + +<p>I say, first, there must be observance of the ruling organic law. This +is the first distinction between good artists and bad artists. Your +common sketcher or bad painter puts his leaves on the trees as if they +were moss tied to sticks; he cannot see the lines of action or growth; +he scatters the shapeless clouds over his sky, not perceiving the sweeps +of associated curves which the real clouds are following as they fly; +and he breaks his mountain side into rugged fragments, wholly +unconscious of the lines of force with which the real rocks have risen, +or of the lines of couch in which they repose. On the contrary, it is +the main delight of the great draughtsman to trace these laws of +government; and his tendency to error is always in the exaggeration of +their authority rather than in its denial.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 429px;"> +<img src="images/825.jpg" width="429" height="207" alt="Fig. 25." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 25.</span> +</div> + +<p>Secondly, I say, we have to show the individual character and liberty of +the separate leaves, clouds, or rocks. And herein the great masters +separate themselves finally from the inferior ones; for if the men of +inferior genius ever express law at all, it is by the sacrifice of +individuality. Thus, Salvator Rosa has great perception of the sweep of +foliage and rolling of clouds, but never draws a single leaflet or mist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_317" id="Pg_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> +wreath accurately. Similarly, Gainsborough, in his landscape, has great +feeling for masses of form and harmony of colour; but in the detail +gives nothing but meaningless touches; not even so much as the species +of tree, much less the variety of its leafage, being ever discernable. +Now, although both these expressions of government and individuality are +essential to masterly work, the individuality is the <i>more</i> essential, +and the more difficult of attainment; and, therefore, that attainment +separates the great masters <i>finally</i> from the inferior ones. It is the +more essential, because, in these matters of beautiful arrangement in +visible things, the same rules hold that hold in moral things. It is a +lamentable and unnatural thing to see a number of men subject to no +government, actuated by no ruling principle, and associated by no common +affection: but it would be a more lamentable thing still, were it +possible to see a number of men so oppressed into assimilation as to +have no more any individual hope or character, no differences in aim, no +dissimilarities of passion, no irregularities of judgment; a society in +which no man could help another, since none would be feebler than +himself; no man admire another, since none would be stronger than +himself; no man be grateful to another, since by none he could be +relieved; no man reverence another, since by none he could be +instructed; a society in which every soul would be as the syllable of a +stammerer instead of the word of a speaker, in which every man would +walk as in a frightful dream, seeing spectres of himself, in everlasting +multiplication, gliding helplessly around him in a speechless darkness. +Therefore it is that perpetual difference, play, and change in groups of +form are more essential to them even than their being subdued by some +great gathering law: the law is needful to them for their perfection and +their power, but the difference is needful to them for their <i>life</i>.</p> + +<p>And here it may be noted in passing, that if you enjoy the pursuit of +analogies and types, and have any ingenuity of judgment in discerning +them, you may always accurately ascertain what are the noble characters +in a piece of painting, by merely considering what are the noble +characters of man in his association with his fellows. What grace of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_318" id="Pg_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +manner and refinement of habit are in society, grace of line and +refinement of form are in the association of visible objects. What +advantage or harm there may be in sharpness, ruggedness, or quaintness +in the dealings or conversations of men; precisely that relative degree +of advantage or harm there is in them as elements of pictorial +composition. What power is in liberty or relaxation to strengthen or +relieve human souls; that power, precisely in the same relative degree, +play and laxity of line have to strengthen or refresh the expression of +a picture. And what goodness or greatness we can conceive to arise in +companies of men, from chastity of thought, regularity of life, +simplicity of custom, and balance of authority; precisely that kind of +goodness and greatness may be given to a picture by the purity of its +colour, the severity of its forms, and the symmetry of its masses.</p> + +<p>You need not be in the least afraid of pushing these analogies too far. +They cannot be pushed too far; they are so precise and complete, that +the farther you pursue them, the clearer, the more certain, the more +useful you will find them. They will not fail you in one particular, or +in any direction of enquiry. There is no moral vice, no moral virtue, +which has not its <i>precise</i> prototype in the art of painting; so that +you may at your will illustrate the moral habit by the art, or the art +by the moral habit. Affection and discord, fretfulness and quietness, +feebleness and firmness, luxury and purity, pride and modesty, and all +other such habits, and every conceivable modification and mingling of +them, may be illustrated, with mathematical exactness, by conditions of +line and colour; and not merely these definable vices and virtues, but +also every conceivable shade of human character and passion, from the +righteous or unrighteous majesty of the king, to the innocent or +faultful simplicity of the shepherd boy.</p> + +<p>The pursuit of this subject belongs properly, however, to the +investigation of the higher branches of composition, matters which it +would be quite useless to treat of in this book; and I only allude to +them here, in order that you may understand how the utmost nobleness of +art are concerned in this minute work, to which I have set you in your +beginning of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_319" id="Pg_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> For it is only by the closest attention, and the most +noble execution, that it is possible to express these varieties of +individual character, on which all excellence of portraiture depends, +whether of masses of mankind, or of groups of leaves.</p> + +<p>Now you will be able to understand, among other matters, wherein +consists the excellence, and wherein the shortcoming, of the +tree-drawing of Harding. It is excellent in so far as it fondly +observes, with more truth than any other work of the kind, the great +laws of growth and action in trees: it fails—and observe, not in a +minor, but in a principal point—because it cannot rightly render any +one individual detail or incident of foliage. And in this it fails, not +from mere carelessness or incompletion, but of necessity; the true +drawing of detail being for evermore <i>impossible</i> to a hand which has +contracted a <i>habit</i> of execution. The noble draughtsman draws a leaf, +and stops, and says calmly—That leaf is of such and such a character; I +will give him a friend who will entirely suit him: then he considers +what his friend ought to be, and having determined, he draws his friend. +This process may be as quick as lightning when the master is great—one +of the sons of the giants; or it may be slow and timid: but the process +is always gone through, no touch or form is ever added to another by a +good painter without a mental determination and affirmation. But when +the hand has got into a habit, leaf No. 1. necessitates leaf No. 2.; you +cannot stop, your hand is as a horse with the bit in its teeth; or +rather is, for the time, a machine, throwing out leaves to order and +pattern, all alike. You must stop that hand of yours, however painfully; +make it understand that it is not to have its own way any more, that it +shall never more slip from, one touch to another without orders; +otherwise it is not you who are the master, but your fingers. You may +therefore study Harding's drawing, and take pleasure in it;<a name="FNanchor_229_229" id="FNanchor_229_229"></a><a href="#Footnote_229_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> and you +may properly admire the dexterity which applies the habit of the hand +so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_320" id="Pg_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> well, and produces results on the whole so satisfactory: but you +must never copy it, otherwise your progress will be at once arrested. +The utmost you can ever hope to do, would be a sketch in Harding's +manner, but of far inferior dexterity; for he has given his life's toil +to gain his dexterity, and you, I suppose, have other things to work at +besides drawing. You would also incapacitate yourself from ever +understanding what truly great work was, or what Nature was; but by the +earnest and complete study of facts, you will gradually come to +understand the one and love the other more and more, whether you can +draw well yourself or not.</p> + +<p>I have yet to say a few words respecting the third law above stated, +that of mystery; the law, namely, that nothing is ever seen perfectly, +but only by fragments, and under various conditions of obscurity.<a name="FNanchor_230_230" id="FNanchor_230_230"></a><a href="#Footnote_230_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> +This last fact renders the visible objects of Nature complete as a type +of the human nature. We have, observe, first, Subordination; secondly, +Individuality; lastly, and this not the least essential character, +Incomprehensibility; a perpetual lesson in every serrated point and +shining vein which escape or deceive our sight among the forest leaves, +how little we may hope to discern clearly, or judge justly, the rents +and veins of the human heart; how much of all that is round us, in men's +actions or spirits, which we at first think we understand, a closer and +more loving watchfulness would show to be full of mystery, never to be +either fathomed or withdrawn.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 302px;"> +<img src="images/830a.jpg" width="302" height="386" alt="Fig. 26." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 26.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;"> +<img src="images/830b.jpg" width="353" height="272" alt="Fig. 27." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 27.</span> +</div> + +<p>The expression of this final character in landscape has never been +completely reached by any except Turner; nor can you hope to reach it at +all until you have given much time to the practice of art. Only try +always when you are sketching any object with a view to completion in +light and shade, to draw only those parts of it which you really see +definitely; <i>preparing</i> for the after development of the forms by +chiaroscuro. It is this preparation by isolated touches for a future +arrangement of superimposed light and shade which renders the etchings +of the Liber Studiorum so inestimable as examples and so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_321" id="Pg_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> peculiar. The +character exists more or less in them exactly in proportion to the pains +that Turner has taken. Thus the Æsacus and Hespérie was wrought out with +the greatest possible care; and the principal branch on the near tree is +etched as in Fig. 26. The work looks at first like a scholar's instead +of a master's; but when the light and shade are added, every touch falls +into its place, and a perfect expression of grace and complexity +results. Nay even before the light and shade are added, you ought to be +able to see that these irregular and broken lines, especially where the +expression is given of the way the stem loses itself in the leaves, are +more true than the monotonous though graceful leaf-drawing which, before +Turner's time, had been employed, even by the best masters, in their +distant masses. Fig. 27. is sufficiently characteristic of the manner of +the old woodcuts after Titian; in which, you see, the leaves are too +much of one shape, like bunches of fruit; and the boughs too completely +seen, besides being somewhat soft and leathery in aspect, owing to the +want of angles in their outline. By great men like Titian, this somewhat +conventional structure was only given in haste to distant masses; and +their exquisite delineation of the foreground, kept their +conventionalism from degeneracy: but in the drawing of the Caracci and +other derivative masters, the conventionalism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_322" id="Pg_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> prevails everywhere, and +sinks gradually into scrawled work, like Fig. 28., about the worst which +it is possible to get into the habit of using, though an ignorant person +might perhaps suppose it more "free," and therefore better than Fig. 26. +Note, also, that in noble outline drawing, it does not follow that a +bough is wrongly drawn, because it looks contracted unnaturally +somewhere, as in Fig. 26., just above the foliage. Very often the +muscular action which is to be expressed by the line, runs into the +<i>middle</i> of the branch, and the actual outline of the branch at that +place may be dimly seen, or not at all; and it is then only by the +future shade that its actual shape, or the cause of its disappearance, +will be indicated.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/831.jpg" width="250" height="322" alt="Fig. 28." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 28.</span> +</div> + + +<p>One point more remains to be noted about trees, and I have done. In the +minds of our ordinary water-colour artists, a distant tree seems only to +be conceived as a flat green blot, grouping pleasantly with other +masses, and giving cool colour to the landscape, but differing nowise, +in <i>texture</i>, from the blots of other shapes, which these painters use +to express stones, or water, or figures. But as soon as you have drawn +trees carefully a little while, you will be impressed, and impressed +more strongly the better you draw them, with the idea of their +<i>softness</i> of surface. A distant tree is not a flat and even piece of +colour, but a more or less globular mass of a downy or bloomy texture, +partly passing into a misty vagueness. I find, practically, this lovely +softness of far-away trees the most difficult of all characters to +reach, because it cannot be got by mere scratching or roughening the +surface, but is always associated with such delicate expressions of form +and growth as are only imitable by very careful drawing. The penknife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_323" id="Pg_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> +passed lightly <i>over</i> this careful drawing, will do a good deal; but you +must accustom yourself, from the beginning, to aim much at this softness +in the lines of the drawing itself, by crossing them delicately, and +more or less effacing and confusing the edges. You must invent, +according to the character of tree, various modes of execution adapted +to express its texture; but always keep this character of softness in +your mind and in your scope of aim; for in most landscapes it is the +intention of nature that the tenderness and transparent infinitude of +her foliage should be felt, even at the far distance, in the most +distinct opposition to the solid masses and flat surfaces of rocks or +buildings.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>II. We were, in the second place, to consider a little the modes of +representing water, of which important feature of landscape I have +hardly said anything yet.</p> + +<p>Water is expressed, in common drawings, by conventional lines, whose +horizontality is supposed to convey the idea of its surface. In +paintings, white dashes or bars of light are used for the same purpose.</p> + +<p>But these and all other such expedients are vain and absurd. A piece of +calm water always contains a picture in itself, an exquisite reflection +of the objects above it. If you give the time necessary to draw these +reflections, disturbing them here and there as you see the breeze or +current disturb them, you will get the effect of the water; but if you +have not patience to draw the reflections, no expedient will give you a +true effect. The picture in the pool needs nearly as much delicate +drawing as the picture above the pool; except only that if there be the +least motion on the water, the horizontal lines of the images will be +diffused and broken, while the vertical ones will remain decisive, and +the oblique ones decisive in proportion to their steepness.</p> + +<p>A few close studies will soon teach you this: the only thing you need to +be told is to watch carefully the lines of <i>disturbance</i> on the surface, +as when a bird swims across it, or a fish rises, or the current plays +round a stone, reed, or other obstacle. Take the greatest pains to get +the <i>curves</i> of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_324" id="Pg_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> lines true; the whole value of your careful +drawing of the reflections may be lost by your admitting a single false +curve of ripple from a wild duck's breast. And (as in other subjects) if +you are dissatisfied with your result, always try for more unity and +delicacy: if your reflections are only soft and gradated enough, they +are nearly sure to give you a pleasant effect. When you are taking +pains, work the softer reflections, where they are drawn out by motion +in the water, with touches as nearly horizontal as may be; but when you +are in a hurry, indicate the place and play of the images with vertical +lines. The actual <i>construction</i> of a calm elongated reflection is with +horizontal lines: but it is often impossible to draw the descending +shades delicately enough with a horizontal touch; and it is best always +when you are in a hurry, and sometimes when you are not, to use the +vertical touch. When the ripples are large, the reflections become +shaken, and must be drawn with bold undulatory descending lines.</p> + +<p>I need not, I should think, tell you that it is of the greatest possible +importance to draw the curves of the shore rightly. Their perspective +is, if not more subtle, at least more stringent than that of any other +lines in Nature. It will not be detected by the general observer, if you +miss the curve of a branch, or the sweep of a cloud, or the perspective +of a building;<a name="FNanchor_231_231" id="FNanchor_231_231"></a><a href="#Footnote_231_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> but every intelligent spectator will feel the +difference between a rightly drawn bend of shore or shingle, and a false +one. <i>Absolutely</i> right, in difficult river perspectives seen from +heights, I believe no one but Turner ever has been yet; and observe, +there is <span class="smcap">no</span> rule for them. To develope the curve mathematically would +require a knowledge of the exact quantity of water in the river, the +shape of its bed, and the hardness of the rock or shore; and even with +these data, the problem would be one which no mathematician could solve +but approximatively. The instinct of the eye can do it; nothing else.</p> + +<p>If, after a little study from Nature, you get puzzled by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_325" id="Pg_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> great +differences between the aspect of the reflected image and that of the +object casting it; and if you wish to know the law of reflection, it is +simply this: Suppose all the objects above the water <i>actually</i> reversed +(not in appearance, but in fact) beneath the water, and precisely the +same in form and in relative position, only all topsy-turvy. Then, +whatever you can see, from the place in which you stand, of the solid +objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection, +always in the true perspective of the solid objects so reversed.</p> + +<p>If you cannot quite understand this in looking at water, take a mirror, +lay it horizontally on the table, put some books and papers upon it, and +draw them and their reflections; moving them about, and watching how +their reflections alter, and chiefly how their reflected colours and +shades differ from their own colours and shades, by being brought into +other oppositions. This difference in chiaroscuro is a more important +character in water painting than mere difference in form.</p> + +<p>When you are drawing shallow or muddy water, you will see shadows on the +bottom, or on the surface, continually modifying the reflections; and in +a clear mountain stream, the most wonderful complications of effect +resulting from the shadows and reflections of the stones in it, mingling +with the aspect of the stones themselves seen through the water. Do not +be frightened at the complexity; but, on the other hand, do not hope to +render it hastily. Look at it well, making out everything that you see, +and distinguishing each component part of the effect. There will be, +first, the stones seen through the water, distorted always by +refraction, so that if the general structure of the stone shows straight +parallel lines above the water, you may be sure they will be bent where +they enter it; then the reflection of the part of the stone above the +water crosses and interferes with the part that is seen through it, so +that you can hardly tell which is which; and wherever the reflection is +darkest, you will see through the water best, and <i>vice versâ</i>. Then the +real shadow of the stone crosses both these images, and where that +shadow falls, it makes the water more reflective, and where the sunshine +falls, you will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_326" id="Pg_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> see more of the surface of the water, and of any dust +or motes that may be floating on it: but whether you are to see, at the +same spot, most of the bottom of the water, or of the reflection of the +objects above, depends on the position of the eye. The more you look +down into the water, the better you see objects through it; the more you +look along it, the eye being low, the more you see the reflection of +objects above it. Hence the colour of a given space of surface in a +stream will entirely change while you stand still in the same spot, +merely as you stoop or raise your head; and thus the colours with which +water is painted are an indication of the position of the spectator, and +connected inseparably with the perspective of the shores. The most +beautiful of all results that I know in mountain streams is when the +water is shallow, and the stones at the bottom are rich reddish-orange +and black, and the water is seen at an angle which exactly divides the +visible colours between those of the stones and that of the sky, and the +sky is of clear, full blue. The resulting purple obtained by the +blending of the blue and the orange-red, broken by the play of +innumerable gradations in the stones, is indescribably lovely.</p> + +<p>All this seems complicated enough already; but if there be a strong +colour in the clear water itself, as of green or blue in the Swiss +lakes, all these phenomena are doubly involved; for the darker +reflections now become of the colour of the water. The reflection of a +black gondola, for instance, at Venice, is never black, but pure dark +green. And, farther, the colour of the water itself is of three kinds: +one, seen on the surface, is a kind of milky bloom; the next is seen +where the waves let light through them, at their edges; and the third, +shown as a change of colour on the objects seen through the water. Thus, +the same wave that makes a white object look of a clear blue, when seen +through it, will take a red or violet-coloured bloom on its surface, and +will be made pure emerald green by transmitted sunshine through its +edges. With all this, however, you are not much concerned at present, +but I tell it you partly as a preparation for what we have afterwards to +say about colour, and partly that you may approach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_327" id="Pg_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> lakes and streams +with reverence, and study them as carefully as other things, not hoping +to express them by a few horizontal dashes of white, or a few tremulous +blots.<a name="FNanchor_232_232" id="FNanchor_232_232"></a><a href="#Footnote_232_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> Not but that much may be done by tremulous blots, when you +know precisely what you mean by them, as you will see by many of the +Turner sketches, which are now framed at the National Gallery; but you +must have painted water many and many a day—yes, and all day +long—before you can hope to do anything like those.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>III. Lastly. You may perhaps wonder why, before passing to the clouds, I +say nothing special about <i>ground</i>.<a name="FNanchor_233_233" id="FNanchor_233_233"></a><a href="#Footnote_233_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> But there is too much to be +said about that to admit of my saying it here. You will find the +principal laws of its structure examined at length in the fourth volume +of "Modern Painters;" and if you can get that volume, and copy carefully +Plate 21., which I have etched after Turner with great pains, it will +give you as much help as you need in the linear expression of +ground-surface. Strive to get the retirement and succession of masses in +irregular ground: much may be done in this way by careful watching of +the perspective diminutions of its herbage, as well as by contour; and +much also by shadows. If you draw the shadows of leaves and tree trunks +on any undulating ground with entire carefulness, you will be surprised +to find how much they explain of the form and distance of the earth on +which they fall.</p> + +<p>Passing then to skies, note that there is this great peculiarity about +sky subject, as distinguished from earth subject;—that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_328" id="Pg_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> the clouds, not +being much liable to man's interference, are always beautifully +arranged. You cannot be sure of this in any other features of landscape. +The rock on which the effect of a mountain scene especially depends is +always precisely that which the roadmaker blasts or the landlord +quarries; and the spot of green which Nature left with a special purpose +by her dark forest sides, and finished with her most delicate grasses, +is always that which the farmer ploughs or builds upon. But the clouds, +though we can hide them with smoke, and mix them with poison, cannot be +quarried nor built over, and they are always therefore gloriously +arranged; so gloriously, that unless you have notable powers of memory +you need not hope to approach the effect of any sky that interests you. +For both its grace and its glow depend upon the united influence of +every cloud within its compass: they all move and burn together in a +marvellous harmony; not a cloud of them is out of its appointed place, +or fails of its part in the choir: and if you are not able to recollect +(which in the case of a complicated sky it is impossible you should) +precisely the form and position of all the clouds at a given moment, you +cannot draw the sky at all; for the clouds will not fit if you draw one +part of them three or four minutes before another. You must try +therefore to help what memory you have, by sketching at the utmost +possible speed the whole range of the clouds; marking, by any shorthand +or symbolic work you can hit upon, the peculiar character of each, as +transparent, or fleecy, or linear, or undulatory; giving afterwards such +completion to the parts as your recollection will enable you to do. +This, however, only when the sky is interesting from its general aspect; +at other times, do not try to draw all the sky, but a single cloud: +sometimes a round cumulus will stay five or six minutes quite steady +enough to let you mark out his principal masses: and one or two white or +crimson lines which cross the sunrise will often stay without serious +change for as long. And in order to be the readier in drawing them, +practise occasionally drawing lumps of cotton, which will teach you +better than any other stable thing the kind of softness there is in +clouds. For you will find when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_329" id="Pg_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> you have made a few genuine studies of +sky, and then look at any ancient or modern painting, that ordinary +artists have always fallen into one of two faults: either, in rounding +the clouds, they make them as solid and hard-edged as a heap of stones +tied up in a sack, or they represent them not as rounded at all, but as +vague wreaths of mist or flat lights in the sky; and think they have +done enough in leaving a little white paper between dashes of blue, or +in taking an irregular space out with the sponge. Now clouds are not as +solid as flour-sacks; but, on the other hand, they are neither spongy +nor flat. They are definite and very beautiful forms of sculptured mist; +sculptured is a perfectly accurate word; they are not more <i>drifted</i> +into form than they are <i>carved</i> into form, the warm air around them +cutting them into shape by absorbing the visible vapour beyond certain +limits; hence their angular and fantastic outlines, as different from a +swollen, spherical, or globular formation, on the one hand, as from that +of flat films or shapeless mists on the other. And the worst of all is, +that while these forms are difficult enough to draw on any terms, +especially considering that they never stay quiet, they must be drawn +also at greater disadvantage of light and shade than any others, the +force of light in clouds being wholly unattainable by art; so that if we +put shade enough to express their form as positively as it is expressed +in reality, we must make them painfully too dark on the dark sides. +Nevertheless, they are so beautiful, if you in the least succeed with +them, that you will hardly, I think, lose courage. Outline them often +with the pen, as you can catch them here and there; one of the chief +uses of doing this will be, not so much the memorandum so obtained as +the lesson you will get respecting the softness of the cloud-outlines. +You will always find yourself at a loss to see where the outline really +is; and when drawn it will always look hard and false, and will +assuredly be either too round or too square, however often you alter it, +merely passing from the one fault to the other and back again, the real +cloud striking an inexpressible mean between roundness and squareness in +all its coils or battlements. I speak at present, of course, only of the +cumulus cloud: the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_330" id="Pg_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> lighter wreaths and flakes of the upper sky cannot +be outlined—they can only be sketched, like locks of hair, by many +lines of the pen. Firmly developed bars of cloud on the horizon are in +general easy enough, and may be drawn with decision. When you have thus +accustomed yourself a little to the placing and action of clouds, try to +work out their light and shade, just as carefully as you do that of +other things, looking <i>exclusively</i> for examples of treatment to the +vignettes in Rogers's Italy and Poems, and to the Liber Studiorum, +unless you have access to some examples of Turner's own work. No other +artist ever yet drew the sky: even Titian's clouds, and Tintoret's, are +conventional. The clouds in the "Ben Arthur," "Source of Arveron," and +"Calais Pier," are among the best of Turner's storm studies; and of the +upper clouds, the vignettes to Rogers's Poems furnish as many examples +as you need.</p> + +<p>And now, as our first lesson was taken from the sky, so, for the +present, let our last be. I do not advise you to be in any haste to +master the contents of my next letter. If you have any real talent for +drawing, you will take delight in the discoveries of natural loveliness, +which the studies I have already proposed will lead you into, among the +fields and hills; and be assured that the more quietly and +single-heartedly you take each step in the art, the quicker, on the +whole, will your progress be. I would rather, indeed, have discussed the +subjects of the following letter at greater length, and in a separate +work addressed to more advanced students; but as there are one or two +things to be said on composition which may set the young artist's mind +somewhat more at rest, or furnish him with defence from the urgency of +ill-advisers, I will glance over the main heads of the matter here; +trusting that my doing so may not beguile you, my dear reader, from your +serious work, or lead you to think me, in occupying part of this book +with talk not altogether relevant to it, less entirely or</p> + +<p class="right"> +Faithfully yours,<br /> + +J. Ruskin. +</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_220_220" id="Footnote_220_220"></a><a href="#FNanchor_220_220"><span class="label">[220]</span></a> It is meant, I believe, for "Salt Hill."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_221_221" id="Footnote_221_221"></a><a href="#FNanchor_221_221"><span class="label">[221]</span></a> I do not mean that you can approach Turner or Durer in +their strength, that is to say, in their imagination or power of design. +But you may approach them, by perseverance, in truth of manner.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_222_222" id="Footnote_222_222"></a><a href="#FNanchor_222_222"><span class="label">[222]</span></a> The following are the most desirable plates: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Grande Chartreuse.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Æsacus and Hespérie.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cephalus and Procris.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Source of Arveron.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ben Arthur.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watermill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hindhead Hill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hedging and Ditching.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dumblane Abbey.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Morpeth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Calais Pier.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pembury Mill.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little Devil's Bridge.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">River Wye (<i>not</i> Wye and Severn).<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holy Island.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clyde.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lauffenbourg.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blair Athol.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alps from Grenoble.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Raglan. (Subject with quiet brook, trees, and castle on the right.)<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +If you cannot get one of these, any of the others will be serviceable, +except only the twelve following, which are quite useless:— +</p><p> +1. Scene in Italy, with goats on a walled road, and trees above. +</p><p> +2. Interior of church. +</p><p> +3. Scene with bridge, and trees above; figures on left, one playing a +pipe. +</p><p> +4. Scene with figure playing on tambourine. +</p><p> +5. Scene on Thames with high trees, and a square tower of a church seen +through them. +</p><p> +6. Fifth Plague of Egypt. +</p><p> +7. Tenth Plague of Egypt. +</p><p> +8. Rivaulx Abbey. +</p><p> +9. Wye and Severn. +</p><p> +10. Scene with castle in centre, cows under trees on the left. +</p><p> +11. Martello Towers. +</p><p> +12. Calm. +</p><p> +It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the original +etchings; if you should, it will be a drawing-master in itself alone, +for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and-ink drawing by Turner, but to +a very careful one: only observe, the Source of Arveron, Raglan, and +Dumblane were not etched by Turner; and the etchings of those three are +not good for separate study, though it is deeply interesting to see how +Turner, apparently provoked at the failure of the beginnings in the +Arveron and Raglan, took the plates up himself, and either conquered or +brought into use the bad etching by his marvellous engraving. The +Dumblane was, however, well etched by Mr. Lupton, and beautifully +engraved by him. The finest Turner etching is of an aqueduct with a +stork standing in a mountain stream, not in the published series; and +next to it, are the unpublished etchings of the Via Mala and Crowhurst. +Turner seems to have been so fond of these plates that he kept +retouching and finishing them, and never made up his mind to let them +go. The Via Mala is certainly, in the state in which Turner left it, the +finest of the whole series: its etching is, as I said, the best after +that of the aqueduct. Figure 20., above, is part of another fine +unpublished etching, "Windsor, from Salt Hill." Of the published +etchings, the finest are the Ben Arthur, Æsacus, Cephalus, and Stone +Pines, with the Girl washing at a Cistern; the three latter are the more +generally instructive. Hindhead Hill, Isis, Jason, and Morpeth, are also +very desirable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_223_223" id="Footnote_223_223"></a><a href="#FNanchor_223_223"><span class="label">[223]</span></a> You will find more notice of this point in the account of +Harding's tree-drawing, a little farther on.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_224_224" id="Footnote_224_224"></a><a href="#FNanchor_224_224"><span class="label">[224]</span></a> The impressions vary so much in colour that no brown can +be specified.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_225_225" id="Footnote_225_225"></a><a href="#FNanchor_225_225"><span class="label">[225]</span></a> You had better get such a photograph, even if you have a +Liber print as well.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_226_226" id="Footnote_226_226"></a><a href="#FNanchor_226_226"><span class="label">[226]</span></a> See the closing letter in this volume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_227_227" id="Footnote_227_227"></a><a href="#FNanchor_227_227"><span class="label">[227]</span></a> Bogue, Fleet Street. If you are not acquainted with +Harding's works (an unlikely supposition, considering their popularity), +and cannot meet with the one in question, the diagrams given here will +enable you to understand all that is needful for our purposes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_228_228" id="Footnote_228_228"></a><a href="#FNanchor_228_228"><span class="label">[228]</span></a> I draw this figure (a young shoot of oak) in outline +only, it being impossible to express the refinements of shade in distant +foliage in a woodcut.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_229_229" id="Footnote_229_229"></a><a href="#FNanchor_229_229"><span class="label">[229]</span></a> His lithographic sketches, those, for instance, in the +Park and the Forest, and his various lessons on foliage, possess greater +merit than the more ambitious engravings in his "Principles and Practice +of Art." There are many useful remarks, however, dispersed through this +latter work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_230_230" id="Footnote_230_230"></a><a href="#FNanchor_230_230"><span class="label">[230]</span></a> On this law you will do well, if you can get access to +it, to look at the fourth chapter of the fourth volume of "Modern +Painters."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_231_231" id="Footnote_231_231"></a><a href="#FNanchor_231_231"><span class="label">[231]</span></a> The student may hardly at first believe that the +perspective of buildings is of little consequence: but he will find it +so ultimately. See the remarks on this point in the Preface.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_232_232" id="Footnote_232_232"></a><a href="#FNanchor_232_232"><span class="label">[232]</span></a> It is a useful piece of study to dissolve some Prussian +blue in water, so as to make the liquid definitely blue: fill a large +white basin with the solution, and put anything you like to float on it, +or lie in it; walnut shells, bits of wood, leaves of flowers, &c. Then +study the effects of the reflections, and of the stems of the flowers or +submerged portions of the floating objects, as they appear through the +blue liquid; noting especially how, as you lower your head and look +along the surface, you see the reflections clearly; and how, as you +raise your head, you lose the reflections, and see the submerged stems +clearly.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_233_233" id="Footnote_233_233"></a><a href="#FNanchor_233_233"><span class="label">[233]</span></a> Respecting Architectural Drawing, see the notice of the +works of Prout in the Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_331" id="Pg_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> +<h2>LETTER III.</h2> + +<h3>ON COLOUR AND COMPOSITION.</h3> + + +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Reader</span>:—</p> + +<p>If you have been obedient, and have hitherto done all that I have told +you, I trust it has not been without much subdued remonstrance, and some +serious vexation. For I should be sorry if, when you were led by the +course of your study to observe closely such things as are beautiful in +colour, you had not longed to paint them, and felt considerable +difficulty in complying with your restriction to the use of black, or +blue, or grey. You <i>ought</i> to love colour, and to think nothing quite +beautiful or perfect without it; and if you really do love it, for its +own sake, and are not merely desirous to colour because you think +painting a finer thing than drawing, there is some chance you may colour +well. Nevertheless, you need not hope ever to produce anything more than +pleasant helps to memory, or useful and suggestive sketches in colour, +unless you mean to be wholly an artist. You may, in the time which other +vocations leave at your disposal, produce finished, beautiful, and +masterly drawings in light and shade. But to colour well, requires your +life. It cannot be done cheaper. The difficulty of doing right is +increased—not twofold nor threefold, but a thousandfold, and more—by +the addition of colour to your work. For the chances are more than a +thousand to one against your being right both in form and colour with a +given touch: it is difficult enough to be right in form, if you attend +to that only; but when you have to attend, at the same moment, to a much +more subtle thing than the form, the difficulty is strangely +increased—and multiplied almost to infinity by this great fact, that, +while form is absolute, so that you can say at the moment you draw any +line that it is either right or wrong, colour is wholly <i>relative</i>. +Every hue throughout your work is altered by every touch that you add in +other places; so that what was warm a minute ago, becomes cold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_332" id="Pg_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> when you +have put a hotter colour in another place, and what was in harmony when +you left it, becomes discordant as you set other colours beside it; so +that every touch must be laid, not with a view to its effect at the +time, but with a view to its effect in futurity, the result upon it of +all that is afterwards to be done being previously considered. You may +easily understand that, this being so, nothing but the devotion of life, +and great genius besides, can make a colourist.</p> + +<p>But though you cannot produce finished coloured drawings of any value, +you may give yourself much pleasure, and be of great use to other +people, by occasionally sketching with a view to colour only; and +preserving distinct statements of certain colour facts—as that the +harvest-moon at rising was of such and such a red, and surrounded by +clouds of such and such a rosy grey; that the mountains at evening were +in truth so deep in purple; and the waves by the boat's side were indeed +of that incredible green. This only, observe, if you have an eye for +colour; but you may presume that you have this, if you enjoy colour.</p> + +<p>And, though of course you should always give as much form to your +subject as your attention to its colour will admit of, remember that the +whole value of what you are about depends, in a coloured sketch, on the +colour <i>merely</i>. If the colour is wrong, everything is wrong: just as, +if you are singing, and sing false notes, it does not matter how true +the words are. If you sing at all, you must sing sweetly; and if you +colour at all, you must colour rightly. Give up <i>all</i> the form, rather +than the slightest part of the colour: just as, if you felt yourself in +danger of a false note, you would give up the word, and sing a +meaningless sound, if you felt that so you could save the note. Never +mind though your houses are all tumbling down—though your clouds are +mere blots, and your trees mere knobs, and your sun and moon like +crooked sixpences—so only that trees, clouds, houses, and sun or moon, +are of the right colours. Of course, the discipline you have gone +through will enable you to hint something of form, even in the fastest +sweep of the brush; but do not let the thought of form hamper you in the +least, when you begin to make coloured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_333" id="Pg_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> memoranda. If you want the form +of the subject, draw it in black and white. If you want its colour, take +its colour, and be sure you <i>have</i> it, and not a spurious, treacherous, +half-measured piece of mutual concession, with the colours all wrong, +and the forms still anything but right. It is best to get into the habit +of considering the coloured work merely as supplementary to your other +studies; making your careful drawings of the subject first, and then a +coloured memorandum separately, as shapeless as you like, but faithful +in hue, and entirely minding its own business. This principle, however, +bears chiefly on large and distant subjects; in foregrounds and near +studies, the colour cannot be had without a good deal of definition of +form. For if you do not map the mosses on the stones accurately, you +will not have the right quantity of colour in each bit of moss pattern, +and then none of the colours will look right; but it always simplifies +the work much if you are clear as to your point of aim, and satisfied, +when necessary, to fail of all but that.</p> + +<p>Now, of course, if I were to enter into detail respecting colouring, +which is the beginning and end of a painter's craft, I should need to +make this a work in three volumes instead of three letters, and to +illustrate it in the costliest way. I only hope at present to set you +pleasantly and profitably to work, leaving you, within the tethering of +certain leading-strings, to gather what advantages you can from the +works of art of which every year brings a greater number within your +reach;—and from the instruction which, every year, our rising artists +will be more ready to give kindly, and better able to give wisely.</p> + +<p>And, first, of materials. Use hard cake colours, not moist colours: +grind a sufficient quantity of each on your palette every morning, +keeping a separate plate, large and deep, for colours to be used in +broad washes, and wash both plate and palette every evening, so as to be +able always to get good and pure colour when you need it; and force +yourself into cleanly and orderly habits about your colours. The two +best colourists of modern times, Turner and Rossetti,<a name="FNanchor_234_234" id="FNanchor_234_234"></a><a href="#Footnote_234_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> afford us, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_334" id="Pg_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +am sorry to say, no confirmation of this precept by their practice. +Turner was, and Rossetti is, as slovenly in all their procedures as men +can well be; but the result of this was, with Turner, that the colours +have altered in all his pictures, and in many of his drawings; and the +result of it with Rossetti is, that, though his colours are safe, he has +sometimes to throw aside work that was half done, and begin over again. +William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour, is very neat in his practice; so, +I believe, is Mulready; so is John Lewis; and so are the leading +Pre-Raphaelites, Rossetti only excepted. And there can be no doubt about +the goodness of the advice, if it were only for this reason, that the +more particular you are about your colours the more you will get into a +deliberate and methodical habit in using them, and all true <i>speed</i> in +colouring comes of this deliberation.</p> + +<p>Use Chinese white, well ground, to mix with your colours in order to +pale them, instead of a quantity of water. You will thus be able to +shape your masses more quietly, and play the colours about with more +ease; they will not damp your paper so much, and you will be able to go +on continually, and lay forms of passing cloud and other fugitive or +delicately shaped lights, otherwise unattainable except by time.</p> + +<p>This mixing of white with the pigments, so as to render them opaque, +constitutes <i>body</i>-colour drawing as opposed to <i>transparent</i>-colour +drawing and you will, perhaps, have it often said to you that this +body-colour is "illegitimate." It is just as legitimate as oil-painting, +being, so far as handling is concerned, the same process, only without +its uncleanliness, its unwholesomeness, or its inconvenience; for oil +will not dry quickly, nor carry safely, nor give the same effects of +atmosphere without tenfold labour. And if you hear it said that the +body-colour looks chalky or opaque, and, as is very likely, think so +yourself, be yet assured of this, that though certain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_335" id="Pg_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> effects of glow +and transparencies of gloom are not to be reached without transparent +colour, those glows and glooms are <i>not</i> the noblest aim of art. After +many years' study of the various results of fresco and oil painting in +Italy, and of body-colour and transparent colour in England, I am now +entirely convinced that the greatest things that are to be done in art +must be done in dead colour. The habit of depending on varnish or on +lucid tints transparency, makes the painter comparatively lose sight of +the nobler translucence which is obtained by breaking various colours +amidst each other: and even when, as by Correggio, exquisite play of hue +is joined with exquisite transparency, the delight in the depth almost +always leads the painter into mean and false chiaroscuro; it leads him +to like dark backgrounds instead of luminous ones,<a name="FNanchor_235_235" id="FNanchor_235_235"></a><a href="#Footnote_235_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> and to enjoy, in +general, quality of colour more than grandeur of composition, and +confined light rather than open sunshine: so that the really greatest +thoughts of the greatest men have always, so far as I remember, been +reached in dead colour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_336" id="Pg_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> and the noblest oil pictures of Tintoret and +Veronese are those which are likest frescos.</p> + +<p>Besides all this, the fact is, that though sometimes a little chalky and +coarse-looking, body-colour is, in a sketch, infinitely liker nature +than transparent colour: the bloom and mist of distance are accurately +and instantly represented by the film of opaque blue (<i>quite</i> +accurately, I think, by <i>nothing</i> else); and for ground, rocks, and +buildings, the earthy and solid surface is, of course, always truer than +the most finished and carefully wrought work in transparent tints can +ever be.</p> + +<p>Against one thing, however, I must steadily caution you. All kinds of +colour are equally illegitimate, if you think they will allow you to +alter at your pleasure, or blunder at your ease. There is <i>no</i> vehicle +or method of colour which admits of alteration or repentance; you must +be right at once, or never; and you might as well hope to catch a rifle +bullet in your hand, and put it straight, when it was going wrong, as to +recover a tint once spoiled. The secret of all good colour in oil, +water, or anything else, lies primarily in that sentence spoken to me by +Mulready: "Know what you have to do." The process may be a long one, +perhaps: you may have to ground with one colour; to touch it with +fragments of a second; to crumble a third into the interstices; a fourth +into the interstices of the third; to glaze the whole with a fifth; and +to reinforce in points with a sixth: but whether you have one, or ten, +or twenty processes to go through, you must go <i>straight</i> through them, +knowingly and foreseeingly all the way; and if you get the thing once +wrong, there is no hope for you but in washing or scraping boldly down +to the white ground, and beginning again.</p> + +<p>The drawing in body-colour will tend to teach you all this, more than +any other method, and above all it will prevent you from falling into +the pestilent habit of sponging to get texture; a trick which has nearly +ruined our modern water-colour school of art. There are sometimes places +in which a skilful artist will roughen his paper a little to get certain +conditions of dusty colour with more ease than he could otherwise; and +sometimes a skilfully rased piece of paper will, in the midst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_337" id="Pg_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> of +transparent tints, answer nearly the purpose of chalky body-colour in +representing the surfaces of rocks or buildings. But artifices of this +kind are always treacherous in a tyro's hands, tempting him to trust in +them; and you had better always work on white or grey paper as smooth as +silk;<a name="FNanchor_236_236" id="FNanchor_236_236"></a><a href="#Footnote_236_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a> and never disturb the surface of your colour or paper, except +finally to scratch out the very highest lights if you are using +transparent colours.</p> + +<p>I have said above that body-colour drawing will teach you the use of +colour better than working with merely transparent tints; but this is +not because the process is an easier one, but because it is a more +<i>complete</i> one, and also because it involves <i>some</i> working with +transparent tints in the best way. You are not to think that because you +use body-colour you may make any kind of mess that you like, and yet get +out of it. But you are to avail yourself of the characters of your +material, which enable you most nearly to imitate the processes of +Nature. Thus, suppose you have a red rocky cliff to sketch, with blue +clouds floating over it. You paint your cliff first firmly, then take +your blue, mixing it to such a tint (and here is a great part of the +skill needed), that when it is laid over the red, in the thickness +required for the effect of the mist, the warm rock-colour showing +through the blue cloud-colour, may bring it to exactly the hue you want; +(your upper tint, therefore, must be mixed colder than you want it;) +then you lay it on, varying it as you strike it, getting the forms of +the mist at once, and, if it be rightly done, with exquisite quality of +colour, from the warm tint's showing through and between the particles +of the other. When it is dry, you may add a little colour to retouch the +edges where they want shape, or heighten the lights where they want +roundness, or put another tone over the whole; but you can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_338" id="Pg_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> take none +away. If you touch or disturb the surface, or by any untoward accident +mix the under and upper colours together, all is lost irrecoverably. +Begin your drawing from the ground again if you like, or throw it into +the fire if you like. But do not waste time in trying to mend it.<a name="FNanchor_237_237" id="FNanchor_237_237"></a><a href="#Footnote_237_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a></p> + +<p>This discussion of the relative merits of transparent and opaque colour +has, however, led us a little beyond the point where we should have +begun; we must go back to our palette, if you please. Get a cake of each +of the hard colours named in the note below<a name="FNanchor_238_238" id="FNanchor_238_238"></a><a href="#Footnote_238_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> and try experiments on +their simple combinations, by mixing each colour with every other. If +you like to do it in an orderly way, you may prepare a squared piece of +pasteboard, and put the pure colours in columns at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_339" id="Pg_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> the top and side; +the mixed tints being given at the intersections, thus (the letters +standing for colours):</p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>b</td><td align='left'>c</td><td align='left'>d</td><td align='left'>e</td><td align='left'>f</td><td align='left'>&c.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>a</td><td align='left'>ab</td><td align='left'>ac</td><td align='left'>ad</td><td align='left'>ae</td><td align='left'>af</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>b</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>bc</td><td align='left'>bd</td><td align='left'>be</td><td align='left'>bf</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>c</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>cd</td><td align='left'>ce</td><td align='left'>cf</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>d</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>de</td><td align='left'>df</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>e</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>—</td><td align='left'>ef</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>&c.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>This will give you some general notion of the characters of mixed tints +of two colours only, and it is better in practice to confine yourself as +much as possible to these, and to get more complicated colours, either +by putting a third <i>over</i> the first blended tint, or by putting the +third into its interstices. Nothing but watchful practice will teach you +the effects that colours have on each other when thus put over, or +beside, each other.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 321px;"> +<img src="images/848.jpg" width="321" height="308" alt="Fig. 29." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 29.</span> +</div> + +<p>When you have got a little used to the principal combinations, place +yourself at a window which the sun does not shine in at, commanding some +simple piece of landscape; outline this landscape roughly; then take a +piece of white cardboard, cut out a hole in it about the size of a large +pea; and supposing <i>R</i> is the room, <i>a d</i> the window, and you are +sitting at <i>a</i>, Fig. 29., hold this cardboard a little outside of the +window, upright, and in the direction <i>b d</i>, parallel a little turned to +the side of the window, or so as to catch more light, as at <i>a d</i>, never +turned as at <i>c d</i>, or the paper will be dark. Then you will see the +landscape, bit by bit, through the circular hole. Match the colours of +each important bit as nearly as you can, mixing your tints with white, +beside the aperture. When matched, put a touch of the same tint at the +top of your paper, writing under it: "dark tree colour," "hill colour," +"field colour," as the case may be. Then wash the tint<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_340" id="Pg_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> away from beside +the opening, and the cardboard will be ready to match another piece of +the landscape.<a name="FNanchor_239_239" id="FNanchor_239_239"></a><a href="#Footnote_239_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> When you have got the colours of the principal +masses thus indicated, lay on a piece of each in your sketch in its +right place, and then proceed to complete the sketch in harmony with +them, by your eye.</p> + +<p>In the course of your early experiments, you will be much struck by two +things: the first, the inimitable brilliancy of light in sky and in +sunlighted things: and the second, that among the tints which you can +imitate, those which you thought the darkest will continually turn out +to be in reality the lightest. Darkness of objects is estimated by us, +under ordinary circumstances, much more by <i>knowledge</i> than by sight; +thus, a cedar or Scotch fir, at 200 yards off, will be thought of darker +green than an elm or oak near us; because we know by experience that the +peculiar colour they exhibit, at that distance, is the <i>sign</i> of +darkness of foliage. But when we try them through the cardboard, the +near oak will be found, indeed, rather dark green, and the distant +cedar, perhaps, pale gray-purple. The quantity of purple and grey in +Nature is, by the way, another somewhat surprising subject of discovery.</p> + +<p>Well, having ascertained thus your principal tints, you may proceed to +fill up your sketch; in doing which observe these following particulars:</p> + +<p>1. Many portions of your subject appeared through the aperture in the +paper brighter than the paper, as sky, sunlighted grass, &c. Leave these +portions, for the present, white; and proceed with the parts of which +you can match the tints.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_341" id="Pg_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>2. As you tried your subject with the cardboard, you must have observed +how many changes of hue took place over small spaces. In filling up your +work, try to educate your eye to perceive these differences of hue +without the help of the cardboard, and lay them deliberately, like a +mosaic-worker, as separate colours, preparing each carefully on your +palatte, and laying it as if it were a patch of coloured cloth, cut out, +to be fitted neatly by its edge to the next patch; so that the <i>fault</i> +of your work may be, not a slurred or misty look, but a patched +bed-cover look, as if it had all been cut out with scissors. For +instance, in drawing the trunk of a birch tree, there will be probably +white high lights, then a pale rosy grey round them on the light side, +then a (probably greenish) deeper grey on the dark side, varied by +reflected colours, and over all, rich black strips of bark and brown +spots of moss. Lay first the rosy grey, leaving white for the high +lights <i>and for the spots of moss</i>, and not touching the dark side. Then +lay the grey for the dark side, fitting it well up to the rosy grey of +the light, leaving also in this darker grey the white paper in the +places for the black and brown moss; then prepare the moss colours +separately for each spot, and lay each in the white place left for it. +Not one grain of white, except that purposely left for the high lights, +must be visible when the work is done, even through a magnifying-glass, +so cunningly must you fit the edges to each other. Finally, take your +background colours, and put them on each side of the tree-trunk, fitting +them carefully to its edge.</p> + +<p>Fine work you would make of this, wouldn't you, if you had not learned +to draw first, and could not now draw a good outline for the stem, much +less terminate a colour mass in the outline you wanted?</p> + +<p>Your work will look very odd for some time, when you first begin to +paint in this way, and before you can modify it, as I shall tell you +presently how; but never mind; it is of the greatest possible importance +that you should practice this separate laying on of the hues, for all +good colouring finally depends on it. It is, indeed, often necessary, +and sometimes desirable, to lay one colour and form boldly over another: +thus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_342" id="Pg_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> in laying leaves on blue sky, it is impossible always in large +pictures, or when pressed for time, to fill in the blue through the +interstices of the leaves; and the great Venetians constantly lay their +blue ground first, and then, having let it dry, strike the golden brown +over it in the form of the leaf, leaving the under blue to shine through +the gold, and subdue it to the olive green they want. But in the most +precious and perfect work each leaf is inlaid, and the blue worked round +it: and, whether you use one or other mode of getting your result, it is +equally necessary to be absolute and decisive in your laying the colour. +Either your ground must be laid firmly first, and then your upper colour +struck upon it in perfect form, for ever, thenceforward, unalterable; or +else the two colours must be individually put in their places, and led +up to each other till they meet at their appointed border, equally, +thenceforward, unchangeable. Either process, you see, involves +<i>absolute</i> decision. If you once begin to slur, or change, or sketch, or +try this way and that with your colour, it is all over with it and with +you. You will continually see bad copyists trying to imitate the +Venetians, by daubing their colours about, and retouching, and +finishing, and softening: when every touch and every added hue only lead +them farther into chaos. There is a dog between two children in a +Veronese in the Louvre, which gives the copyist much employment. He has +a dark ground behind him, which Veronese has painted first, and then +when it was dry, or nearly so, struck the locks of the dog's white hair +over it with some half-dozen curling sweeps of his brush, right at once, +and forever. Had one line or hair of them gone wrong, it would have been +wrong forever; no retouching could have mended it. The poor copyists +daub in first some background, and then some dog's hair; then retouch +the background, then the hair, work for hours at it, expecting it always +to come right to-morrow—"when it is finished." They <i>may</i> work for +centuries at it, and they will never do it. If they can do it with +Veronese's allowance of work, half a dozen sweeps of the hand over the +dark background, well; if not, they may ask the dog himself whether it +will ever come right, and get true answer from him—on Launce's +conditions: "If he say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_343" id="Pg_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> 'ay,' it will; if he say 'no,' it will; if he +shake his tail and say nothing, it will."</p> + +<p>Whenever you lay on a mass of colour, be sure that however large it may +be, or however small, it shall be gradated. No colour exists in Nature +under ordinary circumstances without gradation. If you do not see this, +it is the fault of your inexperience; you <i>will</i> see it in due time, if +you practise enough. But in general you may see it at once. In the birch +trunk, for instance, the rosy grey <i>must</i> be gradated by the roundness +of the stem till it meets the shaded side; similarly the shaded side is +gradated by reflected, light. Accordingly, whether by adding water, or +white paint, or by unequal force of touch (this you will do at pleasure, +according to the texture you wish to produce), you must, in every tint +you lay on, make it a little paler at one part than another, and get an +even gradation between the two depths. This is very like laying down a +formal law or recipe for you; but you will find it is merely the +assertion of a natural fact. It is not indeed physically impossible to +meet with an ungradated piece of colour, but it is so supremely +improbable, that you had better get into the habit of asking yourself +invariably, when you are going to copy a tint,—not "<i>Is</i> that +gradated?" but "<i>Which way</i> is it gradated?" and at least in ninety-nine +out of a hundred instances, you will be able to answer decisively after +a careful glance, though the gradation may have been so subtle that you +did not see it at first. And it does not matter how small the touch of +colour may be, though not larger than the smallest pin's head, if one +part of it is not darker than the rest, it is a bad touch; for it is not +merely because the natural fact is so, that your colour should be +gradated; the preciousness and pleasantness of the colour itself depends +more on this than on any other of its qualities, for gradation is to +colours just what curvature is to lines, both being felt to be beautiful +by the pure instinct of every human mind, and both, considered as types, +expressing the law of gradual change and progress in the human soul +itself. What the difference is in mere beauty between a gradated and +ungradated colour, may be seen easily by laying an even tint of +rose-colour on paper, and putting a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_344" id="Pg_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> rose leaf beside it. The victorious +beauty of the rose as compared with other flowers, depends wholly on the +delicacy and quantity of its colour gradations, all other flowers being +either less rich in gradation, not having so many folds of leaf; or less +tender, being patched and veined instead of flushed.</p> + +<p>4. But observe, it is not enough in general that colour should be +gradated by being made merely paler or darker at one place than another. +Generally colour <i>changes</i> as it <i>diminishes</i>, and is not merely +<i>darker</i> at one spot, but also <i>purer</i> at one spot than anywhere else. +It does not in the least follow that the darkest spot should be the +purest; still less so that the lightest should be the purest. Very often +the two gradations more or less cross each other, one passing in one +direction from paleness to darkness, another in another direction from +purity to dullness, but there will almost always be both of them, +however reconciled; and you must never be satisfied with a piece of +colour until you have got both: that is to say, every piece of blue that +you lay on must be <i>quite</i> blue only at some given spot, nor that a +large spot; and must be gradated from that into less pure blue—greyish +blue, or greenish blue, or purplish blue, over all the rest of the space +it occupies. And this you must do in one of three ways: either, while +the colour is wet, mix it with the colour which is to subdue it, adding +gradually a little more and a little more; or else, when the colour is +quite dry, strike a gradated touch of another colour over it, leaving +only a point of the first tint visible: or else, lay the subduing tints +on in small touches, as in the exercise of tinting the chess-board. Of +each of these methods I have something to tell you separately: but that +is distinct from the subject of gradation, which I must not quit without +once more pressing upon you the preëminent necessity of introducing it +everywhere. I have profound dislike of anything like <i>habit</i> of hand, +and yet, in this one instance, I feel almost tempted to encourage you to +get into a habit of never touching paper with colour, without securing a +gradation. You will not in Turner's largest oil pictures, perhaps six or +seven feet long by four or five high, find one spot of colour as large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_345" id="Pg_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +as a grain of wheat ungradated: and you will find in practice, that +brilliancy of hue, and vigour of light, and even the aspect of +transparency in shade, are essentially dependent on this character +alone; hardness, coldness, and opacity resulting far more from +<i>equality</i> of colour than from nature of colour. Give me some mud off a +city crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit, a little whitening, and +some coal-dust, and I will paint you a luminous picture, if you give me +time to gradate my mud, and subdue my dust: but though you had the red +of the ruby, the blue of the gentian, snow for the light, and amber for +the gold, you cannot paint a luminous picture, if you keep the masses of +those colours unbroken in purity, and unvarying in depth.</p> + +<p>5. Next note the three processes by which gradation and other characters +are to be obtained:</p> + +<p>A. Mixing while the colour is wet.</p> + +<p>You may be confused by my first telling you to lay on the hues in +separate patches, and then telling you to mix hues together as you lay +them on: but the separate masses are to be laid, when colours distinctly +oppose each other at a given limit; the hues to be mixed, when they +palpitate one through the other, or fade one into the other. It is +better to err a little on the distinct side. Thus I told you to paint +the dark and light sides of the birch trunk separately, though in +reality, the two tints change, as the trunk turns away from the light, +gradually one into the other: and, after being laid separately on, will +need some farther touching to harmonize them: but they do so in a very +narrow space, marked distinctly all the way up the trunk; and it is +easier and safer, therefore, to keep them separate at first. Whereas it +often happens that the whole beauty of two colours will depend on the +one being continued well through the other, and playing in the midst of +it: blue and green often do so in water: blue and grey, or purple and +scarlet, in sky; in hundreds of such instances the most beautiful and +truthful results may be obtained by laying one colour into the other +while wet; judging wisely how far it will spread, or blending it with +the brush in somewhat thicker consistence of wet body-colour; only +observe, never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_346" id="Pg_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> mix in this way two <i>mixtures</i>; let the colour you lay +into the other be always a simple, not a compound tint.</p> + +<p>B. Laying one colour over another.</p> + +<p>If you lay on a solid touch of vermilion, and, after it is quite dry, +strike a little very wet carmine quickly over it, you will obtain a much +more brilliant red than by mixing the carmine and vermilion. Similarly, +if you lay a dark colour first, and strike a little blue or white +body-colour lightly over it, you will get a more beautiful grey than by +mixing the colour and the blue or white. In very perfect painting, +artifices of this kind are continually used; but I would not have you +trust much to them; they are apt to make you think too much of quality +of colour. I should like you to depend on little more than the dead +colours, simply laid on, only observe always this, that the <i>less</i> +colour you do the work with, the better it will always be:<a name="FNanchor_240_240" id="FNanchor_240_240"></a><a href="#Footnote_240_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> so that +if you have laid a red colour, and you want a purple one above, do not +mix the purple on your palette and lay it on so thick as to overpower +the red, but take a little thin blue from your palette, and lay it +lightly over the red, so as to let the red be seen through, and thus +produce the required purple; and if you want a green hue over a blue +one, do not lay a quantity of green on the blue, but a <i>little</i> yellow, +and so on, always bringing the under colour into service as far as you +possibly can. If, however, the colour beneath is wholly opposed to the +one you have to lay on, as, suppose, if green is to be laid over +scarlet, you must either remove the required parts of the under colour +daintily first with your knife, or with water; or else, lay solid white +over it massively, and leave that to dry, and then glaze the white with +the upper colour. This is better, in general, than laying the upper +colour itself so thick as to conquer the ground, which, in fact, if it +be a transparent colour, you cannot do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_347" id="Pg_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> Thus, if you have to strike +warm boughs and leaves of trees over blue sky, and they are too +intricate to have their places left for them in laying the blue, it is +better to lay them first in solid white, and then glaze with sienna and +ochre, than to mix the sienna and white; though, of course, the process +is longer and more troublesome. Nevertheless, if the forms of touches +required are very delicate, the after glazing is impossible. You must +then mix the warm colour thick at once, and so use it: and this is often +necessary for delicate grasses, and such other fine threads of light in +foreground work.</p> + +<p>C. Breaking one colour in small points through or over another.</p> + +<p>This is the most important of all processes in good modern<a name="FNanchor_241_241" id="FNanchor_241_241"></a><a href="#Footnote_241_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> oil and +water-colour painting, but you need not hope to attain very great skill +in it. To do it well is very laborious, and requires such skill and +delicacy of hand as can only be acquired by unceasing practice. But you +will find advantage in noting the following points:</p> + +<p>(<i>a.</i>) In distant effects of rich subjects, wood, or rippled water, or +broken clouds, much may be done by touches or crumbling dashes of rather +dry colour, with other colours afterwards put cunningly into the +interstices. The more you practise this, when the subject evidently +calls for it, the more your eye will enjoy the higher qualities of +colour. The process is, in fact, the carrying out of the principle of +separate colours to the utmost possible refinement; using atoms of +colour in juxtaposition, instead of large spaces. And note, in filling +up minute interstices of this kind, that if you want the colour you fill +them with to show brightly, it is better to put a rather positive point +of it, with a little white left beside or round it in the interstice, +than to put a pale tint of the colour over the whole interstice. Yellow +or orange will hardly show, if pale, in small spaces; but they show +brightly in firm touches, however small, with white beside them.</p> + +<p>(<i>b.</i>) If a colour is to be darkened by superimposed portions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_348" id="Pg_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> of +another, it is, in many cases, better to lay the uppermost colour in +rather vigorous small touches, like finely chopped straw, over the under +one, than to lay it on as a tint, for two reasons: the first, that the +play of the two colours together is pleasant to the eye; the second, +that much expression of form may be got by wise administration of the +upper dark touches. In distant mountains they may be made pines of, or +broken crags, or villages, or stones, or whatever you choose; in clouds +they may indicate the direction of the rain, the roll and outline of the +cloud masses; and in water, the minor waves. All noble effects of dark +atmosphere are got in good water-colour drawing by these two expedients, +interlacing the colours, or retouching the lower one with fine darker +drawing in an upper. Sponging and washing for dark atmospheric effect is +barbarous, and mere tyro's work, though it is often useful for passages +of delicate atmospheric light.</p> + +<p>(<i>c.</i>) When you have time, practice the production of mixed tints by +interlaced touches of the pure colours out of which they are formed, and +use the process at the parts of your sketches where you wish to get rich +and luscious effects. Study the works of William Hunt, of the Old +Water-colour Society, in this respect, continually, and make frequent +memoranda of the variegations in flowers; not painting the flower +completely, but laying the ground colour of one petal, and painting the +spots on it with studious precision: a series of single petals of +lilies, geraniums, tulips, &c., numbered with proper reference to their +position in the flower, will be interesting to you on many grounds +besides those of art. Be careful to get the <i>gradated</i> distribution of +the spots well followed in the calceolarias, foxgloves, and the like; +and work out the odd, indefinite hues of the spots themselves with +minute grains of pure interlaced colour, otherwise you will never get +their richness of bloom. You will be surprised to find, as you do this, +first the universality of the law of gradation we have so much insisted +upon; secondly, that Nature is just as economical of <i>her</i> fine colours +as I have told you to be of yours. You would think, by the way she +paints, that her colours cost her something enormous: she will only give +you a single pure touch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_349" id="Pg_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> just where the petal turns into light; but down +in the bell all is subdued, and under the petal all is subdued, even in +the showiest flower. What you thought was bright blue is, when you look +close, only dusty grey, or green, or purple, or every colour in the +world at once, only a single gleam or streak of pure blue in the centre +of it. And so with all her colours. Sometimes I have really thought her +miserliness intolerable: in a gentian, for instance, the way she +economises her ultramarine down in the bell is a little too bad.</p> + +<p>Next, respecting general tone. I said, just now, that, for the sake of +students, my tax should not be laid on black or on white pigments; but +if you mean to be a colourist, you must lay a tax on them yourselves +when you begin to use true colour; that is to say, you must use them +little and make of them much. There is no better test of your colour +tones being good, than your having made the white in your picture +precious, and the black conspicuous.</p> + +<p>I say, first, the white precious. I do not mean merely glittering or +brilliant; it is easy to scratch white seagulls out of black clouds and +dot clumsy foliage with chalky dew; but, when white is well managed, it +ought to be strangely delicious—tender as well as bright—like inlaid +mother of pearl, or white roses washed in milk. The eye ought to seek it +for rest, brilliant though it may be; and to feel it as a space of +strange, heavenly paleness in the midst of the flushing of the colours. +This effect you can only reach by general depth of middle tint, by +absolutely refusing to allow any white to exist except where you need +it, and by keeping the white itself subdued by grey, except at a few +points of chief lustre.</p> + +<p>Secondly, you must make the black conspicuous. However small a point of +black may be, it ought to catch the eye, otherwise your work is too +heavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some +<i>colour</i>—never black, nor approaching black, they should be evidently +and always of a luminous nature, and the black should look strange among +them; never occurring except in a black object, or in small points +indicative of intense shade in the very centre of masses of shadow. +Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_350" id="Pg_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> may be beautifully used +with white, or with gold; but still though the black thus, in subdued +strength, becomes <i>spacious</i>, it should always be <i>conspicuous</i>; the +spectator should notice this grey neutrality with some wonder, and +enjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold colour and the +white which it relieves. Of all the great colourists Velasquez is the +greatest master of the black chords. His black is more precious than +most other people's crimson.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, only white and black which you must make valuable; +you must give rare worth to every colour you use; but the white and +black ought to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while the +other colours should be continually passing one into the other, being +all evidently companions in the same gay world; while the white, black, +and neutral grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. You +may melt your crimson into purple, your purple into blue and your blue +into green, but you must not melt any of them into black. You should, +however, try, as I said, to give <i>preciousness</i> to all your colours; and +this especially by never using a grain more than will just do the work, +and giving each hue the highest value by opposition. All fine colouring, +like fine drawing, is <i>delicate</i>; and so delicate that if, at last, you +<i>see</i> the colour you are putting on, you are putting on too much. You +ought to feel a change wrought in the general tone, by touches of colour +which individually are too pale to be seen; and if there is one atom of +any colour in the whole picture which is unnecessary to it, that atom +hurts it.</p> + +<p>Notice also, that nearly all good compound colours are <i>odd</i> colours. +You shall look at a hue in a good painter's work ten minutes before you +know what to call it. You thought it was brown, presently, you feel that +it is red; next that there is, somehow, yellow in it; presently +afterwards that there is blue in it. If you try to copy it you will +always find your colour too warm or too cold—no colour in the box will +seem to have any affinity with it; and yet it will be as pure as if it +were laid at a single touch with a single colour.</p> + +<p>As to the choice and harmony of colours in general, if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_351" id="Pg_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> cannot +choose and harmonize them by instinct, you will never do it at all. If +you need examples of utterly harsh and horrible colour, you may find +plenty given in treatises upon colouring, to illustrate the laws of +harmony; and if you want to colour beautifully, colour as best pleases +yourself at <i>quiet times</i>, not so as to catch the eye, nor to look as if +it were clever or difficult to colour in that way, but so that the +colour may be pleasant to you when you are happy, or thoughtful. Look +much at the morning and evening sky, and much at simple +flowers—dog-roses, wood hyacinths, violets, poppies, thistles, heather, +and such like—as Nature arranges them in the woods and fields. If ever +any scientific person tells you that two colours are "discordant," make +a note of the two colours, and put them together whenever you can. I +have actually heard people say that blue and green were discordant; the +two colours which Nature seems to intend never to be separated and never +to be felt, either of them, in its full beauty without the other!—a +peacock's neck, or a blue sky through green leaves, or a blue wave with +green lights though it, being precisely the loveliest things, next to +clouds at sunrise, in this coloured world of ours. If you have a good +eye for colours, you will soon find out how constantly Nature puts +purple and green together, purple and scarlet, green and blue, yellow +and neutral grey, and the like; and how she strikes these +colour-concords for general tones, and then works into them with +innumerable subordinate ones; and you will gradually come to like what +she does, and find out new and beautiful chords of colour in her work +every day. If you <i>enjoy</i> them, depend upon it you will paint them to a +certain point right: or, at least, if you do not enjoy them, you are +certain to paint them wrong. If colour does not give you <i>intense</i> +pleasure, let it alone; depend upon it, you are only tormenting the eyes +and senses of people who feel colour, whenever you touch it; and that is +unkind and improper. You will find, also, your power of colouring depend +much on your state of health and right balance of mind; when you are +fatigued or ill you will not see colours well, and when you are +ill-tempered you will not choose them well: thus, though not infallibly +a test of character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_352" id="Pg_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> in individuals, colour power is a great sign of +mental health in nations; when they are in a state of intellectual +decline, their colouring always gets dull.<a name="FNanchor_242_242" id="FNanchor_242_242"></a><a href="#Footnote_242_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a> You must also take great +care not to be misled by affected talk about colour from people who have +not the gift of it: numbers are eager and voluble about it who probably +never in all their lives received one genuine colour-sensation. The +modern religionists of the school of Overbeck are just like people who +eat slate-pencil and chalk, and assure everybody that they are nicer and +purer than strawberries and plums.</p> + +<p>Take care also never to be misled into any idea that colour can help or +display <i>form</i>; colour<a name="FNanchor_243_243" id="FNanchor_243_243"></a><a href="#Footnote_243_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> always disguises form, and is meant to do +so.</p> + +<p>It is a favourite dogma among modern writers on colour that "warm +colours" (reds and yellows) "approach" or express nearness, and "cold +colours" (blue and grey) "retire" or express distance. So far is this +from being the case, that no expression of distance in the world is so +great as that of the gold and orange in twilight sky. Colours, as such, +are <span class="smcap">absolutely</span> inexpressive respecting distance. It is their <i>quality</i> +(as depth, delicacy, &c.) which expresses distance, not their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_353" id="Pg_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> tint. A +blue bandbox set on the same shelf with a yellow one will not look an +inch farther off, but a red or orange cloud, in the upper sky, will +always appear to be beyond a blue cloud close to us, as it is in +reality. It is quite true that in certain objects, blue is a <i>sign</i> of +distance; but that is not because blue is a retiring colour, but because +the mist in the air is blue, and therefore any warm colour which has not +strength of light enough to pierce the mist is lost or subdued in its +blue: but blue is no more, on this account, a "retiring colour," than +brown is a retiring colour, because, when stones are seen through brown +water, the deeper they lie the browner they look; or than yellow is a +retiring colour, because when objects are seen through a London fog, the +farther off they are the yellower they look. Neither blue, nor yellow, +nor red, can have, as such, the <i>smallest</i> power of expressing either +nearness or distance: they express them only under the peculiar +circumstances which render them at the moment, or in that place, <i>signs</i> +of nearness or distance. Thus, vivid orange in an orange is a sign of +nearness, for if you put the orange a great way off, its colour will not +look so bright; but vivid orange in sky is a sign of distance, because +you cannot get the colour of orange in a cloud near you. So purple in a +violet or a hyacinth is a sign of nearness, because the closer you look +at them the more purple you see. But purple in a mountain is a sign of +distance, because a mountain close to you is not purple, but green or +grey. It may, indeed, be generally assumed that a tender or pale colour +will more or less express distance, and a powerful or dark colour +nearness; but even this is not always so. Heathery hills will usually +give a pale and tender purple near, and an intense and dark purple far +away; the rose colour of sunset on snow is pale on the snow at your +feet, deep and full on the snow in the distance; and the green of a +Swiss lake is pale in the clear waves on the beach, but intense as an +emerald in the sunstreak, six miles from shore. And in any case, when +the foreground is in strong light, with much water about it, or white +surface, casting intense reflections, all its colours may be perfectly +delicate, pale, and faint; while the distance, when it is in shadow, may +relieve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_354" id="Pg_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> the whole foreground with intense darks of purple, blue green, +or ultramarine blue. So that, on the whole, it is quite hopeless and +absurd to expect any help from laws of "aërial perspective." Look for +the natural effects, and set them down as fully as you can, and as +faithfully, and <i>never</i> alter a colour because it won't look in its +right place. Put the colour strong, if it be strong, though far off; +faint, if it be faint, though close to you. Why should you suppose that +Nature always means you to know exactly how far one thing is from +another? She certainly intends you always to enjoy her colouring, but +she does not wish you always to measure her space. You would be hard put +to it, every time you painted the sun setting, if you had to express his +95,000,000 miles of distance in "aërial perspective."</p> + +<p>There is, however, I think, one law about distance, which has some +claims to be considered a constant one: namely, that dullness and +heaviness of colour are more or less indicative of nearness. All distant +colour is <i>pure</i> colour: it may not be bright, but it is clear and +lovely, not opaque nor soiled; for the air and light coming between us +and any earthy or imperfect colour, purify or harmonise it; hence a bad +colourist is peculiarly incapable of expressing distance. I do not of +course mean that you are to use bad colours in your foreground by way of +making it come forward; but only that a failure in colour, there, will +not put it out of its place; while a failure in colour in the distance +will at once do away with its remoteness: your dull-coloured foreground +will still be a foreground, though ill-painted; but your ill-painted +distance will not be merely a dull distance,—it will be no distance at +all.</p> + +<p>I have only one thing more to advise you, namely, never to colour +petulantly or hurriedly. You will not, indeed, be able, if you attend +properly to your colouring, to get anything like the quantity of form +you could in a chiaroscuro sketch; nevertheless, if you do not dash or +rush at your work, nor do it lazily, you may always get enough form to +be satisfactory. An extra quarter of an hour, distributed in quietness +over the course of the whole study, may just make the difference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_355" id="Pg_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +between a quite intelligible drawing, and a slovenly and obscure one. If +you determine well beforehand what outline each piece of colour is to +have; and, when it is on the paper, guide it without nervousness, as far +as you can, into the form required; and then, after it is dry, consider +thoroughly what touches are needed to complete it, before laying one of +them on; you will be surprised to find how masterly the work will soon +look, as compared with a hurried or ill-considered sketch. In no process +that I know of—least of all in sketching—can time be really gained by +precipitation. It is gained only by caution; and gained in all sorts of +ways: for not only truth of form, but force of light, is always added by +an intelligent and shapely laying of the shadow colours. You may often +make a simple flat tint, rightly gradated and edged, express a +complicated piece of subject without a single retouch. The two Swiss +cottages, for instance, with their balconies, and glittering windows, +and general character of shingly eaves, are expressed in Fig. 30., with +one tint of grey, and a few dispersed spots and lines of it; all of +which you ought to be able to lay on without more than thrice dipping +your brush, and without a single touch after the tint is dry.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 399px;"> +<img src="images/864.jpg" width="399" height="290" alt="Fig. 30." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 30.</span> +</div> + +<p>Here, then, for I cannot without coloured illustrations tell you more, I +must leave you to follow out the subject for yourself, with such help as +you may receive from the water-colour drawings accessible to you; or +from any of the little treatises on their art which have been published +lately by our water-colour painters.<a name="FNanchor_244_244" id="FNanchor_244_244"></a><a href="#Footnote_244_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> But do not trust much to works +of this kind. You may get valuable hints from them as to mixture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_356" id="Pg_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> of +colours; and here and there you will find a useful artifice or process +explained; but nearly all such books are written only to help idle +amateurs to a meretricious skill, and they are full of precepts and +principles which may, for the most part, be interpreted by their +<i>precise</i> negatives, and then acted upon, with advantage. Most of them +praise boldness, when the only safe attendant spirit of a beginner is +caution;—advise velocity, when the first condition of success is +deliberation;—and plead for generalisation, when all the foundations of +power must be laid in knowledge of specialty.</p> + +<p>And now, in the last place, I have a few things to tell you respecting +that dangerous nobleness of consummate art,—<span class="smcap">Composition</span>. For though it +is quite unnecessary for you yet awhile to attempt it, and it <i>may</i> be +inexpedient for you to attempt it at all, you ought to know what it +means, and to look for and enjoy it in the art of others.</p> + +<p>Composition means, literally and simply, putting several things +together, so as to make <i>one</i> thing out of them; the nature and goodness +of which they all have a share in producing. Thus a musician composes an +air, by putting notes together in certain relations; a poet composes a +poem; by putting thoughts and words in pleasant order; and a painter a +picture, by putting thoughts, forms, and colours in pleasant order.</p> + +<p>In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must be the result of +composition. A paviour cannot be said to compose the heap of stones +which he empties from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed which +he scatters from his hand. It is the essence of composition that +everything should be in a determined place, perform an intended part, +and act, in that part, advantageously for everything that is connected +with it.</p> + +<p>Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the type, in the arts of +mankind, of the Providential government of the world.<a name="FNanchor_245_245" id="FNanchor_245_245"></a><a href="#Footnote_245_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> It is an +exhibition, in the order given to notes, or colours, or forms, of the +advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_357" id="Pg_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> and contentment. In a +well-composed air, no note, however short or low, can be spared, but the +least is as necessary as the greatest: no note, however prolonged, is +tedious; but the others prepare for, and are benefited by, its duration; +no note, however high, is tyrannous; the others prepare for and are +benefited by, its exaltation: no note, however low, is overpowered, the +others prepare for, and sympathise with, its humility: and the result +is, that each and every note has a value in the position assigned to it, +which by itself, it never possessed, and of which by separation from the +others, it would instantly be deprived.</p> + +<p>Similarly, in a good poem, each word and thought enhances the value of +those which precede and follow it; and every syllable has a loveliness +which depends not so much on its abstract sound as on its position. Look +at the same word in a dictionary, and you will hardly recognise it.</p> + +<p>Much more in a great picture; every line and colour is so arranged as to +advantage the rest. None are inessential, however slight; and none are +independent, however forcible. It is not enough that they truly +represent natural objects; but they must fit into certain places, and +gather into certain harmonious groups: so that, for instance, the red +chimney of a cottage is not merely set in its place as a chimney, but +that it may affect, in a certain way pleasurable to the eye, the pieces +of green or blue in other parts of the picture; and we ought to see that +the work is masterly, merely by the positions and quantities of these +patches of green, red, and blue, even at a distance which renders it +perfectly impossible to determine what the colours represent: or to see +whether the red is a chimney, or an old woman's cloak; and whether the +blue is smoke, sky, or water.</p> + +<p>It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us, in all we do, of the +great laws of Divine government and human polity, that composition in +the arts should strongly affect every order of mind, however unlearned +or thoughtless. Hence the popular delight in rhythm and metre, and in +simple musical melodies. But it is also appointed that <i>power</i> of +composition in the fine arts should be an exclusive attribute of great +intellect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_358" id="Pg_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> All men can more or less copy what they see, and, more or +less, remember it: powers of reflection and investigation are also +common to us all, so that the decision of inferiority in these rests +only on questions of <i>degree</i>. A. has a better memory than B., and C. +reflects more profoundly than D. But the gift of composition is not +given <i>at all</i> to more than one man in a thousand; in its highest range, +it does not occur above three or four times in a century.</p> + +<p>It follows, from these general truths, that it is impossible to give +rules which will enable you to compose. You might much more easily +receive rules to enable you to be witty. If it were possible to be witty +by rule, wit would cease to be either admirable or amusing: if it were +possible to compose melody by rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have +been born: if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian and +Veronese would be ordinary men. The essence of composition lies +precisely in the fact of its being unteachable, in its being the +operation of an individual mind of range and power exalted above others.</p> + +<p>But though no one can <i>invent</i> by rule, there are some simple laws of +arrangement which it is well for you to know, because, though they will +not enable you to produce a good picture, they will often assist you to +set forth what goodness may be in your work in a more telling way than +you could have done otherwise; and by tracing them in the work of good +composers, you may better understand the grasp of their imagination, and +the power it possesses over their materials I shall briefly state the +chief of these laws.</p> + + +<h4>1. THE LAW OF PRINCIPALITY.</h4> + +<p>The great object of composition being always to secure unity; that is, +to make out of many things one whole; the first mode in which this can +be effected is, by determining that <i>one</i> feature shall be more +important than all the rest, and that the others shall group with it in +subordinate positions.</p> + +<p>This is the simplest law of ordinary ornamentation. Thus the group of +two leaves, <i>a</i>, Fig. 31., is unsatisfactory, because it has no leading +leaf; but that at <i>b</i> <i>is</i> prettier, because it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_359" id="Pg_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> a head or master +leaf; and <i>c</i> more satisfactory still, because the subordination of the +other members to this head leaf is made more manifest by their gradual +loss of size as they fall back from it. Hence part of the pleasure we +have in the Greek honeysuckle ornament, and such others.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;"> +<img src="images/868a.jpg" width="434" height="174" alt="Fig. 31." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 31.</span> +</div> + +<p>Thus, also, good pictures have always one light larger or brighter than +the other lights, or one figure more prominent than the other figures, +or one mass of colour dominant over all the other masses; and in general +you will find it much benefit your sketch if you manage that there shall +be one light on the cottage wall, or one blue cloud in the sky, which +may attract the eye as leading light, or leading gloom, above all +others. But the observance of the rule is often so cunningly concealed +by the great composers, that its force is hardly at first traceable; and +you will generally find that they are vulgar pictures in which the law +is <i>strikingly</i> manifest. This may be simply illustrated by musical +melody; for instance, in such phrases as this:</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 412px;"> +<img src="images/868b.jpg" width="412" height="50" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>one note (here the upper <span class="smcap">G</span>) rules the whole passage, and has the full +energy of it concentrated in itself. Such passages, corresponding to +completely subordinated compositions in painting, are apt to be +wearisome if often repeated. But in such a phrase as this:</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 412px;"> +<img src="images/868c.jpg" width="412" height="103" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>it is very difficult to say, which is the principal note. The <span class="smcap">A</span> in the +last bar is lightly dominant, but there is a very equal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_360" id="Pg_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> current of +power running through the whole; and such passages rarely weary. And +this principle holds through vast scales of arrangement; so that in the +grandest compositions, such as Paul Veronese's Marriage in Cana, or +Raphael's Disputa, it is not easy to fix at once on the principal +figure; and very commonly the figure which is really chief does not +catch the eye at first, but is gradually felt to be more and more +conspicuous as we gaze. Thus in Titian's grand composition of the +Cornaro Family, the figure meant to be principal is a youth of fifteen +or sixteen, whose portrait it was evidently the painter's object to make +as interesting as possible. But a grand Madonna, and a St. George with a +drifting banner, and many figures more, occupy the centre of the +picture, and first catch the eye; little by little we are led away from +them to a gleam of pearly light in the lower corner, and find that, from +the head which it shines upon, we can turn our eyes no more.</p> + +<p>As, in every good picture, nearly all laws of design are more or less +exemplified, it will, on the whole, be an easier way of explaining them +to analyse one composition thoroughly, than to give instances from +various works. I shall therefore take one of Turner's simplest; which +will allow us, so to speak, easily to decompose it, and illustrate each +law by it as we proceed.</p> + +<p>Figure 32. is a rude sketch of the arrangement of the whole subject; the +old bridge over the Moselle at Coblentz, the town of Coblentz on the +right, Ehrenbreitstein on the left. The leading or master feature is, of +course the tower on the bridge. It is kept from being <i>too</i> principal by +an important group on each side of it; the boats, on the right, and +Ehrenbreitstein beyond. The boats are large in mass, and more forcible +in colour, but they are broken into small divisions, while the tower is +simple, and therefore it still leads. Ehrenbreitstein is noble in its +mass, but so reduced by aërial perspective of colour that it cannot +contend with the tower, which therefore holds the eye, and becomes the +key of the picture. We shall see presently how the very objects which +seem at first to contend with it for the mastery are made, occultly to +increase its preëminence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_361" id="Pg_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;"> +<img src="images/870.jpg" width="430" height="285" alt="Fig. 32." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 32.</span> +</div> + + +<h4>2. THE LAW OF REPETITION.</h4> + +<p>Another important means of expressing unity is to mark some kind of +sympathy among the different objects, and perhaps the pleasantest, +because most surprising, kind of sympathy, is when one group imitates or +repeats another; not in the way of balance or symmetry, but +subordinately, like a far-away and broken echo of it. Prout has insisted +much on this law in all his writings on composition; and I think it is +even more authoritatively present in the minds of most great composers +than the law of principality. It is quite curious to see the pains that +Turner sometimes takes to echo an important passage of colour; in the +Pembroke Castle for instance, there are two fishing-boats, one with a +red, and another with a white sail. In a line with them, on the beach, +are two fish in precisely the same relative positions; one red and one +white. It is observable that he uses the artifice chiefly in pictures +where he wishes to obtain an expression of repose: in my notice of the +plate of Scarborough, in the series of the "Harbours of England," I have +already had occasion to dwell on this point,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_362" id="Pg_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> and I extract in the +note<a name="FNanchor_246_246" id="FNanchor_246_246"></a><a href="#Footnote_246_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> one or two sentences which explain the principle. In the +composition I have chosen for our illustration, this reduplication is +employed to a singular extent. The tower, or leading feature, is first +repeated by the low echo of it to the left; put your finger over this +lower tower, and see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires of +Coblentz are all arranged in couples (how they are arranged in reality +does not matter; when we are composing a great picture, we must play the +towers about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they were +chessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrangement of these towers +would have been too easily seen, were it not for a little one which +pretends to make a triad of the last group on the right, but is so faint +as hardly to be discernible: it just takes off the attention from the +artifice, helped in doing so by the mast at the head of the boat, which, +however, has instantly its own duplicate put at the stern.<a name="FNanchor_247_247" id="FNanchor_247_247"></a><a href="#Footnote_247_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> Then +there is the large boat near, and its echo beyond it. That echo is +divided into two again, and each of those two smaller boats has two +figures in it; while two figures are also sitting together on the great +rudder that lies half in the water, and half aground. Then, finally, the +great mass of Ehrenbreitstein, which appears at first to have no +answering form, has almost its <i>facsimile</i> in the bank on which the girl +is sitting; this bank is as absolutely essential to the completion of +the picture as any object in the whole series. All this is done to +deepen the effect of repose.</p> + +<p>Symmetry or the balance of parts or masses in nearly equal opposition, +is one of the conditions of treatment under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_363" id="Pg_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> law of Repetition. For +the opposition, in a symmetrical object, is of like things reflecting +each other; it is not the balance of contrary natures (like that of day +and night) but of like natures or like forms; one side of a leaf being +set like the reflection of the other in water.</p> + +<p>Symmetry in Nature is, however, never formal nor accurate. She takes the +greatest care to secure some difference between the corresponding things +or parts of things; and an approximation to accurate symmetry is only +permitted in animals because their motions secure perpetual difference +between the balancing parts. Stand before a mirror; hold your arms in +precisely the same position at each side, your head upright your body +straight; divide your hair exactly in the middle, and get it as nearly +as you can into exactly the same shape over each ear, and you will see +the effect of accurate symmetry; you will see, no less, how all grace +and power in the human form result from the interference of motion and +life with symmetry, and from the reconciliation of its balance with its +changefulness. Your position, as seen in the mirror, is the highest type +of symmetry as understood by modern architects.</p> + +<p>In many sacred compositions, living symmetry, the balance of harmonious +opposites, is one of the profoundest sources of their power: almost any +works of the early painters, Angelico, Perugino, Giotto, &c., will +furnish you with notable instances of it. The Madonna of Perugino in the +National Gallery, with the angel Michael on one side and Raphael on the +other, is as beautiful an example as you can have.</p> + +<p>In landscape, the principle of balance is more or less carried out in +proportion to the wish of the painter to express disciplined calmness. +In bad compositions as in bad architecture, it is formal, a tree on one +side answering a tree on the other; but in good compositions, as in +graceful statues, it is always easy, and sometimes hardly traceable. In +the Coblentz, however, you cannot have much difficulty in seeing how the +boats on one side of the tower and the figures on the other are set in +nearly equal balance; the tower, as a central mass uniting both.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_364" id="Pg_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>3. THE LAW OF CONTINUITY.</h4> + +<p>Another important and pleasurable way of expressing unity is by giving +some orderly succession to a number of objects more or less similar. And +this succession is most interesting when it is connected with some +gradual change in the aspect or character of the objects. Thus the +succession of the pillars of a cathedral aisle is most interesting when +they retire in perspective, becoming more and more obscure in distance; +so the succession of mountain promontories one behind another, on the +flanks of a valley; so the succession of clouds, fading farther and +farther towards the horizon; each promontory and each cloud being of +different shape, yet all evidently following in a calm and appointed +order. If there be no change at all in the shape or size of the objects, +there is no continuity; there is only repetition—monotony. It is the +change in shape which suggests the idea of their being individually +free, and able to escape, if they liked, from the law that rules them, +and yet submitting to it. I will leave our chosen illustrative +composition for a moment to take up another, still more expressive of +this law. It is one of Turner's most tender studies, a sketch on Calais +Sands at sunset; so delicate in the expression of wave and cloud, that +it is of no use for me to try to reach it with any kind of outline in a +woodcut; but the rough sketch, Fig. 33., is enough to give an idea of +its arrangement. The aim of the painter has been to give the intensest +expression of repose, together with the enchanted lulling, monotonous +motion of cloud and wave. All the clouds are moving in innumerable ranks +after the sun, meeting towards the point in the horizon where he has +set; and the tidal waves gain in winding currents upon the sand, with +that stealthy haste in which they cross each other so quietly, at their +edges: just folding one over another as they meet, like a little piece +of ruffled silk, and leaping up a little as two children kiss and clap +their hands, and then going on again, each in its silent hurry, drawing +pointed arches on the sand as their thin edges intersect in parting; but +all this would not have been enough expressed without the line of the +old pier-timbers, black with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_365" id="Pg_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> weeds, strained and bent by the storm +waves, and now seeming to stoop in following one another, like dark +ghosts escaping slowly from the cruelty of the pursuing sea.</p> + +<p>I need not, I hope, point out to the reader the illustration of this law +of continuance in the subject chosen for our general illustration. It +was simply that gradual succession of the retiring arches of the bridge +which induced Turner to paint the subject at all; and it was this same +principle which led him always to seize on subjects including long +bridges where-ever he could find them; but especially, observe, unequal +bridges, having the highest arch at one side rather than at the centre. +There is a reason for this, irrespective of general laws of composition, +and connected with the nature of rivers, which I may as well stop a +minute to tell you about, and let you rest from the study of +composition.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 434px;"> +<img src="images/874.jpg" width="434" height="300" alt="Fig. 33." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 33.</span> +</div> + +<p>All rivers, small or large, agree in one character, they like to lean a +little on one side: they cannot bear to have their channels deepest in +the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun +themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore to +play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike, and +another steep shore, under which they can pause, and purify themselves, +and get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_366" id="Pg_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> their strength of waves fully together for due occasion. Rivers +in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their life for +play, and another for work; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and +transparent, when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on the +other side when they set themselves to their main purpose. And rivers +are just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men: the good +rivers have serviceable deep places all along their banks, that ships +can sail in; but the wicked rivers go scoopingly irregularly under their +banks until they get full of strangling eddies, which no boat can row +over without being twisted against the rocks; and pools like wells, +which no one can get out of but the water-kelpie that lives at the +bottom;—but, wicked or good, the rivers all agree in having two kinds +of sides. Now the natural way in which a village stonemason therefore +throws a bridge over a strong stream is, of course, to build a great +door to let the cat through, and little doors to let the kittens +through; a great arch for the great current, to give it room in flood +time, and little arches for the little currents along the shallow shore. +This, even without any prudential respect for the floods of the great +current, he would do in simple economy of work and stone; for the +smaller your arches are, the less material you want on their flanks. Two +arches over the same span of river, supposing the butments are at the +same depth, are cheaper than one, and that by a great deal; so that, +where the current is shallow, the village mason makes his arches many +and low; as the water gets deeper, and it becomes troublesome to build +his piers up from the bottom, he throws his arches wider; at last he +comes to the deep stream, and, as he cannot build at the bottom of that, +he throws his largest arch over it with a leap, and with another little +one or so gains the opposite shore. Of course as arches are wider they +must be higher, or they will not stand; so the roadway must rise as the +arches widen. And thus we have the general type of bridge, with its +highest and widest arch towards one side, and a train of minor arches +running over the flat shore on the other; usually a steep bank at the +river-side next the large arch; always, of course, a flat shore on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_367" id="Pg_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> the +side of the small ones; and the bend of the river assuredly concave +towards this flat, cutting round, with a sweep into the steep bank; or, +if there is no steep bank, still assuredly cutting into the shore at the +steep end of the bridge.</p> + +<p>Now this kind of bridge, sympathising, as it does, with the spirit of +the river, and marking the nature of the thing it has to deal with and +conquer, is the ideal of a bridge; and all endeavours to do the thing in +a grand engineer's manner, with a level roadway and equal arches, are +barbarous; not only because all monotonous forms are ugly in themselves, +but because the mind perceives at once that there has been cost +uselessly thrown away for the sake of formality.<a name="FNanchor_248_248" id="FNanchor_248_248"></a><a href="#Footnote_248_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a></p> + +<p>Well, to return to our continuity. We see that the Turnerian bridge in +Fig. 32. is of the absolutely perfect type, and is still farther +interesting by having its main arch crowned by a watch-tower. But as I +want you to note especially what perhaps was not the case in the real +bridge, but is entirely Turner's doing, you will find that though the +arches diminish gradually, not one is <i>regularly</i> diminished—they are +all of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_368" id="Pg_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> different shapes and sizes: you cannot see this clearly in 32., +but in the larger diagram, Fig. 34., opposite, you will with ease. This +is indeed also part of the ideal of a bridge, because the lateral +currents near the shore are of course irregular in size, and a simple +builder would naturally vary his arches accordingly; and also, if the +bottom was rocky, build his piers where the rocks came. But it is not as +a part of bridge ideal, but as a necessity of all noble composition, +that this irregularity is introduced by Turner. It at once raises the +object thus treated from the lower or vulgar unity of rigid law to the +greater unity of clouds, and waves, and trees, and human souls, each +different, each obedient, and each in harmonious service.</p> + + +<h4>4. THE LAW OF CURVATURE.</h4> + +<p>There is, however, another point to be noticed in this bridge of +Turner's. Not only does it slope away unequally at its sides, but it +slopes in a gradual though very subtle curve. And if you substitute a +straight line for this curve (drawing one with a rule from the base of +the tower on each side to the ends of the bridge, in Fig. 34., and +effacing the curve), you will instantly see that the design has suffered +grievously. You may ascertain, by experiment, that all beautiful objects +whatsoever are thus terminated by delicately curved lines, except where +the straight line is indispensable to their use or stability: and that +when a complete system of straight lines, throughout the form, is +necessary to that stability, as in crystals, the beauty, if any exists, +is in colour and transparency, not in form. Cut out the shape of any +crystal you like, in white wax or wood, and put it beside a white lily, +and you will feel the force of the curvature in its purity, irrespective +of added colour, or other interfering elements of beauty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_369" id="Pg_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 422px;"> +<img src="images/878.jpg" width="422" height="230" alt="Fig. 34." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 34.</span> +</div> + +<p>Well, as curves are more beautiful than straight lines, it is necessary +to a good composition that its continuities of object, mass, or colour +should be, if possible, in curves, rather than straight lines or angular +ones. Perhaps one of the simplest and prettiest examples of a graceful +continuity of this kind is in the line traced at any moment by the corks +of a net as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_370" id="Pg_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> is being drawn: nearly every person is more or less +attracted by the beauty of the dotted line. Now it is almost always +possible, not only to secure such a continuity in the arrangement or +boundaries of objects which, like these bridge arches or the corks of +the net, are actually connected with each other, but—and this is a +still more noble and interesting kind of continuity—among features +which appear at first entirely separate. Thus the towers of +Ehrenbreitstein, on the left, in Fig. 32., appear at first independent +of each other; but when I give their profile, on a larger scale, Fig. +35., the reader may easily perceive that there is a subtle cadence and +harmony among them. The reason of this is, that they are all bounded by +one grand curve, traced by the dotted line; out of the seven towers, +four precisely touch this curve, the others only falling back from it +here and there to keep the eye from discovering it too easily.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 372px;"> +<img src="images/879.jpg" width="372" height="288" alt="Fig. 35." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 35.</span> +</div> + +<p>And it is not only always <i>possible</i> to obtain continuities of this +kind: it is, in drawing large forest or mountain forms essential<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_371" id="Pg_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> to +truth. The towers of Ehrenbreitstein might or might not in reality fall +into such a curve, but assuredly the basalt rock on which they stand +did; for all mountain forms not cloven into absolute precipice, nor +covered by straight slopes of shales, are more or less governed by these +great curves, it being one of the aims of Nature in all her work to +produce them. The reader must already know this, if he has been able to +sketch at all among the mountains; if not, let him merely draw for +himself, carefully, the outlines of any low hills accessible to him, +where they are tolerably steep, or of the woods which grow on them. The +steeper shore of the Thames at Maidenhead, or any of the downs at +Brighton or Dover, or, even nearer, about Croydon (as Addington Hills), +are easily accessible to a Londoner; and he will soon find not only how +constant, but how graceful the curvature is. Graceful curvature is +distinguished from ungraceful by two characters: first, its moderation, +that is to say, its close approach to straightness in some parts of its +course;<a name="FNanchor_249_249" id="FNanchor_249_249"></a><a href="#Footnote_249_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a> and, secondly, by its variation, that is to say, its never +remaining equal in degree at different parts of its course.</p> + +<p>This variation is itself twofold in all good curves.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 424px;"> +<img src="images/880.jpg" width="424" height="115" alt="Fig. 36. a b" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 36. a b</span> +</div> + +<p>A. There is, first, a steady change through the whole line from less to +more curvature, or more to less, so that <i>no</i> part of the line is a +segment of a circle, or can be drawn by compasses in any way whatever. +Thus, in Fig. 36., <i>a</i> is a bad curve, because it is part of a circle, +and is therefore monotonous throughout; but <i>b</i> is a good curve, because +it continually changes its direction as it proceeds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_372" id="Pg_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;"> +<img src="images/881a.jpg" width="346" height="147" alt="Fig. 37." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 37.</span> +</div> + +<p>The <i>first</i> difference between good and bad drawing of tree boughs +consists in observance of this fact. Thus, when I put leaves on the line +<i>b</i>, as in Fig. 37., you can immediately feel the springiness of +character dependent on the changefulness of the curve. You may put +leaves on the other line for yourself, but you will find you cannot make +a right tree spray of it. For <i>all</i> tree boughs, large or small, as well +as all noble natural lines whatsoever, agree in this character; and it +is a point of primal necessity that your eye should always seize and +your hand trace it. Here are two more portions of good curves, with +leaves put on them at the extremities instead of the flanks, Fig. 38.; +and two showing the arrangement of masses of foliage seen a little +farther off, Fig. 39., which you may in like manner amuse yourself by +turning into segments of circles—you will see with what result. I hope, +however, you have beside you by this time, many good studies of tree +boughs carefully made, in which you may study variations of curvature in +their most complicated and lovely forms.<a name="FNanchor_250_250" id="FNanchor_250_250"></a><a href="#Footnote_250_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 296px;"> +<img src="images/881b.jpg" width="296" height="306" alt="Fig. 38." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 38.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 310px;"> +<img src="images/881c.jpg" width="310" height="276" alt="Fig. 39." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 39.</span> +</div> + +<p>B. Not only does every good curve vary in general tendency, but it is +modulated, as it proceeds, by myriads of subordinate curves. Thus the +outlines of a tree trunk are never as at <i>a</i>, Fig. 40, but as at <i>b</i>. So +also in waves, clouds, and all other nobly formed masses. Thus another +essential difference between good and bad drawing, or good and bad +sculpture, depends on the quantity and refinement<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_373" id="Pg_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> of minor curvatures +carried, by good work, into the great lines. Strictly speaking, however, +this is not variation in large curves, but composition of large curves +out of small ones; it is an increase in the quantity of the beautiful +element, <i>but not a change in its nature</i>.</p> + + +<h4>5. THE LAW OF RADIATION.</h4> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 136px;"> +<img src="images/882.jpg" width="136" height="396" alt="Fig. 40." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 40.</span> +</div> + +<p>We have hitherto been concerned only with the binding of our various +objects into beautiful lines or processions. The next point we have to +consider is, how we may unite these lines or processions themselves, so +as to make groups of <i>them</i>.</p> + +<p>Now, there are two kinds of harmonies of lines. One in which, moving +more or less side by side, they variously, but evidently with consent, +retire from or approach each other, intersect or oppose each other: +currents of melody in music, for different voices, thus approach and +cross, fall and rise, in harmony; so the waves of the sea, as they +approach the shore, flow into one another or cross, but with a great +unity through all; and so various lines of composition often flow +harmoniously through and across each other in a picture. But the most +simple and perfect connexion of lines is by radiation; that is, by their +all springing from one point, or closing towards it: and this harmony is +often, in Nature almost always, united with the other; as the boughs of +trees, though they intersect and play amongst each other irregularly, +indicate by their general tendency their origin from one root. An +essential part of the beauty of all vegetable form is in this radiation: +it is seen most simply in a single flower or leaf, as in a convolvulus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_374" id="Pg_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +bell, or chestnut leaf; but more beautifully in the complicated +arrangements of the large boughs and sprays. For a leaf is only a flat +piece of radiation; but the tree throws its branches on all sides, and +even in every profile view of it, which presents a radiation more or +less correspondent to that of its leaves, it is more beautiful, because +varied by the freedom of the separate branches. I believe it has been +ascertained that, in all trees, the angle at which, in their leaves, the +lateral ribs are set on their central rib is approximately the same at +which the branches leave the great stem; and thus each section of the +tree would present a kind of magnified view of its own leaf, were it not +for the interfering force of gravity on the masses of foliage. This +force in proportion to their age, and the lateral leverage upon them, +bears them downwards at the extremities, so that, as before noticed, the +lower the bough grows on the stem, the more it droops (Fig. 17, p. +295.); besides this, nearly all beautiful trees have a tendency to +divide into two or more principal masses, which give a prettier and more +complicated symmetry than if one stem ran all the way up the centre. +Fig. 41. may thus be considered the simplest type of tree radiation, as +opposed to leaf radiation. In this figure, however, all secondary +ramification is unrepresented, for the sake of simplicity; but if we +take one half of such a tree, and merely give two secondary branches to +each main branch (as represented in the general branch structure shown +at <i>b</i>, Fig. 18., p. 296), we shall have the form, Fig. 42. This I +consider the perfect general type of tree structure; and it is curiously +connected with certain forms of Greek, Byzantine, and Gothic +ornamentation, into the discussion of which, however, we must not enter +here. It will be observed, that both in Figs. 41. and 42. all the +branches so spring from the main stem as very nearly to suggest their +united radiation from the root <span class="smcap">R</span>. This is by no means universally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_375" id="Pg_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> the +case; but if the branches do not bend towards a point in the root, they +at least converge to some point or other. In the examples in Fig. 43., +the mathematical centre of curvature, <i>a</i>, is thus, in one case, on the +ground at some distance from the root, and in the other, near the top of +the tree. Half, only, of each tree is given, for the sake of clearness: +Fig. 44. gives both sides of another example, in which the origins of +curvature are below the root. As the positions of such points may be +varied without end, and as the arrangement of the lines is also farther +complicated by the fact of the boughs springing for the most part in a +spiral order round the tree, and at proportionate distances, the systems +of curvature which regulate the form of vegetation are quite infinite. +Infinite is a word easily said, and easily written, and people do not +always mean it when they say it; in this case I <i>do</i> mean it; the number +of systems is incalculable, and even to furnish any thing like a +representative number of types, I should have to give several hundreds +of figures such as Fig. 44.<a name="FNanchor_251_251" id="FNanchor_251_251"></a><a href="#Footnote_251_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 296px;"> +<img src="images/883a.jpg" width="296" height="394" alt="Fig. 41." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 41.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 154px;"> +<img src="images/883b.jpg" width="154" height="343" alt="Fig. 42." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 42.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 367px;"> +<img src="images/884a.jpg" width="367" height="255" alt="Fig. 43." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 43.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 104px;"> +<img src="images/884b.jpg" width="104" height="386" alt="Fig. 44." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 44.</span> +</div> + +<p>Thus far, however, we have only been speaking of the great relations of +stem and branches. The forms of the branches themselves are regulated by +still more subtle laws, for they occupy an intermediate position between +the form of the tree and of the leaf. The leaf has a flat ramification; +the tree a completely rounded one; the bough is neither rounded nor +flat, but has a structure exactly balanced between the two, in a +half-flattened, half-rounded flake, closely resembling in shape one of +the thick leaves of an artichoke or the flake of a fir cone; by +combination forming the solid mass of the tree, as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_376" id="Pg_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> leaves compose +the artichoke head. I have before pointed out to you the general +resemblance of these branch flakes to an extended hand; but they may be +more accurately represented by the ribs of a boat. If you can imagine a +very broad-headed and flattened boat applied by its keel to the end of a +main branch,<a name="FNanchor_252_252" id="FNanchor_252_252"></a><a href="#Footnote_252_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> as in Fig. 45., the lines which its ribs will take, +and the general contour of it, as seen in different directions, from +above and below; and from one side and another, will give you the +closest approximation to the perspectives and foreshortenings of a +well-grown branch-flake. Fig. 25. above, page 316., is an unharmed and +unrestrained shoot of healthy young oak; and if you compare it with Fig. +45., you will understand at once the action of the lines of leafage; the +boat only failing as a type in that its ribs are too nearly parallel to +each other at the sides, while the bough sends all its ramification well +forwards, rounding to the head, that it may accomplish its part in the +outer form of the whole tree, yet always securing the compliance with +the great universal law that the branches nearest the root bend most +back; and, of course, throwing <i>some</i> always back as well as forwards; +the appearance of reversed action being much increased, and rendered +more striking and beautiful, by perspective. Figure 25. shows the +perspective of such a bough as it is seen from below; Fig. 46. gives +rudely the look it would have from above.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 405px;"> +<img src="images/885a.jpg" width="405" height="168" alt="Fig. 45." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 45.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 420px;"> +<img src="images/885b.jpg" width="420" height="204" alt="Fig. 46." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 46.</span> +</div> + +<p>You may suppose, if you have not already discovered, what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_377" id="Pg_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> subtleties of +perspective and light and shade are involved in the drawing of these +branch-flakes, as you see them in different directions and actions; now +raised, now depressed; touched on the edges by the wind, or lifted up +and bent back so as to show all the white under surfaces of the leaves +shivering in light, as the bottom of a boat rises white with spray at +the surge-crest; or drooping in quietness towards the dew of the grass +beneath them in windless mornings, or bowed down under oppressive grace +of deep-charged snow. Snow time, by the way, is one of the best for +practice in the placing of tree masses; but you will only be able to +understand them thoroughly by beginning with a single bough and a few +leaves placed tolerably even, as in Fig. 38. page 372. First one with +three leaves, a central and two lateral ones, as at <i>a</i>; then with five, +as at <i>b</i>, and so on; directing your whole attention to the expression, +both by contour and light and shade, of the boat-like arrangements, +which in your earlier studies, will have been a good deal confused, +partly owing to your inexperience, and partly to the depth of shade, or +absolute blackness of mass required in those studies.</p> + +<p>One thing more remains to be noted, and I will let you out of the wood. +You see that in every generally representative figure I have surrounded +the radiating branches with a dotted line: such lines do indeed +terminate every vegetable form; and you see that they are themselves +beautiful curves, which, according to their flow, and the width or +narrowness of the spaces they enclose, characterize the species of tree +or leaf, and express its free or formal action, its grace of youth or +weight of age. So that, throughout all the freedom of her wildest +foliage, Nature is resolved on expressing an encompassing limit; and +marking a unity in the whole tree, caused not only by the rising of its +branches from a common root, but by their joining in one work, and being +bound by a common law. And having ascertained this, let us turn back for +a moment to a point in leaf structure which, I doubt not, you must +already have observed in your earlier studies, but which it is well to +state here, as connected with the unity of the branches in the great +trees. You must have noticed, I should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_378" id="Pg_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> think, that whenever a leaf is +compound,—that is to say, divided into other leaflets which in any way +repeat or imitate the form of the whole leaf,—those leaflets are not +symmetrical as the whole leaf is, but always smaller on the side towards +the point of the great leaf, so as to express their subordination to it, +and show, even when they are pulled off, that they are not small +independent leaves, but members of one large leaf.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 342px;"> +<img src="images/887.jpg" width="342" height="305" alt="Fig. 47." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 47.</span> +</div> + +<p>Fig. 47., which is a block-plan of a leaf of columbine, without its +minor divisions on the edges, will illustrate the principle clearly. It +is composed of a central large mass, A, and two lateral ones, of which +the one on the right only is lettered, B. Each of these masses is again +composed of three others, a central and two lateral ones; but observe, +the minor one, <i>a</i> of A, is balanced equally by its opposite; but the +minor <i>b</i>1 of B is larger than its opposite <i>b</i>2. Again, each of these +minor masses is divided into three; but while the central mass, <span class="smcap">A</span> of A, +is symmetrically divided, the <span class="smcap">B</span> of B is unsymmetrical, its largest +side-lobe being lowest. Again <i>b</i>2, the lobe <i>c</i>1 (its lowest lobe in +relation to <span class="smcap">B</span>) is larger than <i>c</i>2; and so also in <i>b</i>1. So that +universally one lobe of a lateral leaf is always larger than the other, +and the smaller lobe is that which is nearer the central mass; the lower +leaf, as it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_379" id="Pg_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> were by courtesy, subduing some of its own dignity or +power, in the immediate presence of the greater or captain leaf; and +always expressing, therefore, its own subordination and secondary +character. This law is carried out even in single leaves. As far as I +know, the upper half, towards the point of the spray, is always the +smaller; and a slightly different curve, more convex at the springing, +is used for the lower side, giving an exquisite variety to the form of +the whole leaf; so that one of the chief elements in the beauty of every +subordinate leaf throughout the tree, is made to depend on its +confession of its own lowliness and subjection.</p> + +<p>And now, if we bring together in one view the principles we have +ascertained in trees, we shall find they may be summed under four great +laws; and that all perfect<a name="FNanchor_253_253" id="FNanchor_253_253"></a><a href="#Footnote_253_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> vegetable form is appointed to express +these four laws in noble balance of authority.</p> + +<p>1. Support from one living root.</p> + +<p>2. Radiation, or tendency of force from some one given point, either in +the root, or in some stated connexion with it.</p> + +<p>3. Liberty of each bough to seek its own livelihood and happiness +according to its needs, by irregularities of action both in its play and +its work, either stretching out to get its required nourishment from +light and rain, by finding some sufficient breathing-place among the +other branches, or knotting and gathering itself up to get strength for +any load which its fruitful blossoms may lay upon it, and for any stress +of its storm-tossed luxuriance of leaves; or playing hither and thither +as the fitful sunshine may tempt its young shoots, in their undecided +states of mind about their future life.</p> + +<p>4. Imperative requirement of each bough to stop within certain limits, +expressive of its kindly fellowship and fraternity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_380" id="Pg_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> with the boughs in +its neighborhood; and to work with them according to its power, +magnitude, and state of health, to bring out the general perfectness of +the great curve, and circumferent stateliness of the whole tree.</p> + +<p>I think I may leave you, unhelped, to work out the moral analogies of +these laws; you may, perhaps, however, be a little puzzled to see the +meeting of the second one. It typically expresses that healthy human +actions should spring radiantly (like rays) from some single heart +motive; the most beautiful systems of action taking place when this +motive lies at the root of the whole life, and the action is clearly +seen to proceed from it; while also many beautiful secondary systems of +action taking place from motives not so deep or central, but in some +beautiful subordinate connexion with the central or life motive.</p> + +<p>The other laws, if you think over them, you will find equally +significative; and as you draw trees more and more in their various +states of health and hardship, you will be every day more struck by the +beauty of the types they present of the truths most essential for +mankind to know;<a name="FNanchor_254_254" id="FNanchor_254_254"></a><a href="#Footnote_254_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> and you will see what this vegetation of the +earth, which is necessary to our life, first, as purifying the air for +us and then as food, and just as necessary to our joy in all places of +the earth,—what these trees and leaves, I say, are meant to teach us as +we contemplate them, and read or hear their lovely language, written or +spoken for us, not in frightful black letters, nor in dull sentences,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_381" id="Pg_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +but in fair green and shadowy shapes of waving words, and blossomed +brightness of odoriferous wit, and sweet whispers of unintrusive wisdom, +and playful morality.</p> + +<p>Well, I am sorry myself to leave the wood, whatever my reader may be; +but leave it we must, or we shall compose no more pictures to-day.</p> + +<p>This law of radiation, then, enforcing unison of action in arising from, +or proceeding to, some given point, is perhaps, of all principles of +composition, the most influential in producing the beauty of groups of +form. Other laws make them forcible or interesting, but this generally +is chief in rendering them beautiful. In the arrangement of masses in +pictures, it is constantly obeyed by the great composers; but, like the +law of principality, with careful concealment of its imperativeness, the +point to which the lines of main curvature are directed being very often +far away out of the picture. Sometimes, however, a system of curves will +be employed definitely to exalt, by their concurrence, the value of some +leading object, and then the law becomes traceable enough.</p> + +<p>In the instance before us, the principal object being, as we have seen, +the tower on the bridge, Turner has determined that his system of +curvature should have its origin in the top of this tower. The diagram +Fig. 34. page 369, compared with Fig. 32. page 361, will show how this +is done. One curve joins the two towers, and is continued by the back of +the figure sitting on the bank into the piece of bent timber. This is a +limiting curve of great importance, and Turner has drawn a considerable +part of it with the edge of the timber very carefully, and then led the +eye up to the sitting girl by some white spots and indications of a +ledge in the bank; then the passage to the tops of the towers cannot be +missed.</p> + +<p>The next curve is begun and drawn carefully for half an inch of its +course by the rudder; it is then taken up by the basket and the heads of +the figures, and leads accurately to the tower angle. The gunwales of +both the boats begin the next two curves, which meet in the same point; +and all are centralised by the long reflection which continues the +vertical lines.</p> + +<p>Subordinated to this first system of curves there is another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_382" id="Pg_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> begun by +the small crossing bar of wood inserted in the angle behind the rudder; +continued by the bottom of the bank on which the figure sits, +interrupted forcibly beyond it,<a name="FNanchor_255_255" id="FNanchor_255_255"></a><a href="#Footnote_255_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> but taken up again by the +water-line leading to the bridge foot, and passing on in delicate +shadows under the arches, not easily shown in so rude a diagram, towards +the other extremity of the bridge. This is a most important curve, +indicating that the force and sweep of the river have indeed been in old +times under the large arches; while the antiquity of the bridge is told +us by the long tongue of land, either of carted rubbish, or washed down +by some minor stream, which has interrupted this curve, and is now used +as a landing-place for the boats, and for embarkation of merchandise, of +which some bales and bundles are laid in a heap, immediately beneath the +great tower. A common composer would have put these bales to one side or +the other, but Turner knows better; he uses them as a foundation for his +tower, adding to its importance precisely as the sculptured base adorns +a pillar; and he farther increases the aspect of its height by throwing +the reflection of it far down in the nearer water. All the great +composers have this same feeling about sustaining their vertical masses: +you will constantly find Prout using the artifice most dexterously (see, +for instance, the figure with the wheelbarrow under the great tower, in +the sketch of St. Nicolas, at Prague, and the white group of figures +under the tower in the sketch of Augsburg<a name="FNanchor_256_256" id="FNanchor_256_256"></a><a href="#Footnote_256_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a>); and Veronese, Titian, +and Tintoret continually put their principal figures at bases of +pillars. Turner found out their secret very early, the most prominent +instance of his composition on this principle being the drawing of Turin +from the Superga, in Hakewell's Italy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_383" id="Pg_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p><p>I chose Fig. 20., already given to illustrate foliage drawing, chiefly +because, being another instance of precisely the same arrangement, it +will serve to convince you of its being intentional. There, the +vertical, formed by the larger tree, is continued by the figure of the +farmer, and that of one of the smaller trees by his stick. The lines of +the interior mass of the bushes radiate, under the law of radiation, +from a point behind the farmer's head; but their outline curves are +carried on and repeated, under the law of continuity, by the curves of +the dog and boy—by the way, note the remarkable instance in these of +the use of darkest lines towards the light;—all more or less guiding +the eye up to the right, in order to bring it finally to the Keep of +Windsor, which is the central object of the picture, as the bridge tower +is in the Coblentz. The wall on which the boy climbs answers the purpose +of contrasting, both in direction and character, with these greater +curves; thus corresponding as nearly as possible to the minor tongue of +land in the Coblentz. This, however, introduces us to another law, which +we must consider separately.</p> + + +<h4>6. THE LAW OF CONTRAST.</h4> + +<p>Of course the character of everything is best manifested by Contrast. +Rest can only be enjoyed after labour; sound, to be heard clearly, must +rise out of silence; light is exhibited by darkness, darkness by light; +and so on in all things. Now in art every colour has an opponent colour, +which, if brought near it, will relieve it more completely than any +other; so, also, every form and line may be made more striking to the +eye by an opponent form or line near them; a curved line is set off by a +straight one, a massy form by a slight one, and so on; and in all good +work nearly double the value, which any given colour or form would have +uncombined, is given to each by contrast.<a name="FNanchor_257_257" id="FNanchor_257_257"></a><a href="#Footnote_257_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_384" id="Pg_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> +<p>In this case again, however, a too manifest use of the artifice +vulgarises a picture. Great painters do not commonly, or very visibly, +admit violent contrast. They introduce it by stealth and with +intermediate links of tender change; allowing, indeed, the opposition to +tell upon the mind as a surprise, but not as a shock.<a name="FNanchor_258_258" id="FNanchor_258_258"></a><a href="#Footnote_258_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a></p> + +<p>Thus in the rock of Ehrenbreitstein, Fig. 35., the main current of the +lines being downwards, in a convex swell, they are suddenly stopped at +the lowest tower by a counter series of beds, directed nearly straight +across them. This adverse force sets off and relieves the great +curvature, but it is reconciled to it by a series of radiating lines +below, which at first sympathize with the oblique bar, then gradually +get steeper, till they meet and join in the fall of the great curve. No +passage, however intentionally monotonous, is ever introduced by a good +artist without <i>some</i> slight counter current of this kind; so much, +indeed, do the great composers feel the necessity of it, that they will +even do things purposely ill or unsatisfactorily, in order to give +greater value to their well-doing in other places. In a skilful poet's +versification the so-called bad or inferior lines are not inferior +because he could not do them better, but because he feels that if all +were equally weighty, there would be no real sense of weight anywhere; +if all were equally melodious, the melody itself would be fatiguing; and +he purposely introduces the labouring or discordant verse, that the full +ring may be felt in his main sentence, and the finished sweetness in his +chosen rhythm.<a name="FNanchor_259_259" id="FNanchor_259_259"></a><a href="#Footnote_259_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> And continually in painting, inferior artists +destroy their work by giving too much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_385" id="Pg_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> of all that they think is good, +while the great painter gives just enough to be enjoyed, and passes to +an opposite kind of enjoyment, or to an inferior state of enjoyment: he +gives a passage of rich, involved, exquisitely wrought colour, then +passes away into slight, and pale and simple colour; he paints for a +minute or two with intense decision, then suddenly becomes, as the +spectator thinks, slovenly; but he is not slovenly: you could not have +<i>taken</i> any more decision from him just then; you have had as much as is +good for you; he paints over a great space of his picture forms of the +most rounded and melting tenderness, and suddenly, as you think by a +freak, gives you a bit as jagged and sharp as a leafless blackthorn. +Perhaps the most exquisite piece of subtle contrast in the world of +painting is the arrow point, laid sharp against the white side and among +the flowing hair of Correggio's Antiope. It is quite singular how very +little contrast will sometimes serve to make an entire group of forms +interesting which would otherwise have been valueless. There is a good +deal of picturesque material, for instance, in this top of an old tower, +Fig. 48., tiles and stones and sloping roof not disagreeably mingled; +but all would have been unsatisfactory if there had not happened to be +that iron ring on the inner wall, which by its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_386" id="Pg_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> vigorous black +<i>circular</i> line precisely opposes all the square and angular characters +of the battlements and roof. Draw the tower without the ring, and see +what a difference it will make.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 409px;"> +<img src="images/894.jpg" width="409" height="304" alt="Fig. 48." title="" /> +<span class="caption">Fig. 48.</span> +</div> + +<p>One of the most important applications of the law of contrast is in +association with the law of continuity, causing an unexpected but gentle +break in a continuous series. This artifice is perpetual in music, and +perpetual also in good illumination; the way in which little surprises +of change are prepared in any current borders, or chains of ornamental +design, being one of the most subtle characteristics of the work of the +good periods. We take, for instance, a bar of ornament between two +written columns of an early 14th Century MS., and at the first glance we +suppose it to be quite monotonous all the way up, composed of a winding +tendril, with alternately a blue leaf and a scarlet bud. Presently, +however, we see that, in order to observe the law of principality there +is one large scarlet leaf instead of a bud, nearly half-way up, which +forms a centre to the whole rod; and when we begin to examine the order +of the leaves, we find it varied carefully. Let <span class="smcap">a</span> stand for scarlet bud, +<i>b</i> for blue leaf, <i>c</i> for two blue leaves on one stalk, <i>s</i> for a stalk +without a leaf, and <span class="smcap">r</span> for the large red leaf. Then counting from the +ground, the order begins as follows:</p> + +<p><i>b</i>, <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <i>s</i>, <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; and we think we +shall have two <i>b</i>'s and an <span class="smcap">A</span> all the way, when suddenly it becomes <i>b</i>, +<span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">R</span>; <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; and we think we are going to have +<i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span> continued; but no: here it becomes <i>b</i>, <i>s</i>; <i>b</i>, <i>s</i>; <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; +<i>b</i>, <i>s</i>; <i>b</i>, <i>s</i>; <i>c</i>, <i>s</i>; <i>b</i>, <i>s</i>; <i>b</i>, <i>s</i>; and we think we are +surely going to have <i>b</i>, <i>s</i> continued, but behold it runs away to the +end with a quick <i>b</i>, <i>b</i>, <span class="smcap">A</span>; <i>b</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>b</i>!<a name="FNanchor_260_260" id="FNanchor_260_260"></a><a href="#Footnote_260_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> Very often, +however, the designer is satisfied with <i>one</i> surprise, but I never saw +a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any +kind is ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap +somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome, with the +large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_387" id="Pg_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> Italy series: the +single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below +through the gap, simply makes the whole composition right, when +otherwise, it would have been stiff and absurd.</p> + +<p>If you look back to Fig. 48. you will see, in the arrangement of the +battlements, a simple instance of the use of such variation. The whole +top of the tower, though actually three sides of a square, strikes the +eye as a continuous series of five masses. The first two, on the left, +somewhat square and blank; then the next two higher and richer, the +tiles being seen on their slopes. Both these groups being couples, there +is enough monotony in the series to make a change pleasant; and the last +battlement, therefore, is a little higher than the first two,—a little +lower than the second two,—and different in shape from either. Hide it +with your finger, and see how ugly and formal the other four battlements +look.</p> + +<p>There are in this figure several other simple illustrations of the laws +we have been tracing. Thus the whole shape of the wall's mass being +square, it is well, still for the sake of contrast, to oppose it not +only by the element of curvature, in the ring, and lines of the roof +below, but by that of sharpness; hence the pleasure which the eye takes +in the projecting point of the roof. Also because the walls are thick +and sturdy, it is well to contrast their strength with weakness; +therefore we enjoy the evident decrepitude of this roof as it sinks +between them. The whole mass being nearly white, we want a contrasting +shadow somewhere; and get it, under our piece of decrepitude. This +shade, with the tiles of the wall below, forms another pointed mass, +necessary to the first by the law of repetition. Hide this inferior +angle with your finger, and see how ugly the other looks. A sense of the +law of symmetry, though you might hardly suppose it, has some share in +the feeling with which you look at the battlements; there is a certain +pleasure in the opposed slopes of their top, on one side down to the +left, on the other to the right. Still less would you think the law of +radiation had anything to do with the matter: but if you take the +extreme point of the black shadow on the left for a centre and follow +first the low curve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_388" id="Pg_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> of the eaves of the wall, it will lead you, if you +continue it, to the point of the tower cornice; follow the second curve, +the top of the tiles of the wall, and it will strike the top of the +right-hand battlement; then draw a curve from the highest point of the +angle battlement on the left, through the points of the roof and its +dark echo; and you will see how the whole top of the tower radiates from +this lowest dark point. There are other curvatures crossing these main +ones, to keep them from being too conspicuous. Follow the curve of the +upper roof, it will take you to the top of the highest battlement; and +the stones indicated at the right-hand side of the tower are more +extended at the bottom, in order to get some less direct expression of +sympathy, such as irregular stones may be capable of, with the general +flow of the curves from left to right.</p> + +<p>You may not readily believe, at first, that all these laws are indeed +involved in so trifling a piece of composition. But as you study longer, +you will discover that these laws, and many more, are obeyed by the +powerful composers in every <i>touch</i>: that literally, there is never a +dash of their pencil which is not carrying out appointed purposes of +this kind in twenty various ways at once; and that there is as much +difference, in way of intention and authority, between one of the great +composers ruling his colours, and a common painter confused by them, as +there is between a general directing the march of an army, and an old +lady carried off her feet by a mob.</p> + + +<h4>7. THE LAW OF INTERCHANGE.</h4> + +<p>Closely connected with the law of contrast is a law which enforces the +unity of opposite things, by giving to each a portion of the character +of the other. If, for instance, you divide a shield into two masses of +colour, all the way down—suppose blue and white, and put a bar, or +figure of an animal, partly on one division, partly on the other, you +will find it pleasant to the eye if you make the part of the animal blue +which comes upon the white half, and white which comes upon the blue +half. This is done in heraldry, partly for the sake of perfect +intelligibility, but yet more for the sake of delight in interchange of +colour, since, in all ornamentation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_389" id="Pg_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> whatever, the practice is +continual, in the ages of good design.</p> + +<p>Sometimes this alternation is merely a reversal of contrasts; as that, +after red has been for some time on one side, and blue on the other, red +shall pass to blue's side and blue to red's. This kind of alternation +takes place simply in four-quartered shields; in more subtle pieces of +treatment, a little bit only of each colour is carried into the other, +and they are as it were dovetailed together. One of the most curious +facts which will impress itself upon you, when you have drawn some time +carefully from Nature in light and shade, is the appearance of +intentional artifice with which contrasts of this alternate kind are +produced by her; the artistry with which she will darken a tree trunk as +long as it comes against light sky, and throw sunlight on it precisely +at the spot where it comes against a dark hill, and similarly treat all +her masses of shade and colour, is so great, that if you only follow her +closely, every one who looks at your drawing with attention will think +that you have been inventing the most artifically and unnaturally +delightful interchanges of shadow that could possibly be devised by +human wit.</p> + +<p>You will find this law of interchange insisted upon at length by Prout +in his "Lessons on Light and Shade:" it seems, of all his principles of +composition, to be the one he is most conscious of; many others he obeys +by instinct, but this he formally accepts and forcibly declares.</p> + +<p>The typical purpose of the law of interchange is, of course, to teach us +how opposite natures may be helped and strengthened by receiving each, +as far as they can, some impress or imparted power, from the other.</p> + + +<h4>8. THE LAW OF CONSISTENCY.</h4> + +<p>It is to be remembered, in the next place, that while contrast exhibits +the <i>characters</i> of things, it very often neutralises or paralyses their +<i>power</i>. A number of white things may be shown to be clearly white by +opposition of a black thing, but if you want the full power of their +gathered light, the black thing may be seriously in our way. Thus, while +contrast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_390" id="Pg_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> displays things, it is unity and sympathy which employ them, +concentrating the power of several into a mass. And, not in art merely, +but in all the affairs of life, the wisdom of man is continually called +upon to reconcile these opposite methods of exhibiting, or using, the +materials in his power. By change he gives them pleasantness, and by +consistency value; by change he is refreshed, and by perseverence +strengthened.</p> + +<p>Hence many compositions address themselves to the spectator by aggregate +force of colour or line, more than by contrasts of either; many noble +pictures are painted almost exclusively in various tones of red, or +grey, or gold, so as to be instantly striking by their breadth of flush, +or glow, or tender coldness, these qualities being exhibited only by +slight and subtle use of contrast. Similarly as to form; some +compositions associate massive and rugged forms, others slight and +graceful ones, each with few interruptions by lines of contrary +character. And, in general, such compositions possess higher sublimity +than those which are more mingled in their elements. They tell a special +tale, and summon a definite state of feeling, while the grand +compositions merely please the eye.</p> + +<p>This unity or breadth of character generally attaches most to the works +of the greatest men; their separate pictures have all separate aims. We +have not, in each, grey colour set against sombre, and sharp forms +against soft, and loud passages against low; but we have the bright +picture, with its delicate sadness; the sombre picture, with its single +ray of relief; the stern picture, with only one tender group of lines; +the soft and calm picture, with only one rock angle at its flank; and so +on. Hence the variety of their work, as well as its impressiveness. The +principal bearing of this law, however, is on the separate masses or +divisions of a picture: the character of the whole composition may be +broken or various, if we please, but there must certainly be a tendency +to consistent assemblage in its divisions. As an army may act on several +points at once, but can only act effectually by having somewhere formed +and regular masses, and not wholly by skirmishers; so a picture may be +various in its tendencies, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_391" id="Pg_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> must be somewhere united and coherent in +its masses. Good composers are always associating their colours in great +groups; binding their forms together by encompassing lines, and +securing, by various dexterities of expedient, what they themselves call +"breadth:" that is to say, a large gathering of each kind of thing into +one place; light being gathered to light, darkness to darkness, and +colour to colour. If, however, this be done by introducing false lights +or false colours, it is absurd and monstrous; the skill of a painter +consists in obtaining breadth by rational arrangement of his objects, +not by forced or wanton treatment of them. It is an easy matter to paint +one thing all white, and another all black or brown; but not an easy +matter to assemble all the circumstances which will naturally produce +white in one place, and brown in another. Generally speaking, however, +breadth will result in sufficient degree from fidelity of study: Nature +is always broad; and if you paint her colours in true relations, you +will paint them in majestic masses. If you find your work look broken +and scattered, it is, in all probability, not only ill composed, but +untrue.</p> + +<p>The opposite quality to breadth, that of division or scattering of light +and colour, has a certain contrasting charm, and is occasionally +introduced with exquisite effect by good composers.<a name="FNanchor_261_261" id="FNanchor_261_261"></a><a href="#Footnote_261_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> Still, it is +never the mere scattering, but the order discernible through this +scattering, which is the real source of pleasure; not the mere +multitude, but the constellation of multitude. The broken lights in the +work of a good painter wander like flocks upon the hills, not +unshepherded; speaking of life and peace: the broken lights of a bad +painter fall like hailstones, and are capable only of mischief, leaving +it to be wished they were also of dissolution.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_392" id="Pg_392">[Pg 392]</a></span></p> + +<h4>9. THE LAW OF HARMONY.</h4> + +<p>This last law is not, strictly speaking, so much one of composition as +of truth, but it must guide composition, and is properly, therefore, to +be stated in this place.</p> + +<p>Good drawing is, as we have seen, an <i>abstract</i> of natural facts; you +cannot represent all that you would, but must continually be falling +short, whether you will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Nature. +Now, suppose that your means and time do not admit of your giving the +depth of colour in the scene, and that you are obliged to paint it +paler. If you paint all the colours proportionately paler, as if an +equal quantity of tint had been washed away from each of them, you still +obtain a harmonious, though not an equally forcible statement of natural +fact. But if you take away the colours unequally, and leave some tints +nearly as deep as they are in Nature, while others are much subdued, you +have no longer a true statement. You cannot say to the observer, "Fancy +all those colours a little deeper, and you will have the actual fact." +However he adds in imagination, or takes away, something is sure to be +still wrong. The picture is out of harmony.</p> + +<p>It will happen, however, much more frequently, that you have to darken +the whole system of colours, than to make them paler. You remember, in +your first studies of colour from Nature, you were to leave the passages +of light which were too bright to be imitated, as white paper. But, in +completing the picture, it becomes necessary to put colour into them; +and then the other colours must be made darker, in some fixed relation +to them. If you deepen all proportionately, though the whole scene is +darker than reality, it is only as if you were looking at the reality in +a lower light: but if, while you darken some of the tints, you leave +others undarkened, the picture is out of harmony, and will not give the +impression of truth.</p> + +<p>It is not, indeed, possible to deepen <i>all</i> the colours so much as to +relieve the lights in their natural degree; you would merely sink most +of your colours, if you tried to do so, into a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_393" id="Pg_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> broad mass of blackness: +but it is quite possible to lower them harmoniously, and yet more in +some parts of the picture than in others, so as to allow you to show the +light you want in a visible relief. In well-harmonised pictures this is +done by gradually deepening the tone of the picture towards the lighter +parts of it, without materially lowering it in the very dark parts; the +tendency in such pictures being, of course, to include large masses of +middle tints. But the principal point to be observed in doing this, is +to deepen the individual tints without dirtying or obscuring them. It is +easy to lower the tone of the picture by washing it over with grey or +brown; and easy to see the effect of the landscape, when its colours are +thus universally polluted with black, by using the black convex mirror, +one of the most pestilent inventions for falsifying nature and degrading +art which ever was put into an artist's hand.<a name="FNanchor_262_262" id="FNanchor_262_262"></a><a href="#Footnote_262_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> For the thing +required is not to darken pale yellow by mixing grey with it, but to +deepen the pure yellow; not to darken crimson by mixing black with it, +but by making it deeper and richer crimson: and thus the required effect +could only be seen in Nature, if you had pieces of glass of the colour +of every object in your landscape, and of every minor hue that made up +those colours, and then could see the real landscape through this deep +gorgeousness of the varied glass. You cannot do this with glass, but you +can do it for yourself as you work; that is to say, you can put deep +blue for pale blue, deep gold for pale gold, and so on, in the +proportion you need; and then you may paint as forcibly as you choose, +but your work will still be in the manner of Titian, not of Caravaggio +or Spagnoletto, or any other of the black slaves of painting.<a name="FNanchor_263_263" id="FNanchor_263_263"></a><a href="#Footnote_263_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_394" id="Pg_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p><p>Supposing those scales of colour, which I told you to prepare in order +to show you the relations of colour to grey, were quite accurately made, +and numerous enough, you would have nothing more to do, in order to +obtain a deeper tone in any given mass of colour, than to substitute for +each of its hues the hue as many degrees deeper in the scale as you +wanted, that is to say, if you want to deepen the whole two degrees, +substituting for the yellow No. 5. the yellow No. 7., and for the red +No. 9. the red No. 11., and so on; but the hues of any object in Nature +are far too numerous, and their degrees too subtle, to admit of so +mechanical a process. Still, you may see the principle of the whole +matter clearly by taking a group of colours out of your scale, arranging +them prettily, and then washing them all over with grey: that represents +the treatment of Nature by the black mirror. Then arrange the same group +of colours, with the tints five or six degrees deeper in the scale; and +that will represent the treatment of Nature by Titian.</p> + +<p>You can only, however, feel your way fully to the right of the thing by +working from Nature.</p> + +<p>The best subject on which to begin a piece of study of this kind is a +good thick tree trunk, seen against blue sky with some white clouds in +it. Paint the clouds in true and tenderly gradated white; then give the +sky a bold full blue, bringing them well out; then paint the trunk and +leaves grandly dark against all, but in such glowing dark green and +brown as you see they will bear. Afterwards proceed to more complicated +studies, matching the colours carefully first by your old method; then +deepening each colour with its own tint, and being careful, above all +things, to keep truth of equal change when the colours are connected +with each other, as in dark and light sides of the same object. Much +more aspect and sense of harmony are gained by the precision with which +you observe the relation of colours in dark sides and light sides, and +the influence of modifying reflections, than by mere accuracy of added +depth in independent colours.</p> + +<p>This harmony of tone, as it is generally called, is the most important +of those which the artist has to regard. But there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_395" id="Pg_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> are all kinds of +harmonies in a picture, according to its mode of production. There is +even a harmony of <i>touch</i>. If you paint one part of it very rapidly and +forcibly, and another part slowly and delicately, each division of the +picture may be right separately, but they will not agree together: the +whole will be effectless and valueless, out of harmony. Similarly, if +you paint one part of it by a yellow light in a warm day, and another by +a grey light in a cold day, though both may have been sunlight, and both +may be well toned, and have their relative shadows truly cast, neither +will look like light: they will destroy each other's power, by being out +of harmony. These are only broad and definable instances of discordance; +but there is an extent of harmony in all good work much too subtle for +definition; depending on the draughtsman's carrying everything he draws +up to just the balancing and harmonious point, in finish, and colour, +and depth of tone, and intensity of moral feeling, and style of touch, +all considered at once; and never allowing himself to lean too +emphatically on detached parts, or exalt one thing at the expense of +another, or feel acutely in one place and coldly in another. If you have +got some of Cruikshank's etchings, you will be able, I think, to feel +the nature of harmonious treatment in a simple kind, by comparing them +with any of Richter's illustrations to the numerous German story-books +lately published at Christmas, with all the German stories spoiled. +Cruikshank's work is often incomplete in character and poor in incident, +but, as drawing, it is <i>perfect</i> in harmony. The pure and simple effects +of daylight which he gets by his thorough mastery of treatment in this +respect, are quite unrivalled, as far as I know, by any other work +executed with so few touches. His vignettes to Grimm's German stories, +already recommended, are the most remarkable in this quality. Richter's +illustrations, on the contrary, are of a very high stamp as respects +understanding of human character, with infinite playfulness and +tenderness of fancy; but, as drawings, they are almost unendurably out +of harmony, violent blacks in one place being continually opposed to +trenchant white in another; and, as is almost sure to be the case with +bad harmonists, the local colour hardly felt anywhere. All German<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_396" id="Pg_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> work +is apt to be out of harmony, in consequence of its too frequent +conditions of affectation, and its wilful refusals of fact; as well as +by reason of a feverish kind of excitement, which dwells violently on +particular points, and makes all the lines of thought in the picture to +stand on end, as it were, like a cat's fur electrified; while good work +is always as quiet as a couchant leopard, and as strong.</p> + +<p>I have now stated to you all the laws of composition which occur to me +as capable of being illustrated or defined; but there are multitudes of +others which, in the present state of my knowledge, I cannot define, and +others which I never hope to define; and these the most important, and +connected with the deepest powers of the art. Among those which I hope +to be able to explain when I have thought of them more, are the laws +which relate to nobleness and ignobleness; that ignobleness especially +which we commonly call "vulgarity," and which, in its essence, is one of +the most curious subjects of inquiry connected with human feeling. Among +those which I never hope to explain, are chiefly laws of expression, and +others bearing simply on simple matters; but, for that very reason, more +influential than any others. These are, from the first, as inexplicable +as our bodily sensations are; it being just as impossible, I think, to +explain why one succession of musical notes<a name="FNanchor_264_264" id="FNanchor_264_264"></a><a href="#Footnote_264_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> shall be noble and +pathetic, and such as might have been sung by Casella to Dante, and why +another succession is base and ridiculous, and would be fit only for the +reasonably good ear of Bottom, as to explain why we like sweetness, and +dislike bitterness. The best part of every great work is always +inexplicable: it is good because it is good; and innocently gracious, +opening as the green of the earth, or falling as the dew of heaven.</p> + +<p>But though you cannot explain them, you may always render<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_397" id="Pg_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> yourself more +and more sensitive to these higher qualities by the discipline which you +generally give to your character, and this especially with regard to the +choice of incidents; a kind of composition in some sort easier than the +artistical arrangements of lines and colours, but in every sort nobler, +because addressed to deeper feelings.</p> + +<p>For instance, in the "Datur Hora Quieti," the last vignette to Roger's +Poems, the plough in the foreground has three purposes. The first +purpose is to meet the stream of sunlight on the river, and make it +brighter by opposition; but any dark object whatever would have done +this. Its second purpose is by its two arms, to repeat the cadence of +the group of the two ships, and thus give a greater expression of +repose; but two sitting figures would have done this. Its third and +chief, or pathetic, purpose is, as it lies abandoned in the furrow (the +vessels also being moored, and having their sails down), to be a type of +human labour closed with the close of day. The parts of it on which the +hand leans are brought most clearly into sight; and they are the chief +dark of the picture, because the tillage of the ground is required of +man as a punishment; but they make the soft light of the setting sun +brighter, because rest is sweetest after toil. These thoughts may never +occur to us as we glance carelessly at the design; and yet their under +current assuredly affects the feelings, and increases, as the painter +meant it should, the impression of melancholy, and of peace.</p> + +<p>Again, in the "Lancaster Sands," which is one of the plates I have +marked as most desirable for your possession; the stream of light which +falls from the setting sun on the advancing tide stands similarly in +need of some force of near object to relieve its brightness. But the +incident which Turner has here adopted is the swoop of an angry seagull +at a dog, who yelps at it, drawing back as the wave rises over his feet, +and the bird shrieks within a foot of his face. Its unexpected boldness +is a type of the anger of its ocean element, and warns us of the sea's +advance just as surely as the abandoned plough told us of the ceased +labour of the day.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, so much in the selection of single incidents<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_398" id="Pg_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> of +this kind as in the feeling which regulates the arrangement of the whole +subject that the mind of a great composer is known. A single incident +may be suggested by a felicitous chance, as a pretty motto might be for +the heading of a chapter. But the great composers so arrange <i>all</i> their +designs that one incident illustrates another, just as one colour +relieves another. Perhaps the "Heysham," of the Yorkshire series which, +as to its locality, may be considered a companion to the last drawing we +have spoken of, the "Lancaster Sands," presents as interesting an +example as we could find of Turner's feeling in this respect. The +subject is a simple north-country village, on the shore of Morecambe +Bay; not in the common sense, a picturesque village: there are no pretty +bow-windows, or red roofs, or rocky steps of entrance to the rustic +doors, or quaint gables; nothing but a single street of thatched and +chiefly clay-built cottages, ranged in a somewhat monotonous line, the +roofs so green with moss that at first we hardly discern the houses from +the fields and trees. The village street is closed at the end by a +wooden gate, indicating the little traffic there is on the road through +it, and giving it something the look of a large farmstead, in which a +right of way lies through the yard. The road which leads to this gate is +full of ruts, and winds down a bad bit of hill between two broken banks +of moor ground, succeeding immediately to the few enclosures which +surround the village; they can hardly be called gardens; but a decayed +fragment or two of fencing fill the gaps in the bank; and a +clothes-line, with some clothes on it, striped blue and red, and a +smock-frock, is stretched between the trunks of some stunted willows; a +<i>very</i> small haystack and pigstye being seen at the back of the cottage +beyond. An empty, two-wheeled, lumbering cart, drawn by a pair of horses +with huge wooden collars, the driver sitting lazily in the sun, sideways +on the leader, is going slowly home along the rough road, it being about +country dinner-time. At the end of the village there is a better house, +with three chimneys and a dormer window in its roof, and the roof is of +stone shingle instead of thatch, but very rough. This house is no doubt +the clergyman's; there is some smoke from one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_399" id="Pg_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> of its chimneys, none +from any other in the village; this smoke is from the lowest chimney at +the back, evidently that of the kitchen, and it is rather thick, the +fire not having been long lighted. A few hundred yards from the +clergyman's house, nearer the shore, is the church, discernible from the +cottage only by its low-arched belfry, a little neater than one would +expect in such a village; perhaps lately built by the Puseyite +incumbent;<a name="FNanchor_265_265" id="FNanchor_265_265"></a><a href="#Footnote_265_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> and beyond the church, close to the sea, are two +fragments of a border war-tower, standing on their circular mound, worn +on its brow deep into edges and furrows by the feet of the village +children. On the bank of moor, which forms the foreground, are a few +cows, the carter's dog barking at a vixenish one: the milkmaid is +feeding another, a gentle white one, which turns its head to her, +expectant of a handful of fresh hay, which she has brought for it in her +blue apron, fastened up round her waist; she stands with her pail on her +head, evidently the village coquette, for she has a neat bodice, and +pretty striped petticoat under the blue apron, and red stockings. Nearer +us, the cowherd, barefooted, stands on a piece of the limestone rock +(for the ground is thistly and not pleasurable to bare feet);—whether +boy or girl we are not sure; it may be a boy, with a girl's worn-out +bonnet on, or a girl with a pair of ragged trowsers on; probably the +first, as the old bonnet is evidently useful to keep the sun out of our +eyes when we are looking for strayed cows among the moorland hollows, +and helps us at present to watch (holding the bonnet's edge down) the +quarrel of the vixenish cow with the dog, which, leaning on our long +stick, we allow to proceed without any interference. A little to the +right the hay is being got in, of which the milkmaid has just taken her +apronful to the white cow; but the hay is very thin, and cannot well be +raked up because of the rocks; we must glean it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_400" id="Pg_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> like corn, hence the +smallness of our stack behind the willows, and a woman is pressing a +bundle of it hard together, kneeling against the rock's edge, to carry +it safely to the hay-cart without dropping any. Beyond the village is a +rocky hill, deep set with brushwood, a square crag or two of limestone +emerging here and there, with pleasant turf on their brows, heaved in +russet and mossy mounds against the sky, which, clear and calm, and as +golden as the moss, stretches down behind it towards the sea. A single +cottage just shows its roof over the edge of the hill, looking seaward; +perhaps one of the village shepherds is a sea captain now, and may have +built it there, that his mother may first see the sails of his ship +whenever it runs into the bay. Then under the hill, and beyond the +border tower, is the blue sea itself, the waves flowing in over the sand +in long curved lines, slowly; shadows of cloud and gleams of shallow +water on white sand alternating—miles away; but no sail is visible, not +one fisherboat on the beach, not one dark speck on the quiet horizon. +Beyond all are the Cumberland mountains, clear in the sun, with rosy +light on all their crags.</p> + +<p>I should think the reader cannot but feel the kind of harmony there is +in this composition; the entire purpose of the painter to give us the +impression of wild, yet gentle, country life, monotonous as the +succession of the noiseless waves, patient and enduring as the rocks; +but peaceful, and full of health and quiet hope, and sanctified by the +pure mountain air and baptismal dew of heaven, falling softly between +days of toil and nights of innocence.</p> + +<p>All noble composition of this kind can be reached only by instinct: you +cannot set yourself to arrange such a subject; you may see it, and seize +it, at all times, but never laboriously invent it. And your power of +discerning what is best in expression, among natural subjects, depends +wholly on the temper in which you keep your own mind; above all, on your +living so much alone as to allow it to become acutely sensitive in its +own stillness. The noisy life of modern days is wholly incompatible with +any true perception of natural beauty. If you go down into Cumberland by +the railroad, live in some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_401" id="Pg_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> frequented hotel, and explore the hills with +merry companions, however much you may enjoy your tour or their +conversation, depend upon it you will never choose so much as one +pictorial subject rightly; you will not see into the depth of any. But +take knapsack and stick, walk towards the hills by short day's +journeys—ten or twelve miles a day—taking a week from some +starting-place sixty or seventy miles away: sleep at the pretty little +wayside inns, or the rough village ones; then take the hills as they +tempt you, following glen or shore as your eye glances or your heart +guides, wholly scornful of local fame or fashion, and of everything +which it is the ordinary traveller's duty to see or pride to do. Never +force yourself to admire anything when you are not in the humour; but +never force yourself away from what you feel to be lovely, in search of +anything better: and gradually the deeper scenes of the natural <span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_402" id="Pg_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>world +will unfold themselves to you in still increasing fulness of passionate +power; and your difficulty will be no more to seek or to compose +subjects, but only to choose one from among the multitude of melodious +thoughts with which you will be haunted, thoughts which will of course +be noble or original in proportion to your own depth of character and +general power of mind: for it is not so much by the consideration you +give to any single drawing, as by the previous discipline of your powers +of thought, that the character of your composition will be determined. +Simplicity of life will make you sensitive to the refinement and modesty +of scenery, just as inordinate excitement and pomp of daily life will +make you enjoy coarse colours and affected forms. Habits of patient +comparison and accurate judgment will make your art precious, as they +will make your actions wise; and every increase of noble enthusiasm in +your living spirit will be measured by the reflection of its light upon +the works of your hands.</p> + +<p class="right"> +Faithfully yours,<br /> + +J. Ruskin.</p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_234_234" id="Footnote_234_234"></a><a href="#FNanchor_234_234"><span class="label">[234]</span></a> I give Rossetti this preëminence, because, though the +leading Pre-Raphaelites have all about equal power over colour in the +abstract, Rossetti and Holman Hunt are distinguished above the rest for +rendering colour under effects of light; and of these two, Rossetti +composes with richer fancy and with a deeper sense of beauty, Hunt's +stern realism leading him continually into harshness. Rossetti's +carelessness, to do him justice, is only in water-colour, never in oil.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_235_235" id="Footnote_235_235"></a><a href="#FNanchor_235_235"><span class="label">[235]</span></a> All the degradation of art which was brought about, after +the rise of the Dutch school, by asphaltum, yellow varnish, and brown +trees, would have been prevented, if only painters had been forced to +work in dead colour. Any colour will do for some people, if it is +browned and shining; but fallacy in dead colour is detected on the +instant. I even believe that whenever a painter begins to <i>wish</i> that he +could touch any portion of his work with gum, he is going wrong. +</p><p> +It is necessary, however, in this matter, carefully to distinguish +between translucency and lustre. Translucency, though, as I have said +above, a dangerous temptation, is, in its place, beautiful; but lustre, +or <i>shininess</i>, is always, in painting, a defect. Nay, one of my best +painter-friends (the "best" being understood to attach to both divisions +of that awkward compound word), tried the other day to persuade me +thatlustre was an ignobleness in <i>anything</i>; and it was only the fear of +treason to ladies' eyes, and to mountain streams, and to morning dew, +which kept me from yielding the point to him. One is apt always to +generalise too quickly in such matters; but there can be no question +that lustre is destructive of loveliness in colour, as it is of +intelligibility in form. Whatever may be the pride of a young beauty in +the knowledge that her eyes shine (though perhaps even eyes are most +beautiful in dimness), she would be sorry if her cheeks did; and which +of us would wish to polish a rose?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_236_236" id="Footnote_236_236"></a><a href="#FNanchor_236_236"><span class="label">[236]</span></a> But not shiny or greasy. Bristol board, or hot-pressed +imperial, or grey paper that feels slightly adhesive to the hand, is +best. Coarse, gritty, and sandy papers are fit only for blotters and +blunderers; no good draughtsman would lay a line on them. Turner worked +much on a thin tough paper, dead in surface; rolling up his sketches in +tight bundles that would go deep into his pockets.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_237_237" id="Footnote_237_237"></a><a href="#FNanchor_237_237"><span class="label">[237]</span></a> I insist upon this unalterability of colour the more +because I address you as a beginner, or an amateur; a great artist can +sometimes get out of a difficulty with credit, or repent without +confession. Yet even Titian's alterations usually show as stains on his +work.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_238_238" id="Footnote_238_238"></a><a href="#FNanchor_238_238"><span class="label">[238]</span></a> It is, I think, a piece of affectation to try to work +with few colours; it saves time to have enough tints prepared without +mixing, and you may at once allow yourself these twenty-four. If you +arrange them in your colour-box in the order I have set them down, you +will always easily put your finger on the one you want. +</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Cobalt.</td><td align='left'>Smalt.</td><td align='left'>Antwerp blue.</td><td align='left'>Prussian blue.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Black.</td><td align='left'>Gamboge.</td><td align='left'>Emerald green.</td><td align='left'>Hooker's green.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lemon yellow.</td><td align='left'>Cadmium yellow.</td><td align='left'>Yellow ochre.</td><td align='left'>Roman ochre.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Raw sienna.</td><td align='left'>Burnt sienna.</td><td align='left'>Light red.</td><td align='left'>Indian red.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mars orange.</td><td align='left'>Ext't of vermilion.</td><td align='left'>Carmine.</td><td align='left'>Violet carmine.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Brown madder.</td><td align='left'>Burnt umber.</td><td align='left'>Vandyke brown.</td><td align='left'>Sepia.</td></tr> +</table></div> +<p> +Antwerp blue and Prussian blue are not very permanent colours, but you +need not care much about permanence in your own work as yet, and they +are both beautiful; while Indigo is marked by Field as more fugitive +still, and is very ugly. Hooker's green is a mixed colour, put in the +box merely to save you loss of time in mixing gamboge and Prussian blue. +No. 1. is the best tint of it. Violet carmine is a noble colour for +laying broken shadows with, to be worked into afterwards with other +colours. +</p><p> +If you wish to take up colouring seriously, you had better get Field's +"Chromatography" at once; only do not attend to anything it says about +principles or harmonies of colour; but only to its statements of +practical serviceableness in pigments, and of their operations on each +other when mixed, &c.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_239_239" id="Footnote_239_239"></a><a href="#FNanchor_239_239"><span class="label">[239]</span></a> A more methodical, though, under general circumstances, +uselessly prolix way, is to cut a square hole, some half an inch wide, +in the sheet of cardboard, and a series of small circular holes in a +slip of cardboard an inch wide. Pass the slip over the square opening, +and match each colour beside one of the circular openings. You will thus +have no occasion to wash any of the colours away. But the first rough +method is generally all you want, as after a little practice, you only +need to <i>look</i> at the hue through the opening in order to be able to +transfer it to your drawing at once.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_240_240" id="Footnote_240_240"></a><a href="#FNanchor_240_240"><span class="label">[240]</span></a> If colours were twenty times as costly as they are, we +should have many more good painters. If I were Chancellor of the +Exchequer I would lay a tax of twenty shillings a cake on all colours +except black, Prussian blue, Vandyke brown, and Chinese white, which I +would leave for students. I don't say this jestingly; I believe such a +tax would do more to advance real art than a great many schools of +design.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_241_241" id="Footnote_241_241"></a><a href="#FNanchor_241_241"><span class="label">[241]</span></a> I say <i>modern</i>, because Titian's quiet way of blending +colours, which is the perfectly right one, is not understood now by any +artist. The best colour we reach is got by stippling; but this not quite +right.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_242_242" id="Footnote_242_242"></a><a href="#FNanchor_242_242"><span class="label">[242]</span></a> The worst general character that colour can possibly have +is a prevalent tendency to a dirty yellowish green, like that of a +decaying heap of vegetables; this colour is <i>accurately</i> indicative of +decline or paralysis in missal-painting.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_243_243" id="Footnote_243_243"></a><a href="#FNanchor_243_243"><span class="label">[243]</span></a> That is to say, local colour inherent in the object. The +gradations of colour in the various shadows belonging to various lights +exhibit form, and therefore no one but a colourist can ever draw <i>forms</i> +perfectly (see "Modern Painters," vol. iv. chap. iii. at the end); but +all notions of explaining form by superimposed colour, as in +architectural mouldings, are absurd. Colour adorns form, but does not +interpret it. An apple is prettier, because it is striped, but it does +not look a bit rounder; and a cheek is prettier because it is flushed, +but you would see the form of the cheek bone better if it were not. +Colour may, indeed, detach one shape from another, as in grounding a +bas-relief, but it always diminishes the appearance of projection, and +whether you put blue, purple, red, yellow, or green, for your ground, +the bas-relief will be just as clearly or just as imperfectly relieved, +as long as the colours are of equal depth. The blue ground will not +retire the hundredth part of an inch more than the red one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_244_244" id="Footnote_244_244"></a><a href="#FNanchor_244_244"><span class="label">[244]</span></a> See, however, at the close of this letter, the notice of +one more point connected with the management of colour, under the head +"Law of Harmony."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_245_245" id="Footnote_245_245"></a><a href="#FNanchor_245_245"><span class="label">[245]</span></a> See farther, on this subject, "Modern Painters," vol. iv. +chap. viii § 6.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_246_246" id="Footnote_246_246"></a><a href="#FNanchor_246_246"><span class="label">[246]</span></a> "In general, throughout Nature, reflection and repetition +are peaceful things, associated with the idea of quiet succession in +events, that one day should be like another day, or one history the +repetition of another history, being more or less results of quietness, +while dissimilarity and non-succession are results of interference and +disquietude. Thus, though an echo actually increases the quantity of +sound heard, its repetition of the note or syllable gives an idea of +calmness attainable in no other way; hence also the feeling of calm +given to a landscape by the voice of a cuckoo."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_247_247" id="Footnote_247_247"></a><a href="#FNanchor_247_247"><span class="label">[247]</span></a> This is obscure in the rude woodcut, the masts being so +delicate that they are confused among the lines of reflection. In the +original they have orange light upon them, relieved against purple +behind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_248_248" id="Footnote_248_248"></a><a href="#FNanchor_248_248"><span class="label">[248]</span></a> The cost of art in getting a bridge level is <i>always</i> +lost, for you must get up to the height of the central arch at any rate, +and you only can make the whole bridge level by putting the hill farther +back, and pretending to have got rid of it when you have not, but have +only wasted money in building an unnecessary embankment. Of course, the +bridge should not be difficultly or dangerously steep, but the necessary +slope, whatever it may be, should be in the bridge itself, as far as the +bridge can take it, and not pushed aside into the approach, as in our +Waterloo road; the only rational excuse for doing which is that when the +slope must be long it is inconvenient to put on a drag at the top of the +bridge, and that any restiveness of the horse is more dangerous on the +bridge than on the embankment. To this I answer: first, it is not more +dangerous in reality, though it looks so, for the bridge is always +guarded by an effective parapet, but the embankment is sure to have no +parapet, or only a useless rail; and secondly, that it is better to have +the slope on the bridge, and make the roadway wide in proportion, so as +to be quite safe, because a little waste of space on the river is no +loss, but your wide embankment at the side loses good ground; and so my +picturesque bridges are right as well as beautiful, and I hope to see +them built again some day, instead of the frightful straight-backed +things which we fancy are fine, and accept from the pontifical +rigidities of the engineering mind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_249_249" id="Footnote_249_249"></a><a href="#FNanchor_249_249"><span class="label">[249]</span></a> I cannot waste space here by reprinting what I have said +in other books: but the reader ought, if possible, to refer to the +notices of this part of our subject in "Modern Painters," vol. iv. chap. +xviii., and "Stones of Venice," vol. iii. chap. i. § 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_250_250" id="Footnote_250_250"></a><a href="#FNanchor_250_250"><span class="label">[250]</span></a> If you happen to be reading at this part of the book, +without having gone through any previous practice, turn back to the +sketch of the ramification of stone pine, Fig. 4. page 30., and examine +the curves of its boughs one by one, trying them by the conditions here +stated under the heads A. and B.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_251_251" id="Footnote_251_251"></a><a href="#FNanchor_251_251"><span class="label">[251]</span></a> The reader, I hope, observes always that every line in +these figures is itself one of varying curvature, and cannot be drawn by +compasses.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_252_252" id="Footnote_252_252"></a><a href="#FNanchor_252_252"><span class="label">[252]</span></a> I hope the reader understands that these woodcuts are +merely facsimiles of the sketches I make at the side of my paper to +illustrate my meaning as I write—often sadly scrawled if I want to get +on to something else. This one is really a little too careless; but it +would take more time and trouble to make a proper drawing of so odd a +boat than the matter is worth. It will answer the purpose well enough as +it is.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_253_253" id="Footnote_253_253"></a><a href="#FNanchor_253_253"><span class="label">[253]</span></a> Imperfect vegetable form I consider that which is in its +nature dependent, as in runners and climbers; or which is susceptible of +continual injury without materially losing the power of giving pleasure +by its aspect, as in the case of the smaller grasses. I have not, of +course, space here to explain these minor distinctions, but the laws +above stated apply to all the more important trees and shrubs likely to +be familiar to the student.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_254_254" id="Footnote_254_254"></a><a href="#FNanchor_254_254"><span class="label">[254]</span></a> There is a very tender lesson of this kind in the shadows +of leaves upon the ground; shadows which are the most likely of all to +attract attention, by their pretty play and change. If you examine them, +you will find that the shadows do not take the forms of the leaves, but +that, through each interstice, the light falls, at a little distance, in +the form of a round or oval spot; that is to say, it produces the image +of the sun itself, cast either vertically or obliquely, in circle or +ellipse according to the slope of the ground. Of course the sun's rays +produce the same effect, when they fall through any small aperture: but +the openings between leaves are the only ones likely to show it to an +ordinary observer, or to attract his attention to it by its frequency, +and lead him to think what this type may signify respecting the greater +Sun; and how it may show us that, even when the opening through which +the earth receives light is too small to let us see the Sun himself, the +ray of light that enters, if it comes straight from Him, will still bear +with it His image.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_255_255" id="Footnote_255_255"></a><a href="#FNanchor_255_255"><span class="label">[255]</span></a> In the smaller figure (32.), it will be seen that this +interruption is caused by a cart coming down to the water's edge; and +this object is serviceable as beginning another system of curves leading +out of the picture on the right, but so obscurely drawn as not to be +easily represented in outline. As it is unnecessary to the explanation +of our point here, it has been omitted in the larger diagram, the +direction of the curve it begins being indicated by the dashes only.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_256_256" id="Footnote_256_256"></a><a href="#FNanchor_256_256"><span class="label">[256]</span></a> Both in the Sketches in Flanders and Germany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_257_257" id="Footnote_257_257"></a><a href="#FNanchor_257_257"><span class="label">[257]</span></a> If you happen to meet with the plate of Durer's +representing a coat of arms with a skull in the shield, note the value +given to the concave curves and sharp point of the helmet by the convex +leafage carried round it in front; and the use of the blank white part +of the shield in opposing the rich folds of the dress.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_258_258" id="Footnote_258_258"></a><a href="#FNanchor_258_258"><span class="label">[258]</span></a> Turner hardly ever, as far as I remember, allows a strong +light to oppose a full dark, without some intervening tint. His suns +never set behind dark mountains without a film of cloud above the +mountain's edge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_259_259" id="Footnote_259_259"></a><a href="#FNanchor_259_259"><span class="label">[259]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A prudent chief not always must display<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His powers in equal ranks and fair array,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But with the occasion and the place comply,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conceal his force; nay, seem sometimes to fly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream."<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>Essay on Criticism.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_260_260" id="Footnote_260_260"></a><a href="#FNanchor_260_260"><span class="label">[260]</span></a> I am describing from a MS., <i>circa</i> 1300, of Gregory's +"Decretalia" in my own possession.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_261_261" id="Footnote_261_261"></a><a href="#FNanchor_261_261"><span class="label">[261]</span></a> One of the most wonderful compositions of Tintoret in +Venice, is little more than a field of subdued crimson, spotted with +flakes of scattered gold. The upper clouds in the most beautiful skies +owe great part of their power to infinitude of division; order being +marked through this division.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_262_262" id="Footnote_262_262"></a><a href="#FNanchor_262_262"><span class="label">[262]</span></a> I fully believe that the strange grey gloom, accompanied +by considerable power of effect, which prevails in modern French art +must be owing to the use of this mischievous instrument; the French +landscape always gives me the idea of Nature seen carelessly in the dark +mirror, and painted coarsely, but scientifically, through the veil of +its perversion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_263_263" id="Footnote_263_263"></a><a href="#FNanchor_263_263"><span class="label">[263]</span></a> Various other parts of this subject are entered into, +especially in their bearing on the ideal of painting, in "Modern +Painters," vol. iv. chap. iii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_264_264" id="Footnote_264_264"></a><a href="#FNanchor_264_264"><span class="label">[264]</span></a> In all the best arrangements of colour, the delight +occasioned by their mode of succession is entirely inexplicable, nor can +it be reasoned about; we like it just as we like an air in music, but +cannot reason any refractory person into liking it, if they do not: and +yet there is distinctly a right and a wrong in it, and a good taste and +bad taste respecting it, as also in music.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_265_265" id="Footnote_265_265"></a><a href="#FNanchor_265_265"><span class="label">[265]</span></a> "Puseyism" was unknown in the days when this drawing was +made; but the kindly and helpful influences of what may be called +ecclesiastical sentiment, which, in a morbidly exaggerated condition, +forms one of the principal elements of "Puseyism,"—I use this word +regretfully, no other existing which will serve for it,—had been known +and felt in our wild northern districts long before.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_403" id="Pg_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p> +<h2>APPENDIX.</h2> + + +<h4>THINGS TO BE STUDIED.</h4> + +<p>The worst danger by far, to which a solitary student is exposed, is that +of liking things that he should not. It is not so much his difficulties, +as his tastes, which he must set himself to conquer; and although, under +the guidance of a master, many works of art may be made instructive, +which are only of partial excellence (the good and bad of them being +duly distinguished), his safeguard, as long as he studies alone, will be +in allowing himself to possess only things, in their way, so free from +faults, that nothing he copies in them can seriously mislead him, and to +contemplate only those works of art which he knows to be either perfect +or noble in their errors. I will therefore set down in clear order, the +names of the masters whom you may safely admire, and a few of the books +which you may safely possess. In these days of cheap illustration, the +danger is always rather of your possessing too much than too little. It +may admit of some question, how far the looking at bad art may set off +and illustrate the characters of the good; but, on the whole, I believe +it is best to live always on quite wholesome food, and that our taste of +it will not be made more acute by feeding, however temporarily, on +ashes. Of course the works of the great masters can only be serviceable +to the student after he has made considerable progress himself. It only +wastes the time and dulls the feelings of young persons, to drag them +through picture galleries; at least, unless they themselves wish to look +at particular pictures. Generally, young people only care to enter a +picture gallery when there is a chance of getting leave to run a race to +the other end of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_404" id="Pg_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> it; and they had better do that in the garden below. +If, however, they have any real enjoyment of pictures, and want to look +at this one or that, the principal point is never to disturb them in +looking at what interests them, and never to make them look at what does +not. Nothing is of the least use to young people (nor, by the way, of +much use to old ones), but what interests them; and therefore, though it +is of great importance to put nothing but good art into their +possession, yet when they are passing through great houses or galleries, +they should be allowed to look precisely at what pleases them: if it is +not useful to them as art, it will be in some other way: and the +healthiest way in which art can interest them is when they look at it, +not as art, but because it represents something they like in nature. If +a boy has had his heart filled by the life of some great man, and goes +up thirstily to a Vandyck portrait of him, to see what he was like, that +is the wholesomest way in which he can begin the study of portraiture; +if he love mountains, and dwell on a Turner drawing because he sees in +it a likeness to a Yorkshire scar, or an Alpine pass, that is the +wholesomest way in which he can begin the study of landscape; and if a +girl's mind is filled with dreams of angels and saints, and she pauses +before an Angelico because she thinks it must surely be indeed like +heaven, that is the wholesomest way for her to begin the study of +religious art.</p> + +<p>When, however, the student has made some definite progress, and every +picture becomes really a guide to him, false or true, in his own work, +it is of great importance that he should never so much as look at bad +art; and then, if the reader is willing to trust me in the matter, the +following advice will be useful to him. In which, with his permission, I +will quit the indirect and return to the epistolary address, as being +the more convenient.</p> + +<p>First, in Galleries of Pictures:</p> + +<p>1. You may look, with trust in their being always right, at Titian, +Veronese, Tintoret, Giorgione, John Bellini, and Velasquez; the +authenticity of the picture being of course established for you by +proper authority.</p> + +<p>2. You may look with admiration, admitting, however<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_405" id="Pg_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> question of right +and wrong,<a name="FNanchor_266_266" id="FNanchor_266_266"></a><a href="#Footnote_266_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> at Van Eyck, Holbein, Perugino, Francia, Angelico, +Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Vandyck, Rembrandt, Reynolds, +Gainsborough, Turner, and the modern Pre-Raphaelites.<a name="FNanchor_267_267" id="FNanchor_267_267"></a><a href="#Footnote_267_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> You had +better look at no other painters than these, for you run a chance, +otherwise, of being led far off the road, or into grievous faults, by +some of the other great ones, as Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Rubens; +and of being, besides, corrupted in taste by the base ones, as Murillo, +Salvator, Claude, Gasper Poussin, Teniers, and such others. You may +look, however, for examples of evil, with safe universality of +reprobation, being sure that everything you see is bad, at Domenichino, +the Caracci, Bronzino, and the figure pieces of Salvator.</p> + +<p>Among those named for study under question, you cannot look too much at, +nor grow too enthusiastically fond of, Angelico, Correggio, Reynolds, +Turner, and the Pre-Raphaelites; but, if you find yourself getting +especially fond of any of the others, leave off looking at them, for you +must be going wrong some way or other. If, for instance, you begin to +like Rembrandt or Leonardo especially, you are losing your feeling for +colour; if you like Van Eyck or Perugino especially, you must be getting +too fond of rigid detail; and if you like Vandyck or Gainsborough +especially, you must be too much attracted by gentlemanly flimsiness.</p> + +<p>Secondly, of published, or otherwise multiplied, art, such as you may be +able to get yourself, or to see at private houses or in shops, the works +of the following masters are the most desirable, after the Turners, +Rembrandts, and Durers, which I have asked you to get first:</p> + + +<p>1. Samuel Prout.</p> + +<p>All his published lithographic sketches are of the greatest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_406" id="Pg_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> value, +wholly unrivalled in power of composition, and in love and feeling of +architectural subject. His somewhat mannered linear execution, though +not to be imitated in your own sketches from Nature, may be occasionally +copied, for discipline's sake, with great advantage; it will give you a +peculiar steadiness of hand, not quickly attainable in any other way; +and there is no fear of your getting into any faultful mannerism as long +as you carry out the different modes of more delicate study above +recommended.</p> + +<p>If you are interested in architecture, and wish to make it your chief +study, you should draw much from photographs of it; and then from the +architecture itself, with the same completion of detail and gradation, +only keeping the shadows of due paleness, in photographs they are always +about four times as dark as they ought to be; and treat buildings with +as much care and love as artists do their rock foregrounds, drawing all +the moss and weeds, and stains upon them. But if, without caring to +understand architecture, you merely want the picturesque character of +it, and to be able to sketch it fast, you cannot do better than take +Prout for your <i>exclusive</i> master; only do not think that you are +copying Prout by drawing straight lines with dots at the end of them. +Get first his "Rhine," and draw the subjects that have most hills, and +least architecture in them, with chalk on smooth paper, till you can lay +on his broad flat tints, and get his gradations of light, which are very +wonderful; then take up the architectural subjects in the "Rhine," and +draw again and again the groups of figures, &c., in his "Microcosm," and +"Lessons on Light and Shadow." After that, proceed to copy the grand +subjects in the sketches in "Flanders and Germany;" or in "Switzerland +and Italy," if you cannot get the Flanders; but the Switzerland is very +far inferior. Then work from Nature, not trying to Proutise Nature, by +breaking smooth buildings into rough ones, but only drawing <i>what you +see</i>, with Prout's simple method and firm lines. Don't copy his coloured +works. They are good, but not at all equal to his chalk and pencil +drawings, and you will become a mere imitator, and a very feeble +imitator, if you use colour at all in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_407" id="Pg_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> Prout's method. I have not space +to explain why this is so, it would take a long piece of reasoning; +trust me for the statement.</p> + + +<p>2. John Lewis.</p> + +<p>His sketches in Spain, lithographed by himself, are very valuable. Get +them, if you can, and also some engravings (about eight or ten, I think, +altogether) of wild beasts, executed by his own hand a long time ago; +they are very precious in every way. The series of the "Alhambra" is +rather slight, and few of the subjects are lithographed by himself; +still it is well worth having.</p> + +<p>But let <i>no</i> lithographic work come into the house, if you can help it, +nor even look at any, except Prout's, and those sketches of Lewis's.</p> + + +<p>3. George Cruikshank.</p> + +<p>If you ever happen to meet with the two volumes of "Grimm's German +Stories," which were illustrated by him long ago, pounce upon them +instantly; the etchings in them are the finest things, next to +Rembrandt's, that, as far as I know, have been done since etching was +invented. You cannot look at them too much, nor copy them too often.</p> + +<p>All his works are very valuable, though disagreeable when they touch on +the worst vulgarities of modern life; and often much spoiled by a +curiously mistaken type of face, divided so as to give too much to the +mouth and eyes, and leave too little for forehead, the eyes being set +about two thirds up, instead of at half the height of the head. But his +manner of work is always right; and his tragic power, though rarely +developed, and warped by habits of caricature, is, in reality, as great +as his grotesque power.</p> + +<p>There is no fear of his hurting your taste, as long as your principal +work lies among art of so totally different a character as most of that +which I have recommended to you; and you may, therefore, get great good +by copying almost anything of his that may come in your way; except only +his illustrations lately published to "Cinderella," and "Jack and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_408" id="Pg_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +Beanstalk," and "Tom Thumb," which are much over-laboured, and confused +in line. You should get them, but do not copy them.</p> + + +<p>4. Alfred Rethel.</p> + +<p>I only know two publications by him; one, the "Dance of Death," with +text by Reinick, published in Leipsic, but to be had now of any London +bookseller for the sum, I believe, of eighteen pence, and containing six +plates full of instructive character; the other, of two plates only, +"Death the Avenger," and "Death the Friend." These two are far superior +to the "Todtentanz," and, if you can get them, will be enough in +themselves, to show all that Rethel can teach you. If you dislike +ghastly subjects, get "Death the Friend" only.</p> + + +<p>5. Bewick.</p> + +<p>The execution of the plumage in Bewick's birds is the most masterly +thing ever yet done in wood-cutting; it is just worked as Paul Veronese +would have worked in wood, had he taken to it. His vignettes, though too +coarse in execution, and vulgar in types of form, to be good copies, +show, nevertheless, intellectual power of the highest order; and there +are pieces of sentiment in them, either pathetic or satirical, which +have never since been equalled in illustrations of this simple kind; the +bitter intensity of the feeling being just like that which characterises +some of the leading Pre-Raphaelites. Bewick is the Burns of painting.</p> + + +<p>6. Blake.</p> + +<p>The "Book of Job," engraved by himself, is of the highest rank in +certain characters of imagination and expression; in the mode of +obtaining certain effects of light it will also be a very useful example +to you. In expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake +is greater than Rembrandt.</p> + + +<p>7. Richter.</p> + +<p>I have already told you what to guard against in looking at his works. I +am a little doubtful whether I have done well in including them in this +catalogue at all; but the fancies in them are so pretty and numberless, +that I must risk, for their sake,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_409" id="Pg_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> the chance of hurting you a little in +judgment of style. If you want to make presents of story-books to +children, his are the best you can now get.</p> + + +<p>8. Rossetti.</p> + +<p>An edition of Tennyson, lately published, contains woodcuts from +drawings by Rossetti and other chief Pre-Raphaelite masters. They are +terribly spoiled in the cutting, and generally the best part, the +expression of feature, <i>entirely</i> lost;<a name="FNanchor_268_268" id="FNanchor_268_268"></a><a href="#Footnote_268_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> still they are full of +instruction, and cannot be studied too closely. But observe, respecting +these woodcuts, that if you have been in the habit of looking at much +spurious work, in which sentiment, action, and style are borrowed or +artificial, you will assuredly be offended at first by all genuine work, +which is intense in feeling. Genuine art, which is merely art, such as +Veronese's or Titian's, may not offend you, though the chances are that +you will not care about it: but genuine works of feeling, such as Maude +and Aurora Leigh in poetry, or the grand Pre-Raphaelite designs in +painting, are sure to offend you; and if you cease to work hard, and +persist in looking at vicious and false art, they will continue to +offend you. It will be well, therefore, to have one type of entirely +false art, in order to know what to guard against. Flaxman's outlines to +Dante contain, I think, examples of almost every kind of falsehood and +feebleness which it is possible for a trained artist, not base in +thought, to commit or admit, both in design and execution. Base or +degraded choice of subject, such as you will constantly find in Teniers +and others of the Dutch painters, I need not, I hope, warn you against; +you will simply turn away from it in disgust; while mere bad or feeble +drawing, which makes mistakes in every direction at once, cannot teach +you the particular sort of educated fallacy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_410" id="Pg_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> in question. But, in these +designs of Flaxman's, you have gentlemanly feeling, and fair knowledge +of anatomy, and firm setting down of lines, all applied in the +foolishest and worst possible way; you cannot have a more finished +example of learned error, amiable want of meaning, and bad drawing with +a steady hand.<a name="FNanchor_269_269" id="FNanchor_269_269"></a><a href="#Footnote_269_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> Retsch's outlines have more real material in them +than Flaxman's, occasionally showing true fancy and power; in artistic +principle they are nearly as bad, and in taste worse. All outlines from +statuary, as given in works on classical art, will be very hurtful to +you if you in the least like them; and <i>nearly</i> all finished line +engravings. Some particular prints I could name which possess +instructive qualities, but it would take too long to distinguish them, +and the best way is to avoid line engravings of figures altogether. If +you happen to be a rich person, possessing quantities of them, and if +you are fond of the large finished prints from Raphael, Correggio, &c., +it is wholly impossible that you can make any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_411" id="Pg_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> progress in knowledge of +real art till you have sold them all—or burnt them, which would be a +greater benefit to the world. I hope that some day, true and noble +engravings will be made from the few pictures of the great schools, +which the restorations undertaken by the modern managers of foreign +galleries may leave us; but the existing engravings have nothing +whatever in common with the good in the works they profess to represent, +and if you like them, you like in the originals of them hardly anything +but their errors.</p> + +<p>Finally, your judgment will be, of course, much affected by your taste +in literature. Indeed, I know many persons who have the purest taste in +literature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon which +puzzles me not a little: but I have never known any one with false taste +in books, and true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatest +importance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake, +in these days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of +literature, and live on a rocky island of your own, with a spring and a +lake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of +your library to you, every several mind needs different books; but there +are some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer,<a name="FNanchor_270_270" id="FNanchor_270_270"></a><a href="#Footnote_270_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> +Plato, Æschylus, Herodotus, Dante,<a name="FNanchor_271_271" id="FNanchor_271_271"></a><a href="#Footnote_271_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a> Shakspeare, and Spenser, as much +as you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right +and left of them for purposes of perpetual study. Among modern books, +avoid generally magazine and review literature. Sometimes it may contain +a useful abridgement or a wholesome piece of criticism; but the chances +are ten to one it will either waste your time or mislead you. If you +want to understand any subject whatever, read the best book upon it you +can hear of; not a review of the book. If you don't like the first book +you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_412" id="Pg_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> try, seek for another; but do not hope ever to understand the +subject without pains, by a reviewer's help. Avoid especially that class +of literature which has a knowing tone; it is the most poisonous of all. +Every good book, or piece of book, is full of admiration and awe; it may +contain firm assertion or stern satire, but it never sneers coldly, nor +asserts haughtily, and it always leads you to reverence or love +something with your whole heart. It is not always easy to distinguish +the satire of the venomous race of books from the satire of the noble +and pure ones; but in general you may notice that the cold-blooded +Crustacean and Batrachian books will sneer at sentiment; and the +warm-blooded, human books, at sin. Then, in general, the more you can +restrain your serious reading to reflective or lyric poetry, history, +and natural history, avoiding fiction and the drama, the healthier your +mind will become. Of modern poetry keep to Scott, Wordsworth, Keats, +Crabbe, Tennyson, the two Brownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and Coventry +Patmore, whose "Angel in the House" is a most finished piece of writing, +and the sweetest analysis we possess of quiet modern domestic feeling; +while Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh" is, as far as I know, the greatest +poem which the century has produced in any language. Cast Coleridge at +once aside, as sickly and useless; and Shelley as shallow and verbose; +Byron, until your taste is fully formed, and you are able to discern the +magnificence in him from the wrong. Never read bad or common poetry, nor +write any poetry yourself; there is, perhaps, rather too much than too +little in the world already.</p> + +<p>Of reflective prose, read chiefly Bacon, Johnson, and Helps. Carlyle is +hardly to be named as a writer for "beginners," because his teaching, +though to some of us vitally necessary, may to others be hurtful. If you +understand and like him, read him; if he offends you, you are not yet +ready for him, and perhaps may never be so; at all events, give him up, +as you would sea-bathing if you found it hurt you, till you are +stronger. Of fiction, read Sir Charles Grandison, Scott's novels, Miss +Edgeworth's, and, if you are a young lady, Madame de Genlis', the French +Miss Edgeworth; making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Pg_413" id="Pg_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> these, I mean, your constant companions. Of +course you must, or will read other books for amusement, once or twice; +but you will find that these have an element of perpetuity in them, +existing in nothing else of their kind: while their peculiar quietness +and repose of manner will also be of the greatest value in teaching you +to feel the same characters in art. Read little at a time, trying to +feel interest in little things, and reading not so much for the sake of +the story as to get acquainted with the pleasant people into whose +company these writers bring you. A common book will often give you much +amusement, but it is only a noble book which will give you dear friends. +Remember also that it is of less importance to you in your earlier +years, that the books you read should be clever, than that they should +be right. I do not mean oppressively or repulsively instructive; but +that the thoughts they express should be just, and the feelings they +excite generous. It is not necessary for you to read the wittiest or the +most suggestive books: it is better, in general, to hear what is already +known, and may be simply said. Much of the literature of the present +day, though good to be read by persons of ripe age, has a tendency to +agitate rather than confirm, and leaves its readers too frequently in a +helpless or hopeless indignation, the worst possible state into which +the mind of youth can be thrown. It may, indeed, become necessary for +you, as you advance in life, to set your hand to things that need to be +altered in the world, or apply your heart chiefly to what must be pitied +in it, or condemned; but, for a young person, the safest temper is one +of reverence, and the safest place one of obscurity. Certainly at +present, and perhaps through all your life, your teachers are wisest +when they make you content in quiet virtue, and that literature and art +are best for you which point out, in common life and familiar things, +the objects for hopeful labour, and for humble love.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_266_266" id="Footnote_266_266"></a><a href="#FNanchor_266_266"><span class="label">[266]</span></a> I do not mean necessarily to imply inferiority of rank, +in saying that this second class of painters have questionable +qualities. The greatest men have often many faults, and sometimes their +faults are a part of their greatness; but such men are not, of course, +to be looked upon by the student with absolute implicitness of faith.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_267_267" id="Footnote_267_267"></a><a href="#FNanchor_267_267"><span class="label">[267]</span></a> Including under this term, John Lewis, and William Hunt +of the Old Water-colour, who, take him all in all, is the best painter +of still life, I believe, that ever existed.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_268_268" id="Footnote_268_268"></a><a href="#FNanchor_268_268"><span class="label">[268]</span></a> This is especially the case in the St. Cecily, Rossetti's +first illustration to the "palace of art," which would have been the +best in the book had it been well engraved. The whole work should be +taken up again, and done by line engraving, perfectly; and wholly from +Pre-Raphaelite designs, with which no other modern work can bear the +least comparison.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_269_269" id="Footnote_269_269"></a><a href="#FNanchor_269_269"><span class="label">[269]</span></a> The praise I have given incidentally to Flaxman's +sculpture in the "Seven Lamps," and elsewhere, refers wholly to his +studies from Nature, and simple groups in marble, which were always good +and interesting. Still, I have overrated him, even in this respect; and +it is generally to be remembered that, in speaking of artists whose +works I cannot be supposed to have specially studied, the errors I fall +into will always be on the side of praise. For, of course, praise is +most likely to be given when the thing praised is above one's knowledge; +and, therefore, as our knowledge increases, such things may be found +less praiseworthy than we thought. But blame can only be justly given +when the thing blamed is below one's level of sight; and, practically, I +never do blame anything until I have got well past it, and am certain +that there is demonstrable falsehood in it. I believe, therefore, all my +blame to be wholly trustworthy, having never yet had occasion to repent +of one depreciatory word that I have ever written, while I have often +found that, with respect to things I had not time to study closely, I +was led too far by sudden admiration, helped, perhaps, by peculiar +associations, or other deceptive accidents; and this the more, because I +never care to check an expression of delight, thinking the chances are, +that, even if mistaken, it will do more good than harm; but I weigh +every word of blame with scrupulous caution. I have sometimes erased a +strong passage of blame from second editions of my books; but this was +only when I found it offended the reader without convincing him, never +because I repented of it myself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_270_270" id="Footnote_270_270"></a><a href="#FNanchor_270_270"><span class="label">[270]</span></a> Chapman's, if not the original.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_271_271" id="Footnote_271_271"></a><a href="#FNanchor_271_271"><span class="label">[271]</span></a> Carey's or Cayley's, if not the original. I do not know +which are the best translations of Plato. Herodotus and Æschylus can +only be read in the original. It may seem strange that I name books like +these for "beginners:" but all the greatest books contain food for all +ages; and an intelligent and rightly bred youth or girl ought to enjoy +much, even in Plato, by the time they are fifteen or sixteen.</p></div> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 26716-h.txt or 26716-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/7/1/26716">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/7/1/26716</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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