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+Project Gutenberg's Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, by John Ruskin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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 www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne
+ Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2010 [EBook #31196]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: CONISTON
+ FROM A PHOTOGRAPH]
+
+
+ Library Edition
+
+ THE COMPLETE WORKS
+ OF
+ JOHN RUSKIN
+
+
+ CROWN OF WILD OLIVE
+ TIME AND TIDE
+ QUEEN OF THE AIR
+ LECTURES ON ART AND LANDSCAPE
+ ARATRA PENTELICI
+
+
+ NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
+ NEW YORK CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+ TIME AND TIDE
+
+ BY
+
+ WEARE AND TYNE
+
+
+ TWENTY-FIVE LETTERS
+ TO
+ A WORKING MAN OF SUNDERLAND
+ ON
+ THE LAWS OF WORK.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ PAGE
+ PREFACE ix
+
+ LETTER
+ I. CO-OPERATION 1
+ The two kinds of Co-operation.--In its highest
+ sense it is not yet thought of.
+
+ II. CONTENTMENT 4
+ Co-operation, as hitherto understood, is perhaps
+ not expedient.
+
+ III. LEGISLATION 7
+ Of True Legislation.--That every Man may be a Law
+ to himself.
+
+ IV. EXPENDITURE 11
+ The Expenses for Art and for War.
+
+ V. ENTERTAINMENT 13
+ The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.--(Covent Garden
+ Pantomime.)
+
+ VI. DEXTERITY 18
+ The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.--(The Japanese
+ Jugglers.)
+
+ VII. FESTIVITY 20
+ Of the Various Expressions of National Festivity.
+
+ VIII. THINGS WRITTEN 22
+ The Four Possible Theories respecting the
+ Authority of the Bible.
+
+ IX. THANKSGIVING 27
+ The Use of Music and Dancing under the Jewish
+ Theocracy, compared with their Use by the Modern
+ French.
+
+ X. WHEAT-SIFTING 32
+ The Meaning, and Actual Operation, of Satanic or
+ Demoniacal Influence.
+
+ XI. THE GOLDEN BOUGH 38
+ The Satanic Power is mainly Twofold: the Power of
+ causing Falsehood and the Power of causing Pain.
+ The Resistance is by Law of Honor and Law of
+ Delight.
+
+ XII. DICTATORSHIP 41
+ The Necessity of Imperative Law to the Prosperity
+ of States.
+
+ XIII. EPISCOPACY AND DUKEDOM 45
+ The Proper Offices of the Bishop and Duke; or,
+ "Overseer" and "Leader."
+
+ XIV. TRADE-WARRANT 51
+ The First Group of Essential Laws.--Against Theft
+ by False Work, and by Bankruptcy.--Necessary
+ Publicity of Accounts.
+
+ XV. PER-CENTAGE 54
+ The Nature of Theft by Unjust Profits.--Crime can
+ finally be arrested only by Education.
+
+ XVI. EDUCATION 59
+ Of Public Education irrespective of Class
+ distinction. It consists essentially in giving
+ Habits of Mercy, and Habits of Truth. (_Gentleness
+ and Justice._)
+
+ XVII. DIFFICULTIES 66
+ The Relations of Education to Position in Life.
+
+ XVIII. HUMILITY 68
+ The harmful Effects of Servile Employments. The
+ possible Practice and Exhibition of sincere
+ Humility by Religious Persons.
+
+ XIX. BROKEN REEDS 73
+ The General Pressure of Excessive and Improper
+ Work, in English Life.
+
+ XX. ROSE-GARDENS 78
+ Of Improvidence in Marriage in the Middle Classes;
+ and of the advisable Restrictions of it.
+
+ XXI. GENTILLESSE 83
+ Of the Dignity of the Four Fine Arts; and of the
+ Proper System of Retail Trade.
+
+ XXII. THE MASTER 88
+ Of the Normal Position and Duties of the Upper
+ Classes. General Statement of the Land Question.
+
+ XXIII. LANDMARKS 93
+ Of the Just Tenure of Lands; and the Proper
+ Functions of high Public Officers.
+
+ XXIV. THE ROD AND HONEYCOMB 101
+ The Office of the Soldier.
+
+ XXV. HYSSOP 108
+ Of inevitable Distinction of Rank, and necessary
+ Submission to Authority. The Meaning of
+ Pure-Heartedness. Conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES.
+
+
+ APPENDIX PAGE
+ I. Expenditure on Science and Art 119
+ II. Legislation of Frederick the Great 120
+ III. Effect of Modern Entertainments on the Mind of Youth 124
+ IV. Drunkenness as the Cause of Crime 124
+ V. Abuse of Food 126
+ VI. Regulations of Trade 128
+ VII. Letter to the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ 130
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The following Letters were written to Mr. Thomas Dixon, a working
+cork-cutter of Sunderland, during the agitation for Reform in the
+spring of the present year. They contain, in the plainest terms I
+could use, the substance of what I then desired to say to our English
+workmen, which was briefly this:--"The reform you desire may give you
+more influence in Parliament; but your influence there will of course
+be useless to you,--perhaps worse than useless, until you have wisely
+made up your minds what you wish Parliament to do for you; and when
+you _have_ made up your minds about that, you will find, not only that
+you can do it for yourselves, without the intervention of Parliament;
+but that eventually nobody _but_ yourselves can do it. And to help
+you, as far as one of your old friends may, in so making up your
+minds, such and such things are what it seems to me you should ask
+for, and, moreover, strive for with your heart and might."
+
+The letters now published relate only to one division of the laws
+which I desired to recommend to the consideration of our
+operatives,--those, namely, bearing upon honesty of work, and honesty
+of exchange. I hope in the course of next year that I may be able to
+complete the second part of the series, [I could not; but 'Fors
+Clavigera' is now (1872) answering the same end:] which will relate to
+the possible comforts and wholesome laws, of familiar household life,
+and the share which a laboring nation may attain in the skill, and the
+treasures, of the higher arts.
+
+The letters are republished as they were written, with, here and
+there, correction of a phrase, and omission of one or two passages of
+merely personal or temporary interest; the headings only are added, in
+order to give the reader some clue to the general aim of necessarily
+desultory discussion; and the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters in
+reply, referred to in the text, are added in the Appendix, and will be
+found well deserving of attention.
+
+ DENMARK HILL,
+ _December 14, 1867._
+
+
+
+
+TIME AND TIDE,
+
+BY
+
+WEARE AND TYNE.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+THE TWO KINDS OF CO-OPERATION.--IN ITS HIGHEST SENSE IT IS NOT YET
+THOUGHT OF.
+
+
+ DENMARK HILL, _February 4, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+1. You have now everything I have yet published on political economy;
+but there are several points in these books of mine which I intended
+to add notes to, and it seems little likely I shall get that soon
+done. So I think the best way of making up for the want of these is to
+write you a few simple letters, which you can read to other people, or
+send to be printed, if you like, in any of your journals where you
+think they may be useful.
+
+I especially want you, for one thing, to understand the sense in which
+the word "co-operation" is used in my books. You will find I am always
+pleading for it; and yet I don't at all mean the co-operation of
+partnership (as opposed to the system of wages) which is now so
+gradually extending itself among our great firms. I am glad to see it
+doing so, yet not altogether glad: for none of you who are engaged in
+the immediate struggle between the system of co-operation and the
+system of mastership know how much the dispute involves; and none of
+us know the results to which it may finally lead. For the alternative
+is not, in reality, only between two modes of conducting business--it
+is between two different states of society. It is not the question
+whether an amount of wages, no greater in the end than that at present
+received by the men, may be paid to them in a way which shall give
+them share in the risks and interest in the prosperity of the
+business. The question is, really, whether the profits which are at
+present taken, as his own right, by the person whose capital, or
+energy, or ingenuity, has made him head of the firm, are not in some
+proportion to be divided among the subordinates of it.
+
+2. I do not wish, for the moment, to enter into any inquiry as to the
+just claims of capital, or as to the proportions in which profits
+ought to be, or are in actually existing firms, divided. I merely take
+the one assured and essential condition, that a somewhat larger income
+will be in co-operative firms secured to the subordinates, by the
+diminution of the income of the chief. And the general tendency of
+such a system is to increase the facilities of advancement among the
+subordinates; to stimulate their ambition; to enable them to lay by,
+if they are provident, more ample and more early provision for
+declining years; and to form in the end a vast class of persons wholly
+different from the existing operative:--members of society, possessing
+each a moderate competence; able to procure, therefore, not indeed
+many of the luxuries, but all the comforts of life; and to devote some
+leisure to the attainments of liberal education, and to the other
+objects of free life. On the other hand, by the exact sum which is
+divided among them, more than their present wages, the fortune of the
+man who, under the present system, takes all the profits of the
+business, will be diminished; and the acquirement of large private
+fortune by regular means, and all the conditions of life belonging to
+such fortune, will be rendered impossible in the mercantile community.
+
+3. Now, the magnitude of the social change hereby involved, and the
+consequent differences in the moral relations between individuals,
+have not as yet been thought of,--much less estimated,--by any of your
+writers on commercial subjects; and it is because I do not yet feel
+able to grapple with them that I have left untouched, in the books I
+send you, the question of co-operative labor. When I use the word
+"co-operation," it is not meant to refer to these new constitutions of
+firms at all. I use the word in a far wider sense, as opposed, not to
+masterhood, but to _competition_. I do not mean, for instance, by
+co-operation, that all the master bakers in a town are to give a share
+of their profits to the men who go out with the bread; but that the
+masters are not to try to undersell each other, nor seek each to get
+the other's business, but are all to form one society, selling to the
+public under a common law of severe penalty for unjust dealing, and at
+an established price. I do not mean that all bankers' clerks should be
+partners in the bank; but I do mean that all bankers should be members
+of a great national body, answerable as a society for all deposits;
+and that the private business of speculating with other people's money
+should take another name than that of "banking." And, for final
+instance, I mean by "co-operation" not only fellowships between
+trading _firms_, but between trading _nations_; so that it shall no
+more be thought (as it is now, with ludicrous and vain selfishness) an
+advantage for one nation to undersell another; and take its occupation
+away from it; but that the primal and eternal law of vital commerce
+shall be of all men understood--namely, that every nation is fitted by
+its character, and the nature of its territories, for some particular
+employments or manufactures; and that it is the true interest of every
+other nation to encourage it in such speciality, and by no means to
+interfere with, but in all ways forward and protect, its efforts,
+ceasing all rivalship with it, so soon as it is strong enough to
+occupy its proper place. You see, therefore, that the idea of
+co-operation, in the sense in which I employ it, has hardly yet
+entered into the minds of political inquirers; and I will not pursue
+it at present; but return to that system which is beginning to obtain
+credence and practice among us. This, however, must be in a following
+letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+CO-OPERATION, AS HITHERTO UNDERSTOOD, IS PERHAPS NOT EXPEDIENT.
+
+
+ _February 4, 1867._
+
+4. Limiting the inquiry, then, for the present, as proposed in the
+close of my last letter, to the form of co-operation which is now upon
+its trial in practice, I would beg of you to observe that the points
+at issue, in the comparison of this system with that of mastership,
+are by no means hitherto frankly stated; still less can they as yet be
+fairly brought to test. For all mastership is not alike in principle;
+there are just and unjust masterships; and while, on the one hand,
+there can be no question but that co-operation is better than unjust
+and tyrannous mastership, there is very great room for doubt whether
+it be better than a just and benignant mastership.
+
+5. At present you--every one of you--speak, and act, as if there were
+only one alternative; namely, between a system in which profits shall
+be divided in due proportion among all; and the present one, in which
+the workman is paid the least wages he will take, under the pressure
+of competition in the labor-market. But an intermediate method is
+conceivable; a method which appears to me more prudent, and in its
+ultimate results more just, than the co-operative one. An arrangement
+may be supposed, and I have good hope also may one day be effected, by
+which every subordinate shall be paid sufficient and regular wages,
+according to his rank; by which due provision shall be made out of the
+profits of the business for sick and superannuated workers; and by
+which the master, _being held responsible, as a minor king or
+governor, for the conduct as well as the comfort of all those under
+his rule_, shall, on that condition, be permitted to retain to his own
+use the surplus profits of the business which the fact of his being
+its master may be assumed to prove that he has organized by superior
+intellect and energy. And I think this principle of regular
+wage-paying, whether it be in the abstract more just, or not, is at
+all events the more prudent; for this reason mainly, that in spite of
+all the cant which is continually talked by cruel, foolish, or
+designing persons about "the duty of remaining content in the position
+in which Providence has placed you," there is a root of the very
+deepest and holiest truth in the saying, which gives to it such power
+as it still retains, even uttered by unkind and unwise lips, and
+received into doubtful and embittered hearts.
+
+6. If, indeed, no effort be made to discover, in the course of their
+early training, for what services the youths of a nation are
+individually qualified; nor any care taken to place those who have
+unquestionably proved their fitness for certain functions, in the
+offices they could best fulfil,--then, to call the confused wreck of
+social order and life brought about by malicious collision and
+competition, an arrangement of Providence, is quite one of the most
+insolent and wicked ways in which it is possible to take the name of
+God in vain. But if, at the proper time, some earnest effort be made
+to place youths, according to their capacities, in the occupations for
+which they are fitted, I think the system of organization will be
+finally found the best, which gives the least encouragement to
+thoughts of any great future advance in social life.
+
+7. The healthy sense of progress, which is necessary to the strength
+and happiness of men, does not consist in the anxiety of a struggle to
+attain higher place, or rank, but in gradually perfecting the manner,
+and accomplishing the ends, of the life which we have chosen, or which
+circumstances have determined for us. Thus, I think the object of a
+workman's ambition should not be to become a master; but to attain
+daily more subtle and exemplary skill in his own craft, to save from
+his wages enough to enrich and complete his home gradually with more
+delicate and substantial comforts; and to lay by such store as shall
+be sufficient for the happy maintenance of his old age (rendering him
+independent of the help provided for the sick and indigent by the
+arrangement pre-supposed), and sufficient also for the starting of his
+children in a rank of life equal to his own. If his wages are not
+enough to enable him to do this, they are unjustly low; if they are
+once raised to this adequate standard, I do not think that by the
+possible increase of his gains under contingencies of trade, or by
+divisions of profits with his master, he should be enticed into
+feverish hope of an entire change of condition; and as an almost
+necessary consequence, pass his days in an anxious discontent with
+immediate circumstances, and a comfortless scorn of his daily life,
+for which no subsequent success could indemnify him. And I am the more
+confident in this belief, because, even supposing a gradual rise in
+social rank possible for all well-conducted persons, my experience
+does not lead me to think the elevation itself, when attained, would
+be conducive to their happiness.
+
+8. The grounds of this opinion I will give you in a future letter; in
+the present one, I must pass to a more important point--namely, that
+if this stability of condition be indeed desirable for those in whom
+existing circumstances might seem to justify discontent, much more
+must it be good and desirable for those who already possess everything
+which can be conceived necessary to happiness. It is the merest
+insolence of selfishness to preach contentment to a laborer who gets
+thirty shillings a week, while we suppose an active and plotting
+covetousness to be meritorious in a man who has three thousand a year.
+In this, as in all other points of mental discipline, it is the duty
+of the upper classes to set an example to the lower; and to recommend
+and justify the restraint of the ambition of their inferiors, chiefly
+by severe and timely limitation of their own. And, without at present
+inquiring into the greater or less convenience of the possible methods
+of accomplishing such an object, (every detail in suggestions of this
+kind necessarily furnishing separate matter of dispute,) I will merely
+state my long-fixed conviction, that one of the most important
+conditions of a healthful system of social economy, would be the
+restraint of the properties and incomes of the upper classes within
+certain fixed limits. The temptation to use every energy in the
+accumulation of wealth being thus removed, another, and a higher ideal
+of the duties of advanced life would be necessarily created in the
+national mind; by withdrawal of those who had attained the prescribed
+limits of wealth from commercial competition, earlier worldly success,
+and earlier marriage, with all its beneficent moral results, would
+become possible to the young; while the older men of active intellect,
+whose sagacity is now lost or warped in the furtherance of their own
+meanest interests, would be induced unselfishly to occupy themselves
+in the superintendence of public institutions, or furtherance of
+public advantage. And out of this class it would be found natural and
+prudent always to choose the members of the legislative body of the
+Commons; and to attach to the order also some peculiar honors, in the
+possession of which such complacency would be felt as would more than
+replace the unworthy satisfaction of being supposed richer than
+others, which to many men is the principal charm of their wealth. And
+although no law of this purport would ever be imposed on themselves by
+the actual upper classes, there is no hindrance to its being gradually
+brought into force from beneath, without any violent or impatient
+proceedings; and this I will endeavor to show you in my next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+OF TRUE LEGISLATION. THAT EVERY MAN MAY BE A LAW TO HIMSELF.
+
+
+ _February 17, 1867._
+
+9. No, I have not been much worse in health; but I was asked by a
+friend to look over some work in which you will all be deeply
+interested one day, so that I could not write again till now. I was
+the more sorry, because there were several things I wished to note in
+your last letter; one especially leads me directly to what I in any
+case was desirous of urging upon you. You say, "In vol. 6th of
+'Frederick the Great' I find a great deal that I feel quite certain,
+if our Queen or Government could make law, thousands of our English
+workmen would hail with a shout of joy and gladness." I do not
+remember to what you especially allude, but whatever the rules you
+speak of may be, unless there be anything in them contrary to the
+rights of present English property, why should you care whether the
+Government makes them law or not? Can you not, you thousands of
+English workmen, simply make them a law to yourselves, by practising
+them?
+
+It is now some five or six years since I first had occasion to speak
+to the members of the London Working Men's College on the subject of
+Reform, and the substance of what I said to them was this: "You are
+all agape, my friends, for this mighty privilege of having your
+opinions represented in Parliament. The concession might be
+desirable,--at all events courteous,--if only it were quite certain
+you had got any opinions to represent. But have you? Are you agreed on
+any single thing you systematically want? Less work and more wages, of
+course; but how much lessening of work do you suppose is possible? Do
+you think the time will ever come for everybody to have _no_ work and
+_all_ wages? Or have you yet taken the trouble so much as to think out
+the nature of the true connection between wages and work, and to
+determine, even approximately, the real quantity of the one, that can,
+according to the laws of God and nature, be given for the other; for,
+rely on it, make what laws you like, that quantity only can you at
+last get.
+
+10. "Do you know how many mouths can be fed on an acre of land, or how
+fast those mouths multiply? and have you considered what is to be done
+finally with unfeedable mouths? 'Send them to be fed elsewhere,' do
+you say? Have you, then, formed any opinion as to the time at which
+emigration should begin, or the countries to which it should
+preferably take place, or the kind of population which should be left
+at home? Have you planned the permanent state which you would wish
+England to hold, emigrating over her edges, like a full well,
+constantly? How full would you have her be of people, first? and of
+what sort of people? Do you want her to be nothing but a large
+workshop and forge, so that the name of 'Englishman' shall be
+synonymous with 'ironmonger,' all over the world? or would you like to
+keep some of your lords and landed gentry still, and a few green
+fields and trees?
+
+11. "You know well enough that there is not one of these questions, I
+do not say which you can answer, but which you have ever _thought_ of
+answering; and yet you want to have voices in Parliament! Your voices
+are not worth a rat's squeak, either in Parliament or out of it, till
+you have some ideas to utter with them; and when you have the
+thoughts, you will not want to utter them, for you will see that your
+way to the fulfilling of them does not lie through speech. You think
+such matters need debating about? By all means debate about them; but
+debate among yourselves, and with such honest helpers of your thoughts
+as you can find; if by that way you cannot get at the truth, do you
+suppose you could get at it sooner in the House of Commons, where the
+only aim of many of the members would be to refute every word uttered
+in your favor; and where the settlement of any question whatever
+depends merely on the perturbations of the balance of conflicting
+interests?"
+
+12. That was, in main particulars, what I then said to the men of the
+Working Men's College; and in this recurrent agitation about Reform,
+that is what I would steadfastly say again. Do you think it is only
+under the lacquered splendors of Westminster,--you working men of
+England,--that your affairs can be rationally talked over? You have
+perfect liberty and power to talk over, and establish for yourselves,
+whatever laws you please; so long as you do not interfere with other
+people's liberties or properties. Elect a parliament of your own.
+Choose the best men among you, the best at least you can find, by
+whatever system of election you think likeliest to secure such
+desirable result. Invite trustworthy persons of other classes to join
+your council; appoint time and place for its stated sittings, and let
+this parliament, chosen after your own hearts, deliberate upon the
+possible modes of the regulation of industry, and advisablest schemes
+for helpful discipline of life; and so lay before you the best laws
+they can devise, which such of you as were wise might submit to, and
+teach their children to obey. And if any of the laws thus determined
+appear to be inconsistent with the present circumstances or customs of
+trade, do not make a noise about them, nor try to enforce them
+suddenly on others, nor embroider them on flags, nor call meetings in
+parks about them, in spite of railings and police; but keep them in
+your thoughts and sight, as objects of patient purpose and future
+achievement by peaceful strength.
+
+13. For you need not think that even if you obtained a majority of
+representatives in the existing parliament, you could immediately
+compel any system of business, broadly contrary to that now
+established by custom. If you could pass laws to-morrow, wholly
+favorable to yourselves, as you might think, because unfavorable to
+your masters, and to the upper classes of society,--the only result
+would be that the riches of the country would at once leave it, and
+you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great change
+for the better can ever be easily accomplished, or quickly; nor by
+impulsive, ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men,
+without much suffering. The suffering must, indeed, come, one way or
+another, in all greatly critical periods; the only question, for us,
+is whether we will reach our ends (if we ever reach them) through a
+chain of involuntary miseries, many of them useless, and all ignoble;
+or whether we will know the worst at once, and deal with it by the
+wisely sharp methods of Godsped courage.
+
+14. This, I repeat to you, it is wholly in your own power to do, but
+it is in your power on one condition only, that of steadfast truth to
+yourselves, and to all men. If there is not, in the sum of it, honesty
+enough among you to teach you to frame, and strengthen you to obey,
+_just_ laws of trade, there is no hope left for you. No political
+constitution can ennoble knaves; no privileges can assist them; no
+possessions enrich them. Their gains are occult curses; comfortless
+loss their truest blessing; failure and pain Nature's only mercy to
+them. Look to it, therefore, first that you get some wholesome honesty
+for the foundation of all things. Without the resolution in your
+hearts to do good work, so long as your right hands have motion in
+them; and to do it whether the issue be that you die or live, no life
+worthy the name will ever be possible to you, while, in once forming
+the resolution that your work is to be well done, life is really won,
+here and for ever. And to make your children capable of such
+resolution, is the beginning of all true education, of which I have
+more to say in a future letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+THE EXPENSES FOR ART AND FOR WAR.
+
+
+ _February 19, 1867._
+
+15. In the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of yesterday, second column of second
+page, you will find, close to each other, two sentences which bear
+closely on matters in hand. The first of these is the statement, that
+in the debate on the grant for the Blacas collection, "Mr. Bernal
+Osborne got an assenting cheer, when he said that 'whenever science
+and art were mentioned it was a sign to look after the national
+pockets.'" I want you to notice this fact, _i. e._, (the debate in
+question being on a _total_ grant of 164,000_l._, of which 48,000_l._
+only were truly for art's sake, and the rest for shop's sake,) in
+illustration of a passage in my 'Sesame and Lilies' (pp. 69, 70 of the
+small edition, and pp. 46, 47 of Vol. I. of the Revised Series of the
+Entire Works),[A] to which I shall have again to refer you, with some
+further comments, in the sequel of these letters. The second passage
+is to the effect that "The Trades' Union Bill was read a second time,
+after a claim from Mr. Hadfield, Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Samuelson, to
+admit working men into the commission; to which Mr. Watkin answered
+'that the working men's friend was too conspicuous in the body;' and
+Mr. Roebuck, 'that when a butcher was tried for murder it was not
+necessary to have butchers on the jury.'"
+
+ [A] Appendix I.
+
+16. Note this second passage with respect to what I said in my last
+letter, as to the impossibility of the laws of work being investigated
+in the House of Commons. What admixture of elements, think you, would
+avail to obtain so much as decent hearing (how should we then speak of
+impartial judgment?) of the cause of working men, in an assembly which
+permits to one of its principal members this insolent discourtesy of
+language, in dealing with a preliminary question of the highest
+importance; and permits it as so far expressive of the whole color and
+tone of its own thoughts, that the sentence is quoted by one of the
+most temperate and accurate of our daily journals, as representing the
+total answer of the opposite side in the debate? No! be assured you
+can do nothing yet at Westminster. You must have your own parliament,
+and if you cannot detect enough honesty among you to constitute a
+justly minded one, for the present matters must take their course, and
+that will be, yet awhile, to the worse.
+
+17. I meant to have continued this subject, but I see two other
+statements in the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of to-day, with which, and a
+single remark upon them, I think it will be well to close my present
+letter.
+
+(1) "The total sum asked for in the army estimates, published this
+morning, is 14,752,200_l._, being an increase of 412,000_l._ over the
+previous year."
+
+(2) "Yesterday the annual account of the navy receipts and expenditure
+for the year ending 31st March, 1866, was issued from the Admiralty.
+The expenditure was 10,268,115_l._ 7_s._"
+
+Omitting the seven shillings, and even the odd hundred-thousands of
+pounds, the net annual expenditure for army and navy appears to be
+twenty-four millions.
+
+The "grant in science and art," two-thirds of which was not in reality
+for either, but for amusement and shop interests in the Paris
+Exhibition--the grant which the House of Commons feels to be
+indicative of general danger to the national pockets--is, as above
+stated, 164,000_l._ Now, I believe the three additional ciphers which
+turn thousands into millions produce on the intelligent English mind
+usually the effect of--three ciphers. But calculate the proportion of
+these two sums, and then imagine to yourself the beautiful state of
+rationality of any private gentleman, who, having regretfully spent
+164_l._ on pictures for his walls, paid willingly 24,000_l._ annually
+to the policeman who looked after his shutters! You practical
+English!--will you ever unbar the shutters of your brains, and hang
+a picture or two in those state-chambers?
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.--(COVENT GARDEN PANTOMIME.)
+
+
+ _February 25, 1867._
+
+18. There is this great advantage in the writing real letters, that
+the direct correspondence is a sufficient reason for saying, in or out
+of order, everything that the chances of the day bring into one's
+head, in connection with the matter in hand; and as such things very
+usually go out of one's head again, after they get tired of their
+lodging, they would otherwise never get said at all. And thus to-day,
+quite out of order, but in very close connection with another part of
+our subject, I am going to tell you what I was thinking on Friday
+evening last, in Covent Garden Theater, as I was looking, and not
+laughing, at the pantomime of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.'
+
+When you begin seriously to consider the question referred to in my
+second letter, of the essential, and in the outcome inviolable,
+connection between quantity of wages, and quantity of work, you will
+see that "wages" in the full sense don't mean "pay" merely, but the
+reward, whatever it may be, of pleasure as well as profit, and of
+various other advantages, which a man is meant by Providence to get
+during life, for work well done. Even limiting the idea to "pay," the
+question is not so much what quantity of coin you get, as--what you
+can get for it when you have it. Whether a shilling a day be good pay
+or not, depends wholly on what a "shilling's worth" is; that is to
+say, what quantity of the things you want may be had for a shilling.
+And that again depends, and a great deal more than that depends, on
+what you _do_ want. If only drink, and foul clothes, such and such pay
+may be enough for you; if you want good meat and good clothes, you
+must have larger wage; if clean rooms and fresh air, larger still, and
+so on. You say, perhaps, "every one wants these better things." So far
+from that, a wholesome taste for cleanliness and fresh air is one of
+the final attainments of humanity. There are now not many European
+gentlemen, even in the highest classes, who have a pure and right love
+of fresh air. They would put the filth of tobacco even into the first
+breeze of a May morning.
+
+19. But there are better things even than these, which one may want.
+Grant that one has good food, clothes, lodging, and breathing, is that
+all the pay one ought to have for one's work? Wholesome means of
+existence and nothing more? Enough, perhaps, you think, if everybody
+could get these. It may be so; I will not, at this moment, dispute it;
+nevertheless, I will boldly say that you should sometimes want more
+than these; and for one of many things more, you should want
+occasionally to be amused!
+
+You know, the upper classes, most of them, want to be amused all day
+long. They think
+
+ "One moment _un_amused a misery
+ Not made for feeble men."
+
+Perhaps you have been in the habit of despising them for this; and
+thinking how much worthier and nobler it was to work all day, and care
+at night only for food and rest, than to do no useful thing all day,
+eat unearned food, and spend the evening, as the morning, in "change
+of follies and relays of joy." No, my good friend, that is one of the
+fatalest deceptions. It is not a noble thing, in sum and issue of it,
+not to care to be amused. It is indeed a far higher _moral_ state, but
+is a much lower _creature_ state, than that of the upper classes.
+
+20. Yonder poor horse, calm slave in daily chains at the railroad
+siding, who drags the detached rear of the train to the front again,
+and slips aside so deftly as the buffers meet; and, within eighteen
+inches of death every ten minutes, fulfils his changeless duty all day
+long, content, for eternal reward, with his night's rest, and his
+champed mouthful of hay;--anything more earnestly moral and beautiful
+one cannot image--I never see the creature without a kind of worship.
+And yonder musician, who used the greatest power which (in the art he
+knew) the Father of spirits ever yet breathed into the clay of this
+world;--who used it, I say, to follow and fit with perfect sound the
+words of the 'Zauberflöte' and of 'Don Giovanni'--foolishest and most
+monstrous of conceivable human words and subjects of thought--for the
+future "amusement" of his race!--No such spectacle of unconscious (and
+in that unconsciousness all the more fearful) moral degradation of the
+highest faculty to the lowest purpose can be found in history. But
+Mozart is nevertheless a nobler creature than the horse at the siding;
+nor would it be the least nearer the purpose of his Maker that he, and
+all his frivolous audiences, should evade the degradation of the
+profitless piping, only by living, like horses, in daily physical
+labor for daily bread.
+
+21. There are three things to which man is born[A]--labor, and sorrow,
+and joy. Each of these three things has its baseness and its
+nobleness. There is base labor, and noble labor. There is base sorrow,
+and noble sorrow. There is base joy, and noble joy. But you must not
+think to avoid the corruption of these things by doing without the
+things themselves. Nor can any life be right that has not all three.
+Labor without joy is base. Labor without sorrow is base. Sorrow
+without labor is base. Joy without labor is base.
+
+ [A] I ask the reader's thoughtful attention to this
+ paragraph, on which much of what else I have to say depends.
+
+22. I dare say you think I am a long time in coming to the pantomime;
+I am not ready to come to it yet in due course, for we ought to go and
+see the Japanese jugglers first, in order to let me fully explain to
+you what I mean. But I can't write much more to-day; so I shall merely
+tell you what part of the play set me thinking of all this, and leave
+you to consider of it yourself, till I can send you another letter.
+The pantomime was, as I said, 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.' The
+forty thieves were girls. The forty thieves had forty companions, who
+were girls. The forty thieves and their forty companions were in some
+way mixed up with about four hundred and forty fairies, who were
+girls. There was an Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, in which the
+Oxford and Cambridge men were girls. There was a transformation scene,
+with a forest, in which the flowers were girls, and a chandelier, in
+which the lamps were girls, and a great rainbow which was all of
+girls.
+
+23. Mingled incongruously with these seraphic, and, as far as my
+boyish experience extends, novel, elements of pantomime, there were
+yet some of its old and fast-expiring elements. There were, in
+speciality, two thoroughly good pantomime actors--Mr. W. H. Payne and
+Mr. Frederick Payne. All that these two did, was done admirably. There
+were two subordinate actors, who played, subordinately well, the fore
+and hind legs of a donkey. And there was a little actress of whom I
+have chiefly to speak, who played exquisitely the little part she had
+to play. The scene in which she appeared was the only one in the whole
+pantomime in which there was any dramatic effort, or, with a few rare
+exceptions, any dramatic possibility. It was the home scene, in which
+Ali Baba's wife, on washing day, is called upon by butcher, baker,
+and milkman, with unpaid bills; and in the extremity of her distress
+hears her husband's knock at the door, and opens it for him to drive
+in his donkey, laden with gold. The children who have been beaten
+instead of getting breakfast, presently share in the raptures of their
+father and mother; and the little lady I spoke of, eight or nine years
+old,--dances a _pas-de-deux_ with the donkey.
+
+24. She did it beautifully and simply, as a child ought to dance. She
+was not an infant prodigy; there was no evidence, in the finish or
+strength of her motion, that she had been put to continual torture
+through half her eight or nine years. She did nothing more than any
+child well taught, but painlessly, might easily do. She caricatured no
+older person,--attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She was
+dressed decently,--she moved decently,--she looked and behaved
+innocently,--and she danced her joyful dance with perfect grace,
+spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness. And through all the vast
+theater, full of English fathers and mothers and children, there was
+not one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.
+
+Presently after this, came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you,
+were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and
+time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty
+thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British
+public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a thinking; and
+saw little more of the piece, except as an ugly and disturbing dream.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.--(THE JAPANESE JUGGLERS.)
+
+
+ _February 28, 1867._
+
+25. I have your pleasant letter with references to Frederick. I will
+look at them carefully.[A] Mr. Carlyle himself will be pleased to hear
+this letter when he comes home. I heard from him last week at Mentone.
+He is well, and glad of the light and calm of Italy. I must get back
+to the evil light and uncalm, of the places I was taking you through.
+
+ [A] Appendix 2.
+
+(Parenthetically, did you see the article in the 'Times' of yesterday
+on bribery, and the conclusion of the commission--"No one sold any
+opinions, for no one had any opinions to sell"?)
+
+Both on Thursday and Friday last I had been tormented by many things,
+and wanted to disturb my course of thought any way I could. I have
+told you what entertainment I got on Friday, first, for it was then
+that I began meditating over these letters; let me tell you now what
+entertainment I found on Thursday.
+
+26. You may have heard that a company of Japanese jugglers has come
+over to exhibit in London. There has long been an increasing interest
+in Japanese art, which has been very harmful to many of our own
+painters, and I greatly desired to see what these people were, and
+what they did. Well, I have seen Blondin, and various English and
+French circus work, but never yet anything that surprised me so much
+as one of these men's exercises on a suspended pole. Its special
+character was a close approximation to the action and power of the
+monkey; even to the prehensile power in the foot; so that I asked a
+sculptor-friend who sat in front of me, whether he thought such a
+grasp could be acquired by practice, or indicated difference in race.
+He said he thought it might be got by practice. There was also much
+inconceivably dexterous work in spinning of tops,--making them pass in
+balanced motion along the edge of a sword, and along a level string,
+and the like;--the father performing in the presence of his two
+children, who encouraged him continually with short, sharp cries, like
+those of animals. Then there was some fairly good sleight-of-hand
+juggling of little interest; ending with a dance by the juggler, first
+as an animal, and then as a goblin, Now, there was this great
+difference between the Japanese masks used in this dance and our
+common pantomime masks for beasts and demons,--that our English masks
+are only stupidly and loathsomely ugly, by exaggeration of feature, or
+of defect of feature. But the Japanese masks (like the frequent
+monsters of Japanese art) were inventively frightful, like fearful
+dreams; and whatever power it is that acts on human minds, enabling
+them to invent such, appears to me not only to deserve the term
+"demoniacal," as the only word expressive of its character; but to be
+logically capable of no other definition.
+
+27. The impression, therefore, produced upon me by the whole scene,
+was that of being in the presence of human creatures of a partially
+inferior race, but not without great human gentleness, domestic
+affection, and ingenious intellect; who were, nevertheless, as a
+nation, afflicted by an evil spirit, and driven by it to recreate
+themselves in achieving, or beholding the achievement, through years
+of patience, of a certain correspondence with the nature of the lower
+animals.
+
+28. These, then, were the two forms of diversion or recreation of my
+mind possible to me, in two days, when I needed such help, in this
+metropolis of England. I might, as a rich man, have had better music,
+if I had so chosen, though, even so, not rational or helpful; but a
+poor man could only have these, or worse than these, if he cared for
+any manner of spectacle. (I am not at present, observe, speaking of
+pure acting, which is a study, and recreative only as a noble book is;
+but of means of _mere_ amusement.)
+
+Now, lastly, in illustration of the effect of these and other such
+"amusements," and of the desire to obtain them, on the minds of our
+youth, read the 'Times' correspondent's letter from Paris, in the
+tenth page of the paper, to-day;[A] and that will be quite enough for
+you to read, for the present, I believe.
+
+ [A] Appendix 3.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+OF THE VARIOUS EXPRESSIONS OF NATIONAL FESTIVITY.
+
+
+ _March 4, 1867._
+
+29. The subject which I want to bring before you is now branched, and
+worse than branched, reticulated, in so many directions, that I hardly
+know which shoot of it to trace, or which knot to lay hold of first.
+
+I had intended to return to those Japanese jugglers, after a visit to
+a theater in Paris; but I had better, perhaps, at once tell you the
+piece of the performance which, in connection with the scene in the
+English pantomime, bears most on matters in hand.
+
+It was also a dance by a little girl--though one older than Ali Baba's
+daughter, (I suppose a girl of twelve or fourteen). A dance, so
+called, which consisted only in a series of short, sharp contractions
+and jerks of the body and limbs, resulting in attitudes of distorted
+and quaint ugliness, such as might be produced in a puppet by sharp
+twitching of strings at its joints: these movements being made to the
+sound of two instruments, which between them accomplished only a quick
+vibratory beating and strumming, in nearly the time of a
+hearth-cricket's song, but much harsher, and of course louder, and
+without any sweetness; only in the monotony and unintended aimless
+construction of it, reminding one of various other insect and reptile
+cries or warnings: partly of the cicala's hiss; partly of the little
+melancholy German frog which says "Mu, mu, mu," all summer-day long,
+with its nose out of the pools by Dresden and Leipsic; and partly of
+the deadened quivering and intense continuousness of the alarm of the
+rattlesnake.
+
+While this was going on, there was a Bible text repeating itself over
+and over again in my head, whether I would or no:--"And Miriam the
+prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all
+the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances." To which
+text and some others, I shall ask your attention presently; but I must
+go to Paris first.
+
+30. Not at once, however, to the theater, but to a bookseller's shop,
+No. 4, Rue Voltaire, where, in the year 1858, was published the fifth
+edition of Balzac's 'Contes Drôlatiques,' illustrated by 425 designs
+by Gustave Doré.
+
+Both text and illustrations are as powerful as it is ever in the
+nature of evil things to be (there is no _final_ strength but in
+rightness). Nothing more witty, nor more inventively horrible, has yet
+been produced in the evil literature, or by the evil art, of man: nor
+can I conceive it possible to go beyond either in their specialities
+of corruption. The text is full of blasphemies, subtle, tremendous,
+hideous in shamelessness, some put into the mouths of priests; the
+illustrations are, in a word, one continuous revelry in the most
+loathsome and monstrous aspects of death and sin, enlarged into
+fantastic ghastliness of caricature, as if seen through the distortion
+and trembling of the hot smoke of the mouth of hell. Take this
+following for a general type of what they seek in death: one of the
+most labored designs is of a man cut in two, downwards, by the sweep
+of a sword--one half of him falls toward the spectator; the other half
+is elaborately drawn in its section--giving the profile of the divided
+nose and lips; cleft jaw--breast--and entrails; and this is done with
+farther pollution and horror of intent in the circumstances, which I
+do not choose to describe--still less some other of the designs which
+seek for fantastic extreme of sin, as this for the utmost horror of
+death. But of all the 425, there is not one, which does not violate
+every instinct of decency and law of virtue or life, written in the
+human soul.
+
+31. Now, my friend, among the many "Signs of the Times" the production
+of a book like this is a significant one: but it becomes more
+significant still when connected with the farther fact, that M.
+Gustave Doré, the designer of this series of plates, has just been
+received with loud acclaim by the British Evangelical Public, as the
+fittest and most able person whom they could at present find to
+illustrate, to their minds, and recommend with grace of sacred art,
+their hitherto unadorned Bible for them.
+
+Of which Bible, and of the use we at present make of it in England,
+having a grave word or two to say in my next letter (preparatory to
+the examination of that verse which haunted me through the Japanese
+juggling, and of some others also), I leave you first this sign of the
+public esteem of it to consider at your leisure.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII.
+
+THE FOUR POSSIBLE THEORIES RESPECTING THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.
+
+
+ _March 7, 1867._
+
+32. I have your yesterday's letter, but must not allow myself to be
+diverted from the business in hand for this once, for it is the most
+important of which I have to write to you.
+
+You must have seen long ago that the essential difference between the
+political economy I am trying to teach, and the popular science, is,
+that mine is based on _presumably attainable honesty_ in men, and
+conceivable respect in them for the interests of others, while the
+popular science founds itself wholly on their supposed constant regard
+for their own, and on their honesty only so far as thereby likely to
+be secured.
+
+It becomes, therefore, for me, and for all who believe anything I say,
+a great primal question on what this presumably attainable honesty is
+to be based.
+
+33. "Is it to be based on religion?" you may ask. "Are we to be
+honest for fear of losing heaven if we are dishonest, or (to put it as
+generously as we may) for fear of displeasing God? Or, are we to be
+honest on speculation, because honesty is the best policy; and to
+invest in virtue as in an undepreciable stock?"
+
+And my answer is--not in any hesitating or diffident way (and you
+know, my friend, that whatever people may say of me, I often do speak
+diffidently; though, when I am diffident of things, I like to avoid
+speaking of them, if it may be; but here I say with no shadow of
+doubt)--your honesty is _not_ to be based either on religion or
+policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on _it_. Your
+honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the
+lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the
+night. If you ask why you are to be honest--you are, in the question
+itself, dishonored. "Because you are a man," is the only answer; and
+therefore I said in a former letter that to make your children
+_capable of honesty_ is the beginning of education. Make them men
+first, and religious men afterwards, and all will be sound; but a
+knave's religion is always the rottenest thing about him.
+
+34. It is not, therefore, because I am endeavoring to lay down a
+foundation of religious concrete, on which to build piers of policy,
+that you so often find me quoting Bible texts in defense of this or
+that principle or assertion. But the fact that such references are an
+offense, as I know them to be, to many of the readers of these
+political essays, is one among many others, which I would desire you
+to reflect upon (whether you are yourself one of the offended or not),
+as expressive of the singular position which the mind of the British
+public has at present taken with respect to its worshiped Book. The
+positions, honestly tenable, before I use any more of its texts, I
+must try to define for you.
+
+35. All the theories possible to theological disputants respecting the
+Bible are resolvable into four, and four only.
+
+(1.) The first is that of the illiterate modern religious world, that
+every word of the book known to them as "The Bible" was dictated by
+the Supreme Being, and is in every syllable of it His "Word."
+
+This theory is of course tenable by no ordinarily well-educated
+person.
+
+(2.) The second theory is, that, although admitting verbal error, the
+substance of the whole collection of books called the Bible is
+absolutely true, and furnished to man by Divine inspiration of the
+speakers and writers of it; and that every one who honestly and
+prayerfully seeks for such truth in it as is necessary for his
+salvation, will infallibly find it there.
+
+This theory is that held by most of our good and upright clergymen,
+and the better class of the professedly religious laity.
+
+(3.) The third theory is that the group of books which we call the
+Bible were neither written nor collected under any Divine guidance,
+securing them from substantial error; and that they contain, like all
+other human writings, false statements mixed with true, and erring
+thoughts mixed with just thoughts; but that they nevertheless relate,
+on the whole, faithfully, the dealings of the one God with the first
+races of man, and His dealings with them in aftertime through Christ:
+that they record true miracles, and bear true witness to the
+resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
+
+This is a theory held by many of the active leaders of modern thought.
+
+(4.) The fourth, and last possible, theory is that the mass of
+religious Scripture contains merely the best efforts which we hitherto
+know to have been made by any of the races of men towards the
+discovery of some relations with the spiritual world; that they are
+only trustworthy as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or beliefs
+of earnest men oppressed by the world's darkness, and have no more
+authoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations and
+histories of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, in
+common with all these, to be reverently studied, as containing a
+portion, divinely appointed, of the best wisdom which human
+intellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has hitherto been able
+to gather between birth and death.
+
+This has been, for the last half-century, the theory of the soundest
+scholars and thinkers of Europe.
+
+36. There is yet indeed one farther condition of incredulity
+attainable, and sorrowfully attained, by many men of powerful
+intellect--the incredulity, namely, of inspiration in any sense, or of
+help given by any Divine power to the thoughts of men. But this form
+of infidelity merely indicates a natural incapacity for receiving
+certain emotions; though many honest and good men belong to this
+insentient class.
+
+37. The educated men, therefore, who may be seriously appealed to, in
+these days, on questions of moral responsibility, as modified by
+Scripture, are broadly divisible into three classes, severally holding
+the last three theories above stated.
+
+Now, whatever power a passage from the statedly authoritative portions
+of the Bible may have over the mind of a person holding the fourth
+theory, it will have a proportionately greater over that of persons
+holding the third or the second. I, therefore, always imagine myself
+speaking to the fourth class of theorists. If I can persuade or
+influence _them_, I am logically sure of the others. I say
+"logically," for the actual fact, strange as it may seem, is that no
+persons are so little likely to submit to a passage of Scripture not
+to their fancy, as those who are most positive on the subject of its
+general inspiration.
+
+38. Addressing, then, this fourth class of thinkers, I would say to
+them, when asking them to enter on any subject of importance to
+national morals, or conduct, "This book, which has been the accepted
+guide of the moral intelligence of Europe for some fifteen hundred
+years, enforces certain simple laws of human conduct which you know
+have also been agreed upon, in every main point, by all the religious,
+and by all the greatest profane writers, of every age and country.
+This book primarily forbids pride, lasciviousness, and covetousness;
+and you know that all great thinkers, in every nation of mankind,
+have similarly forbidden these mortal vices. This book enjoins truth,
+temperance, charity, and equity; and you know that every great
+Egyptian, Greek, and Indian, enjoins these also. You know besides,
+that through all the mysteries of human fate and history, this one
+great law of fate is written on the walls of cities, or in their dust;
+written in letters of light, and letters of blood,--that where truth,
+temperance, and equity have been preserved, all strength, and peace,
+and joy have been preserved also;--that where lying, lasciviousness,
+and covetousness have been practised, there has followed an
+infallible, and, for centuries, irrecoverable ruin. And you know,
+lastly, that the observance of this common law of righteousness,
+commending itself to all the pure instincts of men, and fruitful in
+their temporal good, is by the religious writers of every nation, and
+chiefly in this venerated Scripture of ours, connected with some
+distinct hope of better life, and righteousness, to come.
+
+39. "Let it not then offend you if, deducing principles of action
+first from the laws and facts of nature, I nevertheless fortify them
+also by appliance of the precepts, or suggestive and probable
+teachings of this Book, of which the authority is over many around
+you, more distinctly than over you, and which, confessing to be
+divine, _they_, at least, can only disobey at their moral peril."
+
+On these grounds, and in this temper, I am in the habit of appealing
+to passages of Scripture in my writings on political economy; and in
+this temper I will ask you to consider with me some conclusions which
+appear to me derivable from that text about Miriam, which haunted me
+through the jugglery; and from certain others.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+
+THE USE OF MUSIC AND DANCING UNDER THE JEWISH THEOCRACY, COMPARED WITH
+THEIR USE BY THE MODERN FRENCH.
+
+
+ _March 10, 1867._
+
+40. Having, I hope, made you now clearly understand with what feeling
+I would use the authority of the book which the British public,
+professing to consider sacred, have lately adorned for themselves with
+the work of the boldest violator of the instincts of human honor and
+decency known yet in art-history, I will pursue by the help of that
+verse about Miriam, and some others, the subject which occupied my
+mind at both theaters, and to which, though in so apparently desultory
+manner, I have been nevertheless very earnestly endeavoring to lead
+you.
+
+41. The going forth of the women of Israel after Miriam with timbrels
+and with dances, was, as you doubtless remember, their expression of
+passionate triumph and thankfulness, after the full accomplishment of
+their deliverance from the Egyptians. That deliverance had been by the
+utter death of their enemies, and accompanied by stupendous miracle;
+no human creatures could in an hour of triumph be surrounded by
+circumstances more solemn. I am not going to try to excite your
+feelings about them. Consider only for yourself what that seeing of
+the Egyptians "dead upon the sea-shore" meant to every soul that saw
+it. And then reflect that these intense emotions of mingled horror,
+triumph, and gratitude were expressed, in the visible presence of the
+Deity, by music and dancing. If you answer that you do not believe the
+Egyptians so perished, or that God ever appeared in a pillar of cloud,
+I reply, "Be it so--believe or disbelieve, as you choose;--This is yet
+assuredly the fact, that the author of the poem or fable of the Exodus
+supposed that, under such circumstances of Divine interposition as he
+had invented, the triumph of the Israelitish women would have been,
+and ought to have been, under the direction of a prophetess,
+expressed by music and dancing."
+
+42. Nor was it possible that he should think otherwise, at whatever
+period he wrote; both music and dancing being, among all great ancient
+nations, an appointed and very principal part of the worship of the
+gods.
+
+And that very theatrical entertainment at which I sate thinking over
+these things for you--that pantomime, which depended throughout for
+its success on an appeal to the vices of the lower London populace,
+was, in itself, nothing but a corrupt remnant of the religious
+ceremonies which guided the most serious faiths of the Greek mind, and
+laid the foundation of their gravest moral and didactic--more forcibly
+so because at the same time dramatic--literature.
+
+43. Returning to the Jewish history, you find soon afterwards this
+enthusiastic religious dance and song employed, in their more common
+and habitual manner, in the idolatries under Sinai; but beautifully
+again and tenderly, after the triumph of Jephthah, "And behold his
+daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances." Again,
+still more notably, at the triumph of David with Saul, "the women came
+out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul
+with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music." And you have
+this joyful song and dance of the virgins of Israel not only
+incidentally alluded to in the most solemn passages of Hebrew
+religious poetry (as in Psalm lxviii. 24, 25, and Psalm cxlix. 2, 3),
+but approved, and the restoration of it promised as a sign of God's
+perfect blessing, most earnestly by the saddest of the Hebrew
+prophets, and in one of the most beautiful of all his sayings.
+
+"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, 'Yea, I have loved
+thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving-kindness have I
+drawn thee.--I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of
+Israel; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and thou shalt
+go forth in dances with them that make merry,'" (Jer. xxxi. 3, 4; and
+compare v. 13). And finally, you have in two of quite the most
+important passages in the whole series of Scripture (one in the Old
+Testament, one in the New), the rejoicing in the repentance from, and
+remission of, sins, expressed by means of music and dancing, namely,
+in the rapturous dancing of David before the returning ark; and in the
+joy of the father's household at the repentance of the prodigal son.
+
+44. I could put all this much better, and more convincingly, before
+you, if I were able to take any pains in writing at present; but I am
+not, as I told you; being weary and ill; neither do I much care now to
+use what, in the very truth, are but tricks of literary art, in
+dealing with this so grave subject. You see I write you my letter
+straightforward, and let you see all my scratchings out and puttings
+in; and if the way I say things shocks you, or any other reader of
+these letters, I cannot help it; this only I know, that what I tell
+you is true, and written more earnestly than anything I ever wrote
+with my best literary care; and that you will find it useful to think
+upon, however it be said. Now, therefore, to draw towards our
+conclusion. Supposing the Bible inspired, in any of the senses above
+defined, you have in these passages a positively Divine authority for
+the use of song and dance, as a means of religious service, and
+expression of national thanksgiving. Supposing it not inspired, you
+have (taking the passages for as slightly authoritative as you choose)
+record in them, nevertheless, of a state of mind in a great nation,
+producing the most beautiful religious poetry and perfect moral law
+hitherto known to us, yet only expressible by them, to the fulfilment
+of their joyful passion, by means of professional dance and choral
+song.
+
+45. Now I want you to contrast this state of religious rapture with
+some of our modern phases of mind in parallel circumstances. You see
+that the promise of Jeremiah's, "Thou shalt go forth in the dances of
+them that make merry," is immediately followed by this, "Thou shalt
+yet _plant vines_ upon the mountains of Samaria." And again, at the
+yearly feast to the Lord in Shiloh, the dancing of the virgins was in
+the midst of the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), the feast of the vintage
+being in the south, as our harvest home in the north, a peculiar
+occasion of joy and thanksgiving. I happened to pass the autumn of
+1863 in one of the great vine districts of Switzerland, under the
+slopes of the outlying branch of the Jura which limits the arable
+plain of the Canton Zurich, some fifteen miles north of Zurich itself.
+That city has always been a renowned, stronghold of Swiss
+Protestantism, next in importance only to Geneva; and its evangelical
+zeal for the conversion of the Catholics of Uri, and endeavors to
+bring about that spiritual result by stopping the supplies of salt
+they needed to make their cheeses with, brought on (the Uri men
+reading their Matt. v. 13, in a different sense) the battle of Keppel,
+and the death of the reformer Zwinglius. The town itself shows the
+most gratifying signs of progress in all the modern arts and sciences
+of life. It is nearly as black as Newcastle--has a railroad station
+larger than the London terminus of the Chatham and Dover--fouls the
+stream of the Limmat as soon as it issues from the lake, so that you
+might even venture to compare the formerly simple and innocent Swiss
+river (I remember it thirty years ago--a current of pale green
+crystal) with the highly educated English streams of Weare or Tyne;
+and, finally, has as many French prints of dissolute tendency in its
+principal shop windows as if they had the privilege of opening on the
+Parisian Boulevards.
+
+46. I was somewhat anxious to see what species of thanksgiving or
+exultation would be expressed at _their_ vintage, by the peasantry in
+the neighborhood of this much enlightened, evangelical, and commercial
+society. It consisted in two ceremonies only. During the day, the
+servants of the farms where the grapes had been gathered, collected in
+knots about the vineyards, and slowly fired horse-pistols, from
+morning to evening. At night they got drunk, and staggered up and down
+the hill paths, uttering, at short intervals, yells and shrieks,
+differing only from the howling of wild animals by a certain intended
+and insolent discordance, only attainable by the malignity of debased
+human creatures.
+
+47. I must not do the injustice to the Zurich peasantry of implying
+that this manner of festivity is peculiar to them. A year before, in
+1862, I had formed the intention of living some years in the
+neighborhood of Geneva, and had established myself experimentally on
+the eastern slope of the Mont Salève; but I was forced to abandon my
+purpose at last, because I could not endure the rabid howling, on
+Sunday evenings, of the holiday-makers who came out from Geneva to get
+drunk in the mountain village. By the way, your last letter, with its
+extracts about our traffic in gin, is very valuable. I will come to
+that part of the business in a little while. Meantime, my friend, note
+this, respecting what I have told you, that in the very center of
+Europe, in a country which is visited for their chief pleasure by the
+most refined and thoughtful persons among all Christian nations--a
+country made by God's hand the most beautiful in the temperate regions
+of the earth, and inhabited by a race once capable of the sternest
+patriotism and simplest purity of life, your modern religion, in the
+very stronghold of it, has reduced the song and dance of ancient
+virginal thanksgiving to the howlings and staggerings of men
+betraying, in intoxication, a nature sunk more than half-way towards
+the beasts; and you will begin to understand why the Bible should have
+been "illustrated" by Gustave Doré.
+
+48. One word more is needful, though this letter is long already. The
+peculiar ghastliness of this Swiss mode of festivity is in its utter
+failure of joy; the paralysis and helplessness of a vice in which
+there is neither pleasure, nor art. But we are not, throughout Europe,
+wholly thus. There is such a thing, yet, as rapturous song and dance
+among us, though not indicative, by any means, of joy over repentant
+sinners. You must come back to Paris with me again. I had an evening
+to spare there, last summer, for investigation of theaters; and as
+there was nothing at any of them that I cared much about seeing, I
+asked a valet-de-place at Meurice's what people were generally going
+to. He said, "All the English went to see the _Lanterne Magique_." I
+do not care to tell you what general entertainment I received in
+following, for once, the lead of my countrymen; but it closed with
+the representation of the characteristic dancing of all ages of the
+world; and the dance given as characteristic of modern time was the
+Cancan, which you will see alluded to in the extract given in the note
+at page 80 of 'Sesame and Lilies' (the small edition; and page 54 of
+Vol. I. of the Revised Series of the Entire Works). "The ball
+terminated with a Devilish Chain and a Cancan of Hell, at seven in the
+morning." It was led by four principal dancers (who have since
+appeared in London in the _Huguenot Captain_), and it is many years
+since I have seen such perfect dancing, as far as finish and accuracy
+of art and fulness of animal power and fire are concerned. Nothing
+could be better done, in its own evil way, the object of the dance
+throughout being to express, in every gesture, the wildest fury of
+insolence and vicious passions possible to human creatures. So that
+you see, though, for the present, we find ourselves utterly incapable
+of a rapture of gladness or thanksgiving, the dance which is presented
+as characteristic of modern civilization is still rapturous
+enough--but it is with rapture of blasphemy.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+
+THE MEANING AND ACTUAL OPERATION OF SATANIC OR DEMONIACAL INFLUENCE.
+
+
+ _March 16, 1867._
+
+49. You may gather from the facts given you in my last letter that, as
+the expression of true and holy gladness was in old time statedly
+offered up by men for a part of worship to God their Father, so the
+expression of false and unholy gladness is in modern times, with as
+much distinctness and plainness, asserted by them openly to be offered
+to another spirit: "Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being
+the names assigned to these modern forms of joyous procession.
+
+Now, you know that, among the best and wisest of our present
+religious teachers, there is a gradual tendency to disbelieve, and to
+preach their disbelief, in the commonly received ideas of the Devil,
+and of his place, and his work. While, among some of our equally
+well-meaning, but far less wise, religious teachers, there is, in
+consequence, a panic spreading in anticipation of the moral dangers
+which must follow on the loss of the help of the Devil. One of the
+last appearances in public of the author of the 'Christian Year' was
+at a conclave of clergymen assembled in defense of faith in
+damnation.[A] The sense of the meeting generally was, that there
+_must_ be such a place as hell, because no one would ever behave
+decently upon earth unless they were kept in wholesome fear of the
+fires beneath it: and Mr. Keble, especially insisting on this view,
+related a story of an old woman who had a wicked son, and who, having
+lately heard with horror of the teaching of Mr. Maurice and others,
+exclaimed pathetically, "My son is bad enough as it is, and if he were
+not afraid of hell, what would become of him!" (I write from memory,
+and cannot answer for the words, but I can for their purport.)
+
+ [A] _Physical_ damnation, I should have said. It is strange
+ how seldom pain of heart is spoken of as a possible element
+ of future, or as the worst of present pain.
+
+50. Now, my friend, I am afraid that I must incur the charge of such
+presumption as may be involved in variance from _both_ these systems
+of teaching.
+
+I do not merely _believe_ there is such a place as hell. I _know_
+there is such a place; and I know also that when men have got to the
+point of believing virtue impossible but through dread of it, they
+have got _into_ it.
+
+I mean, that according to the distinctness with which they hold such a
+creed, the stain of nether fire has passed upon them. In the depth of
+his heart Mr. Keble could not have entertained the thought for an
+instant; and I believe it was only as a conspicuous sign to the
+religious world of the state into which they were sinking, that this
+creed, possible in its sincerity only to the basest of them, was
+nevertheless appointed to be uttered by the lips of the most tender,
+gracious, and beloved of their teachers.
+
+51. "Virtue impossible but for fear of hell"--a lofty creed for your
+English youth--and a holy one! And yet, my friend, there was something
+of right in the terrors of this clerical conclave. For, though you
+should assuredly be able to hold your own in the straight ways of God,
+without always believing that the Devil is at your side, it is a state
+of mind much to be dreaded, that you should not _know_ the Devil when
+you _see_ him there. For the probability is that when you do see him,
+the way you are walking in is not one of God's ways at all, but is
+leading you quite into other neighborhoods than His. On His way,
+indeed, you may often, like Albert Dürer's Knight, see the Fiend
+behind you, but you will find that he drops always farther and farther
+behind; whereas, if he jogs with you at your side, it is probably one
+of his own bypaths you are got on. And, in any case, it is a highly
+desirable matter that you should know him when you set eyes on him,
+which we are very far from doing in these days, having convinced
+ourselves that the graminivorous form of him, with horn and tail, is
+extant no longer. But in fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Him
+_is_ here; in the world, with us, and within us, mock as you may; and
+the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous.
+
+Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically, or with any
+other than literal and earnest meaning of words. Hear me, I pray you,
+therefore, for a little while, as earnestly as I speak.
+
+52. Every faculty of man's soul, and every instinct of it by which he
+is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption:
+and whether within Man, or in the external world, there is a power or
+condition of temptation which is perpetually endeavoring to reduce
+every glory of his soul, and every power of his life, to such
+corruption as is possible to them. And the more beautiful they are,
+the more fearful is the death which is attached as a penalty to their
+degradation.
+
+53. Take, for instance, that which, in its purity, is the source of
+the highest and purest mortal happiness--Love. Think of it first at
+its highest--as it may exist in the disciplined spirit of a perfect
+human creature; as it has so existed again and again, and does always,
+wherever it truly exists at all, as the _purifying_ passion of the
+soul. I will not speak of the transcendental and imaginative intensity
+in which it may reign in noble hearts, as when it inspired the
+greatest religious poem yet given to men; but take it in its true and
+quiet purity in any simple lover's heart,--as you have it expressed,
+for instance, thus, exquisitely, in the 'Angel in the House':--
+
+ "And there, with many a blissful tear,
+ I vowed to love and prayed to wed
+ The maiden who had grown so dear;--
+ Thanked God, who had set her in my path;
+ And promised, as I hoped to win,
+ I never would sully my faith
+ By the least selfishness or sin;
+ Whatever in her sight I'd seem
+ I'd really be; I ne'er would blend,
+ With my delight in her, a dream
+ 'Twould change her cheek to comprehend;
+ And, if she wished it, would prefer
+ Another's to my own success;
+ And always seek the best for her
+ With unofficious tenderness."
+
+Take this for the pure type of it in its simplicity; and then think of
+what corruption this passion is capable. I will give you a type of
+that also, and at your very doors. I cannot refer you to the time when
+the crime happened; but it was some four or five years ago, near
+Newcastle, and it has remained always as a ghastly landmark in my
+mind, owing to the horror of the external circumstances. The body of
+the murdered woman was found naked, rolled into a heap of ashes, at
+the mouth of one of your pits.
+
+54. You have thus two limiting examples, of the Pure Passion, and of
+its corruption. Now, whatever influence it is, without or within us,
+which has a tendency to degrade the one towards the other, is
+literally and accurately "Satanic." And this treacherous or deceiving
+spirit is perpetually at work, so that all the worst evil among us is
+a betrayed or corrupted good. Take religion itself: the desire of
+finding out God, and placing one's self in some true son's or
+servant's relation to Him. The Devil, that is to say, the deceiving
+spirit within us, or outside of us, mixes up our own vanity with this
+desire; makes us think that in our love to God we have established
+some connection with Him which separates us from our fellow-men, and
+renders us superior to them. Then it takes but one wave of the Devil's
+hand; and we are burning them alive for taking the liberty of
+contradicting us.
+
+55. Take the desire of teaching--the entirely unselfish and noble
+instinct for telling to those who are ignorant, the truth we know, and
+guarding them from the errors we see them in danger of;--there is no
+nobler, no more constant instinct in honorable breasts; but let the
+Devil formalize it, and mix the pride of a profession with it--get
+foolish people entrusted with the business of instruction, and make
+their giddy heads giddier by putting them up in pulpits above a
+submissive crowd--and you have it instantly corrupted into its own
+reverse; you have an alliance _against_ the light, shrieking at the
+sun, and the moon, and stars, as profane spectra:--a company of the
+blind, beseeching those they lead to remain blind also. "The heavens
+and the lights that rule them are untrue; the laws of creation are
+treacherous; the poles of the earth are out of poise. But _we_ are
+true. Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast, and we will
+lead you."
+
+56. Take the desire and faith of mutual help; the virtue of vowed
+brotherhood for the accomplishment of common purpose, (without which
+nothing great can be wrought by multitudinous bands of men); let the
+Devil put pride of caste into it, and you have a military organization
+applied for a thousand years to maintain that higher caste in idleness
+by robbing the laboring poor; let the Devil put a few small personal
+interests into it, and you have all faithful deliberation on national
+law rendered impossible in the parliaments of Europe, by the
+antagonism of parties.
+
+57. Take the instinct for justice, and the natural sense of
+indignation against crime; let the Devil color it with personal
+passion, and you have a mighty race of true and tender-hearted men
+living for centuries in such bloody feud that every note and word of
+their national songs is a dirge, and every rock of their hills is a
+gravestone. Take the love of beauty, and power of imagination, which
+are the source of every true achievement in art; let the Devil touch
+them with sensuality, and they are stronger than the sword or the
+flame to blast the cities where they were born, into ruin without
+hope. Take the instinct of industry and ardor of commerce, which are
+meant to be the support and mutual maintenance of man; let the Devil
+touch them with avarice, and you shall see the avenues of the exchange
+choked with corpses that have died of famine.
+
+58. Now observe--I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what you
+like--or to theorize about it as you like. All that I desire you to
+recognize is the fact of its being here, and the need of its being
+fought with. If you take the Bible's account of it, or Dante's, or
+Milton's, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual
+creature, commanding others, and resisted by others: if you take
+Æschylus's or Hesiod's account of it, you will hold it for a partly
+elementary and unconscious adversity of fate, and partly for a group
+of monstrous spiritual agencies connected with death, and begotten out
+of the dust; if you take a modern rationalist's, you will accept it
+for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral nature
+exposing it to loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is capable
+of mortification or leprosy. I do not care what you call it,--whose
+history you believe of it,--nor what you yourself can imagine about
+it; the origin, or nature, or name may be as you will, but the
+deadly reality of the thing is with us, and warring against us,
+and on our true war with it depends whatever life we can win. Deadly
+reality, I say. The puff-adder or horned asp is not more real.
+Unbelievable,--_those_,--unless you had seen them; no fable could have
+been coined out of any human brain so dreadful, within its own poor
+material sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent--working its way sidelong
+in the sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death--this worm that
+dies not, and fire that is not quenched, within our souls or around
+them. Eternal death, I say--sure, that, whatever creed you hold;--if
+the old Scriptural one, Death of perpetual banishment from before
+God's face; if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal for _us_,
+instant and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.
+
+This is what this unquestionably present--this, according to his
+power, _omni_-present--fiend, brings us towards, daily. He is the
+person to be "voted" against, my working friend; it is worth
+something, having a vote against _him_, if you can get it! Which you
+can, indeed; but not by gift from Cabinet Ministers; you must work
+warily with your own hands, and drop sweat of heart's blood, before
+you can record that vote effectually.
+
+Of which more in next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI.
+
+THE SATANIC POWER IS MAINLY TWOFOLD: THE POWER OF CAUSING FALSEHOOD
+AND THE POWER OF CAUSING PAIN. THE RESISTANCE IS BY LAW OF HONOR AND
+LAW OF DELIGHT.
+
+
+ _March 19, 1857._
+
+59. You may perhaps have thought my last three or four letters mere
+rhapsodies. They are nothing of the kind; they are accurate accounts
+of literal facts, which we have to deal with daily. This thing, or
+power, opposed to God's power, and specifically called "Mammon" in the
+Sermon on the Mount, is, in deed and in truth, a continually present
+and active enemy, properly called "_Arch_-enemy," that is to say,
+"Beginning and Prince of Enemies," and daily we have to record our
+vote for, or against him. Of the manner of which record we were next
+to consider.
+
+60. This enemy is always recognizable, briefly in two functions. He is
+pre-eminently the Lord of _Lies_ and the Lord of _Pain_. Wherever Lies
+are, he is; wherever Pain is, he has been--so that of the Spirit of
+Wisdom (who is called God's Helper, as Satan His Adversary) it is
+written, not only that by her Kings reign, and Princes decree justice,
+but also that her ways are ways of Pleasantness, and all her paths
+Peace.
+
+Therefore, you will succeed, you working men, in recording your votes
+against this arch-enemy, precisely in the degree in which you can do
+away with falsehood and pain in your work and lives; and bring truth
+into the one, and pleasure into the other; all education being
+directed to make yourselves and your children _capable of Honesty_ and
+_capable of Delight_; and to rescue yourselves from iniquity and
+agony. And this is what I meant by saying in the preface to 'Unto this
+Last' that the central requirement of education consisted in giving
+habits of gentleness and justice; "gentleness" (as I will show you
+presently) being the best single word I could have used to express the
+capacity for giving and receiving true pleasure; and "justice" being
+similarly the most comprehensive word for all kind of honest dealing.
+
+61. Now, I began these letters with the purpose of explaining the
+nature of the requirements of justice first, and then those of
+gentleness, but I allowed myself to be led into that talk about the
+theaters, not only because the thoughts could be more easily written
+as they came, but also because I was able thus to illustrate for you
+more directly the nature of the enemy we have to deal with. You do not
+perhaps know, though I say this diffidently (for I often find working
+men know many things which one would have thought were out of their
+way), that music was, among the Greeks, quite the first means of
+education; and that it was so connected with their system of ethics
+and of intellectual training, that the God of Music is with them also
+the God of Righteousness;--the God who purges and avenges iniquity,
+and contends with their Satan as represented under the form of Python,
+"the corrupter." And the Greeks were incontrovertibly right in this.
+Music is the nearest at hand, the most orderly, the most delicate, and
+the most perfect, of all bodily pleasures; it is also the only one
+which is equally helpful to all the ages of man,--helpful from the
+nurse's song to her infant, to the music, unheard of others, which so
+often haunts the deathbed of pure and innocent spirits. And the action
+of the deceiving or devilish power is in _nothing_ shown quite so
+distinctly among us at this day,--not even in our commercial
+dishonesties, nor in our social cruelties,--as in its having been able
+to take away music, as an instrument of education, altogether; and to
+enlist it almost wholly in the service of superstition on the one
+hand, and of sensuality on the other.
+
+62. This power of the Muses, then, and its proper influence over you
+workmen, I shall eventually have much to insist upon with you; and in
+doing so I shall take that beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son
+(which I have already referred to), and explain, as far as I know, the
+significance of it, and then I will take the three means of festivity,
+or wholesome human joy, therein stated,--fine dress, rich food, and
+music;--("bring forth the fairest robe for him,"--"bring forth the
+fatted calf, and kill it;" "as he drew nigh, he heard music and
+dancing"); and I will show you how all these three things, fine dress,
+rich food, and music (including ultimately all the other arts) are
+meant to be sources of life, and means of moral discipline, to all
+men; and how they have all three been made, by the Devil, the means of
+guilt, dissoluteness, and death.[A] But first I must return to my
+original plan of these letters, and endeavor to set down for you some
+of the laws which, in a true Working Men's Parliament, must be
+ordained in defense of Honesty.
+
+ [A] See 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIV.
+
+Of which laws (preliminary to all others, and necessary above all
+others), having now somewhat got my raveled threads together again,
+I will begin talk in my next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XII.
+
+THE NECESSITY OF IMPERATIVE LAW TO THE PROSPERITY OF STATES.
+
+
+ _March 20, 1867._
+
+63. I have your most interesting letter,[A] which I keep for
+reference, when I come to the consideration of its subject in its
+proper place, under the head of the abuse of Food. I do not wonder
+that your life should be rendered unhappy by the scenes of drunkenness
+which you are so often compelled to witness; nor that this so gigantic
+and infectious evil should seem to you the root of the greater part of
+the misery of our lower orders. I do not wonder that George Cruikshank
+has warped the entire current of his thoughts and life, at once to my
+admiration and my sorrow, from their natural field of work, that he
+might spend them, in struggle with this fiend, for the poor lowest
+people whom he knows so well. I wholly sympathize with you in
+indignation at the methods of temptation employed, and at the use of
+the fortunes made by the vendors of death; and whatever immediately
+applicable legal means there might be of restricting the causes of
+drunkenness, I should without hesitation desire to bring into
+operation. But all such appliance I consider temporary and
+provisionary; nor, while there is record of the miracle at Cana (not
+to speak of the sacrament) can I conceive it possible, without
+(logically) the denial of the entire truth of the New Testament, to
+reprobate the use of wine as a stimulus to the powers of life.
+Supposing we did deny the words and deeds of the Founder of
+Christianity, the authority of the wisest heathens, especially that of
+Plato in the 'Laws,' is wholly against abstinence from wine; and much
+as I can believe, and as I have been endeavoring to make you believe
+also, of the subtlety of the Devil, I do not suppose the vine to have
+been one of his inventions. Of this, however, more in another place.
+By the way, was it not curious that in the 'Manchester Examiner,' in
+which that letter of mine on the abuse of dancing appeared, there
+chanced to be, in the next column, a paragraph giving an account of a
+girl stabbing her betrayer in a ball-room; and another paragraph
+describing a Parisian character, which gives exactly the extreme type
+I wanted, for example of the abuse of Food?[B]
+
+ [A] Appendix 4.
+
+ [B] Appendix 5.
+
+64. I return, however, now to the examination of possible means for
+the enforcement of justice, in temper and in act, as the first of
+political requirements. And as, in stating my conviction of the
+necessity of certain stringent laws on this matter, I shall be in
+direct opposition to Mr. Stuart Mill; and, more or less, in opposition
+to other professors of modern political economy, as well as to many
+honest and active promoters of the privileges of working men (as if
+privilege only were wanted and never restraint!), I will give you, as
+briefly as I can, the grounds on which I am prepared to justify such
+opposition.
+
+65. When the crew of a wrecked ship escape in an open boat, and the
+boat is crowded, the provisions scanty, and the prospect of making
+land distant, laws are instantly established and enforced which no one
+thinks of disobeying. An entire equality of claim to the provisions is
+acknowledged without dispute; and an equal liability to necessary
+labor. No man who can row is allowed to refuse his oar; no man,
+however much money he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much
+as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who
+endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the
+bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such
+violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other
+hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and
+exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive
+more than ordinary care and indulgence, not unaccompanied with
+unanimous self-sacrifice on the part of the laboring crew.
+
+There is never any question under circumstances like these, of what is
+right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, wise or foolish. If there _be_
+any question, there is little hope for boat or crew. The right man is
+put at the helm; every available hand is set to the oars; the sick are
+tended, and the vicious restrained, at once, and decisively; or if
+not, the end is near.
+
+66. Now, the circumstances of every associated group of human society,
+contending bravely for national honors and felicity of life, differ
+only from those thus supposed, in the greater, instead of less,
+necessity for the establishment of restraining law. There is no point
+of difference in the difficulties to be met, nor in the rights
+reciprocally to be exercised. Vice and indolence are not less, but
+more, injurious in a nation than in a boat's company; the modes in
+which they affect the interests of worthy persons being far more
+complex, and more easily concealed. The right of restraint, vested in
+those who labor, over those who would impede their labor, is as
+absolute in the large as in the small society; the equal claim to
+share in whatever is necessary to the common life (or commonwealth) is
+as indefeasible; the claim of the sick and helpless to be cared for by
+the strong with earnest self-sacrifice, is as pitiful and as
+imperative; the necessity that the governing authority should be in
+the hands of a true and trained pilot is as clear and as constant. In
+none of these conditions is there any difference between a nation and
+a boat's company. The only difference is in this, that the
+impossibility of discerning the effects of individual error and crime,
+or of counteracting them by individual effort, in the affairs of a
+great nation renders it tenfold more necessary than in a small society
+that direction by law should be sternly established. Assume that your
+boat's crew is disorderly and licentious, and will, by agreement,
+submit to no order;--the most troublesome of them will yet be easily
+discerned; and the chance is that the best man among them knocks him
+down. Common instinct of self-preservation will make the rioters put a
+good sailor at the helm, and impulsive pity and occasional help will
+be, by heart and hand, here and there given to visible distress. Not
+so in the ship of the realm. The most troublesome persons in _it_ are
+usually the least recognized for such, and the most active in its
+management; the best men mind their own business patiently, and are
+never thought of; the good helmsman never touches the tiller but in
+the last extremity; and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only
+from every eye, but from every thought. On the deck, the aspect is of
+Cleopatra's galley--under hatches there is a slave hospital; while,
+finally (and this is the most fatal difference of all), even the few
+persons who care to interfere energetically, with purpose of doing
+good, can, in a large society, discern so little of the real state of
+evil to be dealt with, and judge so little of the best means of
+dealing with it, that half of their best efforts will be misdirected,
+and some may even do more harm than good. Whereas it is the sorrowful
+law of this universe, that evil, even unconscious and unintended,
+never fails of _its_ effect; and in a state where the evil and the
+good, under conditions of individual "liberty," are allowed to contend
+together, not only every _stroke_ on the Devil's side tells--but every
+_slip_, (the mistakes of wicked men being as mischievous as their
+successes); while on the side of right, there will be much direct and
+fatal defeat, and, even of its measure of victory, half will be
+fruitless.
+
+67. It is true, of course, that, in the end of ends, nothing but the
+right conquers; the prevalent thorns of wrong, at last, crackle away
+in indiscriminate flame: and of the good seed sown, one grain in a
+thousand some day comes up--and somebody lives by it; but most of our
+great teachers, not excepting Carlyle and Emerson themselves, are a
+little too encouraging in their proclamation of this comfort, not, to
+my mind, very sufficient, when for the present our fields are full of
+nothing but darnel instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley; and
+none of them seem to me yet to have enough insisted on the inevitable
+power and infectiousness of all evil, and the easy and utter
+extinguishableness of good. Medicine often fails of its effect--but
+poison never: and while, in summing the observation of past life, not
+unwatchfully spent, I can truly say that I have a thousand times seen
+patience disappointed of her hope, and wisdom of her aim, I have never
+yet seen folly fruitless of mischief, nor vice conclude but in
+calamity.
+
+68. There is, however, one important condition in national economy, in
+which the analogy of that of a ship's company is incomplete: namely,
+that while labor at oar or sail is necessarily united, and can attain
+no independent good, or personal profit, the labor properly undertaken
+by the several members of a political community is necessarily, and
+justly, within certain limits, independent; and obtains for them
+independent advantage, of which, if you will glance at the last
+paragraph of the first chapter of 'Munera Pulveris,' you will see I
+should be the last person to propose depriving them. This great
+difference in final condition involves necessarily much complexity in
+the system and application of general laws; but it in no wise
+abrogates,--on the contrary, it renders yet more imperative,--the
+necessity for the firm ordinance of such laws, which, marking the due
+limits of independent agency, may enable it to exist in full energy,
+not only without becoming injurious, but so as more variously and
+perfectly to promote the entire interests of the commonwealth.
+
+I will address myself therefore in my next letter to the statement of
+some of these necessary laws.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII.
+
+THE PROPER OFFICES OF THE BISHOP AND DUKE; OR, "OVERSEER" AND
+"LEADER."
+
+
+ _March 21, 1867._
+
+69. I see, by your last letter, for which I heartily thank you, that
+you would not sympathize with me in my sorrow for the desertion of his
+own work by George Cruikshank, that he may fight in the front of the
+temperance ranks. But you do not know what work he has left undone,
+nor how much richer inheritance you might have received from his hand.
+It was no more _his_ business to etch diagrams of drunkenness than it
+is mine at this moment to be writing these letters against anarchy. It
+is "the first mild day of March" (high time, I think, that it should
+be!), and by rights I ought to be out among the budding banks and
+hedges, outlining sprays of hawthorn and clusters of primrose. That is
+_my_ right work; and it is not, in the inner gist and truth of it,
+right nor good, for you, or for anybody else, that Cruikshank with his
+great gift, and I with my weak, but yet thoroughly clear and definite
+one, should both of us be tormented by agony of indignation and
+compassion, till we are forced to give up our peace, and pleasure, and
+power; and rush down into the streets and lanes of the city, to do the
+little that is in the strength of our single hands against their
+uncleanliness and iniquity. But, as in a sorely besieged town, every
+man must to the ramparts, whatsoever business he leaves, so neither he
+nor I have had any choice but to leave our household stuff, and go on
+crusade, such as we are called to; not that I mean, if Fate may be
+anywise resisted, to give up the strength of my life, as he has given
+his; for I think he was wrong in doing so; and that he should only
+have carried the fiery cross his appointed leagues, and then given it
+to another hand; and, for my own part, I mean these very letters to
+close my political work for many a day; and I write them, not in any
+hope of their being at present listened to, but to disburthen my heart
+of the witness I have to bear, that I may be free to go back to my
+garden lawns, and paint birds and flowers there.
+
+70. For these same statutes which we are to consider to-day, have
+indeed been in my mind now these fourteen years, ever since I wrote
+the last volume of the 'Stones of Venice,' in which you will find, in
+the long note on Modern Education, most of what I have been now in
+detail writing to you, hinted in abstract; and, at the close of it,
+this sentence, of which I solemnly now avouch (in thankfulness that I
+was permitted to write it), every word: "Finally, I hold it for
+indisputable, that the first duty of a State is to see that every
+child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed, and educated,
+till it attain years of discretion. But in order to the effecting this
+the Government must have an authority over the people of which we now
+do not so much as dream."
+
+That authority I did not then endeavor to define, for I knew all such
+assertions would be useless, and that the necessarily resultant outcry
+would merely diminish my influence in other directions. But now I do
+not care about influence any more, it being only my concern to say
+truly that which I know, and, if it may be, get some quiet life, yet,
+among the fields in the evening shadow.
+
+71. There is, I suppose, no word which men are prouder of the right to
+attach to their names, or more envious of others who bear it, when
+they themselves may not, than the word "noble." Do you know what it
+originally meant, and always, in the right use of it, means? It means
+a "known" person; one who has risen far enough above others to draw
+men's eyes to him, and to be known (honorably) for such and such an
+one. "Ignoble," on the other hand, is derived from the same root as
+the word "ignorance." It means an unknown, inglorious person. And no
+more singular follies have been committed by weak human creatures than
+those which have been caused by the instinct, pure and simple, of
+escaping from this obscurity. Instinct, which, corrupted, will
+hesitate at no means, good or evil, of satisfying itself with
+notoriety--instinct, nevertheless, which, like all other natural ones,
+has a true and pure purpose, and ought always in a worthy way to be
+satisfied.
+
+All men ought to be in this sense "noble"; known of each other, and
+desiring to be known. And the first law which a nation, desiring to
+conquer all the devices of the Father of Lies, should establish among
+its people, is that they _shall_ be so known.
+
+72. Will you please now read § 22 of 'Sesame and Lilies'? The
+reviewers in the ecclesiastical journals laughed at it, as a rhapsody,
+when the book came out; none having the slightest notion of what I
+meant: (nor, indeed, do I well see how it could be otherwise!).
+Nevertheless, I meant precisely and literally what is there said,
+namely, that a bishop's duty being to watch over the souls of his
+people, and _give_ account of every one of them, it becomes
+practically necessary for him first to _get_ some account of their
+bodies. Which he was wont to do in the early days of Christianity by
+help of a person called "deacon" or "ministering servant," whose name
+is still retained among preliminary ecclesiastical dignities, vainly
+enough! Putting, however, all questions of forms and names aside, the
+thing actually needing to be done is this--that over every hundred
+(more or less) of the families composing a Christian State, there
+should be appointed an overseer, or bishop, to render account, to the
+State, of the life of every individual in those families; and to have
+care both of their interest and conduct to such an extent as they may
+be willing to admit, or as their faults may justify: so that it may be
+impossible for any person, however humble, to suffer from unknown
+want, or live in unrecognized crime;--such help and observance being
+rendered without officiousness either of interference or inquisition
+(the limits of both being determined by national law), but with the
+patient and gentle watchfulness which true Christian pastors now
+exercise over their flocks; only with a higher legal authority
+presently to be defined, of interference on due occasion.
+
+And with this farther function, that such overseers shall be not only
+the pastors, but the biographers, of their people; a written statement
+of the principal events in the life of each family being annually
+required to be rendered by them to a superior State Officer. These
+records, laid up in public offices, would soon furnish indications of
+the families whom it would be advantageous to the nation to advance in
+position, or distinguish with honor, and aid by such reward as it
+should be the object of every Government to distribute no less
+punctually, and far more frankly, than it distributes punishment:
+(compare 'Munera Pulveris,' Essay IV., in paragraph on Critic Law),
+while the mere fact of permanent record being kept of every event of
+importance, whether disgraceful or worthy of praise, in each family,
+would of itself be a deterrent from crime, and a stimulant to
+well-deserving conduct, far beyond mere punishment or reward.
+
+73. Nor need you think that there would be anything in such a system
+un-English, or tending to espionage. No uninvited visits should ever
+be made in any house, unless law had been violated; nothing recorded,
+against its will, of any family, but what was inevitably known of its
+publicly visible conduct, and the results of that conduct. What else
+was written should be only by the desire, and from the communications,
+of its head. And in a little while it would come to be felt that the
+true history of a nation was indeed not of its wars, but of its
+households; and the desire of men would rather be to obtain some
+conspicuous place in these honorable annals, than to shrink behind
+closed shutters from public sight. Until at last, George Herbert's
+grand word of command would hold not only on the conscience, but the
+actual system and outer economy of life,
+
+ "Think the King sees thee still, for _his_ King does."
+
+74. Secondly, above these bishops or pastors, who are only to be
+occupied in offices of familiar supervision and help, should be
+appointed higher officers of State, having executive authority over as
+large districts as might be conveniently (according to the number and
+circumstances of their inhabitants) committed to their care; officers
+who, according to the reports of the pastors, should enforce or
+mitigate the operation of too rigid general law, and determine
+measures exceptionally necessary for public advantage. For instance,
+the general law being that all children of the operative classes, at a
+certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior officers
+should have power, on the report of the pastors, to dispense with the
+attendance of children who had sick parents to take charge of, or
+whose home-life seemed to be one of better advantage for them than
+that of the common schools; or who, for any other like cause, might
+justifiably claim remission. And it being the general law that the
+entire body of the public should contribute to the cost, and divide
+the profits, of all necessary public works and undertakings, as roads,
+mines, harbor protections, and the like, and that nothing of this kind
+should be permitted to be in the hands of private speculators, it
+should be the duty of the district officer to collect whatever
+information was accessible respecting such sources of public profit;
+and to represent the circumstances in Parliament: and then, with
+Parliamentary authority, but on his own sole personal responsibility,
+to see that such enterprises were conducted honestly and with due
+energy and order.
+
+The appointment to both these offices should be by election, and for
+life; by what forms of election shall be matter of inquiry, after we
+have determined some others of the necessary constitutional laws.
+
+75. I do not doubt but that you are already beginning to think it was
+with good reason I held my peace these fourteen years,--and that, for
+any good likely to be done by speaking, I might as well have held it
+altogether!
+
+It may be so: but merely to complete and explain my own work, it is
+necessary that I should say these things finally; and I believe that
+the imminent danger to which we are now in England exposed by the
+gradually accelerated fall of our aristocracy (wholly their own
+fault), and the substitution of money-power for their martial one; and
+by the correspondingly imminent prevalence of mob violence here, as in
+America; together with the continually increasing chances of insane
+war, founded on popular passion, whether of pride, fear, or
+acquisitiveness,--all these dangers being further darkened and
+degraded by the monstrous forms of vice and selfishness which the
+appliances of recent wealth, and of vulgar mechanical art, make
+possible to the million,--will soon bring us into a condition in which
+men will be glad to listen to almost any words but those of a
+demagogue, and to seek any means of safety rather than those in which
+they have lately trusted. So, with your good leave, I will say my say
+to the end, mock at it who may.
+
+P.S.--I take due note of the regulations of trade proposed in your
+letter just received[A]--all excellent. I shall come to them
+presently, "Cash payment" above all. You may write that on your
+trade-banners in letters of gold, wherever you would have them raised
+victoriously.
+
+ [A] Appendix 6.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV.
+
+THE FIRST GROUP OF ESSENTIAL LAWS--AGAINST THEFT BY FALSE WORK, AND BY
+BANKRUPTCY.--NECESSARY PUBLICITY OF ACCOUNTS.
+
+
+ _March 26, 1867._
+
+76. I feel much inclined to pause at this point, to answer the kind of
+questions and objections which I know must be rising in your mind,
+respecting the authority supposed to be lodged in the persons of the
+officers just specified. But I can neither define, nor justify to you,
+the powers I would desire to see given to them, till I state to you
+the kind of laws they would have to enforce: of which the first group
+should be directed to the prevention of all kinds of thieving; but
+chiefly of the occult and polite methods of it; and, of all occult
+methods, chiefly, the making and selling of bad goods. No form of
+theft is so criminal as this--none so deadly to the State. If you
+break into a man's house and steal a hundred pounds' worth of plate,
+he knows his loss, and there is an end (besides that you take your
+risk of punishment for your gain, like a man). And if you do it
+bravely and openly, and habitually live by such inroad, you may retain
+nearly every moral and manly virtue, and become a heroic rider and
+reiver, and hero of song. But if you swindle me out of twenty
+shillings' worth of quality on each of a hundred bargains, I lose my
+hundred pounds all the same, and I get a hundred untrustworthy
+articles besides, which will fail me and injure me in all manner of
+ways, when I least expect it; and you, having done your thieving
+basely, are corrupted by the guilt of it to the very heart's core.
+
+77. This is the first thing, therefore, which your general laws must
+be set to punish, fiercely, immitigably, to the utter prevention and
+extinction of it, or there is no hope for you. No religion that ever
+was preached on this earth of God's rounding ever proclaimed any
+salvation to sellers of bad goods. If the Ghost that is in you,
+whatever the essence of it, leaves your hand a juggler's, and your
+heart a cheat's, it is not a Holy Ghost, be assured of that. And for
+the rest, all political economy, as well as all higher virtue, depends
+_first on sound work_.
+
+Let your laws, then, I say, in the beginning, be set to secure this.
+You cannot make punishment too stern for subtle knavery. Keep no truce
+with this enemy, whatever pardon you extend to more generous ones. For
+light weights and false measures, or for proved adulteration or
+dishonest manufacture of article, the penalty should be simply
+confiscation of goods and sending out of the country. The kind of
+person who desires prosperity by such practices could not be made to
+"emigrate" too speedily. What to do with him in the place you appoint
+to be blessed by his presence, we will in time consider.
+
+78. Under such penalty, however, and yet more under the pressure of
+such a right public opinion as could pronounce and enforce such
+penalty, I imagine that sham articles would become speedily as rare as
+sound ones are now. The chief difficulty in the matter would be to fix
+your standard. This would have to be done by the guild of every trade
+in its own manner, and within certain easily recognizable limits, and
+this fixing of standard would necessitate much simplicity in the forms
+and kinds of articles sold. You could only warrant a certain kind of
+glazing or painting in china, a certain quality of leather or cloth,
+bricks of a certain clay, loaves of a defined mixture of meal.
+Advisable improvements or varieties in manufacture would have to be
+examined and accepted by the trade guild: when so accepted, they
+would be announced in public reports; and all puffery and
+self-proclamation, on the part of tradesmen, absolutely forbidden, as
+much as the making of any other kind of noise or disturbance.
+
+79. But observe, this law is only to have force over tradesmen whom I
+suppose to have joined voluntarily in carrying out a better system of
+commerce. Outside of their guild, they would have to leave the rogue
+to puff and cheat as he chose, and the public to be gulled as they
+chose. All that is necessary is that the said public should clearly
+know the shops in which they could get warranted articles; and, as
+clearly, those in which they bought at their own risk.
+
+And the above-named penalty of confiscation of goods should of course
+be enforced only against dishonest members of the trade guild. If
+people chose to buy of those who had openly refused to join an honest
+society, they should be permitted to do so, at their pleasure, and
+peril: and this for two reasons,--the first, that it is always
+necessary, in enacting strict law, to leave some safety valve for
+outlet of irrepressible vice (nearly all the stern lawgivers of old
+time erred by oversight in this; so that the morbid elements of the
+State, which it should be allowed to get rid of in a cutaneous and
+openly curable manner, were thrown inwards, and corrupted its
+constitution, and broke all down);--the second, that operations of
+trade and manufacture conducted under, and guarded by, severe law,
+ought always to be subject to the stimulus of such erratic external
+ingenuity as cannot be tested by law, or would be hindered from its
+full exercise by the dread of it; not to speak of the farther need of
+extending all possible indulgence to foreign traders who might wish to
+exercise their industries here without liability to the surveillance
+of our trade guilds.
+
+80. Farther, while for all articles warranted by the guild (as above
+supposed) the prices should be annually fixed for the trade throughout
+the kingdom; and the producing workman's wages fixed, so as to define
+the master's profits within limits admitting only such variation as
+the nature of the given article of sale rendered inevitable;--yet, in
+the production of other classes of articles, whether by skill of
+applied handicraft, or fineness of material above the standard of the
+guild, attaining, necessarily, values above its assigned prices, every
+firm should be left free to make its own independent efforts and
+arrangements with its workmen, subject always to the same penalty, if
+it could be proved to have consistently described, or offered,
+anything to the public for what it was not: and finally, the state of
+the affairs of every firm should be annually reported to the guild,
+and its books laid open to inspection, for guidance in the regulation
+of prices in the subsequent year; and any firm whose liabilities
+exceeded its assets by a hundred pounds should be forthwith declared
+bankrupt. And I will anticipate what I have to say in succeeding
+letters so far as to tell you that I would have this condition extend
+to every firm in the country, large or small, and of whatever rank in
+business. And thus you perceive, my friend, I shall not have to
+trouble you or myself much with deliberations respecting commercial
+"panics," nor to propose legislative cures for _them_, by any
+laxatives or purgatives of paper currency, or any other change of
+pecuniary diet.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XV.
+
+THE NATURE OF THEFT BY UNJUST PROFITS.--CRIME CAN FINALLY BE ARRESTED
+ONLY BY EDUCATION.
+
+
+ _29th March._
+
+81. The first methods of polite robbery, by dishonest manufacture and
+by debt, of which we have been hitherto speaking, are easily enough to
+be dealt with and ended, when once men have a mind to end them. But
+the third method of polite robbery, by dishonest _acquisition_, has
+many branches, and is involved among honest arts of acquisition, so
+that it is difficult to repress the one without restraining the other.
+
+Observe, first, large fortunes cannot honestly be made by the work of
+any _one_ man's hands, or head. If his work benefits multitudes, and
+involves position of high trust, it may be (I do not say that it _is_)
+expedient to reward him with great wealth or estate; but fortune of
+this kind is freely given in gratitude for benefit, not as repayment
+for labor. Also, men of peculiar genius in any art, if the public can
+enjoy the product of their genius, may set it at almost any price they
+choose; but this, I will show you when I come to speak of art, is
+unlawful on their part and ruinous to their own powers. Genius must
+not be sold; the sale of it involves, in a transcendental, but
+perfectly true, sense, the guilt both of simony and prostitution. Your
+labor only may be sold; your soul must not.
+
+82. Now, by fair pay for fair labor, according to the rank of it, a
+man can obtain means of comfortable, or if he needs it, refined life.
+But he cannot obtain large fortune. Such fortunes as are now the
+prizes of commerce can be made only in one of three ways:--
+
+(1.) By obtaining command over the labor of multitudes of other men
+and taxing it for our own profit.
+
+(2.) By treasure-trove,--as of mines, useful vegetable products, and
+the like,--in circumstances putting them under our own exclusive
+control.
+
+(3.) By speculation, (commercial gambling).
+
+The first two of these means of obtaining riches are, in some forms
+and within certain limits, lawful, and advantageous to the State. The
+third is entirely detrimental to it; for in all cases of profit
+derived from speculation, at best, what one man gains another loses;
+and the net results to the State is zero, (pecuniarily,) with the loss
+of the time and ingenuity spent in the transaction; besides the
+disadvantage involved in the discouragement of the losing party, and
+the corrupted moral natures of both. This is the result of speculation
+at its best. At its worst, not only B loses what A gains (having taken
+his fair risk of such loss for his fair chance of gain), but C and D,
+who never had any chance at all, are drawn in by B's fall, and the
+final result is that A sets up his carriage on the collected sum
+which was once the means of living to a dozen families.
+
+83. Nor is this all. For while real commerce is founded on real
+necessities or uses, and limited by these, speculation, of which the
+object is merely gain, seeks to excite imaginary necessities and
+popular desires, in order to gather its temporary profit from the
+supply of them. So that not only the persons who lend their money to
+it will be finally robbed, but the work done with their money will be,
+for the most part, useless, and thus the entire body of the public
+injured as well as the persons concerned in the transaction. Take, for
+instance, the architectural decorations of railways throughout the
+kingdom,--representing many millions of money for which no farthing of
+dividend can ever be forthcoming. The public will not be induced to
+pay the smallest fraction of higher fare to Rochester or Dover because
+the ironwork of the bridge which carries them over the Thames is
+covered with floral cockades, and the piers of it edged with
+ornamental cornices. All that work is simply put there by the builders
+that they may put the percentage upon it into their own pockets; and,
+the rest of the money being thrown into that floral form, there is an
+end of it, as far as the shareholders are concerned. Millions upon
+millions have thus been spent, within the last twenty years, on
+ornamental arrangements of zigzag bricks, black and blue tiles,
+cast-iron foliage, and the like; of which millions, as I said, not a
+penny can ever return into the shareholders' pockets, nor contribute
+to public speed or safety on the line. It is all sunk forever in
+ornamental architecture, and (trust me for this!) _all that
+architecture is bad_. As such, it had incomparably better not have
+been built. Its only result will be to corrupt what capacity of taste
+or right pleasure in such work we have yet left to us! And consider a
+little, what other kind of result than that might have been attained
+if all those millions had been spent usefully: say, in buying land for
+the people, or building good houses for them, or (if it had been
+imperatively required to be spent decoratively) in laying out gardens
+and parks for them,--or buying noble works of art for their permanent
+possession,--or, best of all, establishing frequent public schools and
+libraries. Count what those lost millions would have so accomplished
+for you! But you left the affair to "supply and demand," and the
+British public had not brains enough to "demand" land, or lodging, or
+books. It "demanded" cast-iron cockades and zigzag cornices, and is
+"supplied" with them, to its beatitude for evermore.
+
+84. Now, the theft we first spoke of, by falsity of workmanship or
+material, is, indeed, so far worse than these thefts by dishonest
+acquisition, that there is no possible excuse for it on the ground of
+self-deception; while many speculative thefts are committed by persons
+who really mean to do no harm, but think the system on the whole a
+fair one, and do the best they can in it for themselves. But in the
+real fact of the crime, when consciously committed, in the numbers
+reached by its injury, in the degree of suffering it causes to those
+whom it ruins, in the baseness of its calculated betrayal of implicit
+trust, in the yet more perfect vileness of the obtaining such trust
+by misrepresentation, only that it may be betrayed, and in the
+impossibility that the crime should be at all committed, except by
+persons of good position and large knowledge of the world--what manner
+of theft is so wholly unpardonable, so inhuman, so contrary to every
+law and instinct which binds or animates society?
+
+And then consider farther, how many of the carriages that glitter in
+our streets are driven, and how many of the stately houses that gleam
+among our English fields are inhabited, by this kind of thief!
+
+85. I happened to be reading this morning (29th March) some portions
+of the Lent services, and I came to a pause over the familiar words,
+"And with Him they crucified two thieves." Have you ever considered
+(I speak to you now as a professing Christian), why, in the
+accomplishment of the "numbering among transgressors," the
+transgressors chosen should have been especially thieves--not
+murderers, nor, as far as we know, sinners by any gross violence? Do
+you observe how the sin of theft is again and again indicated as the
+chiefly antagonistic one to the law of Christ? "This he said, not that
+he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag"
+(of Judas). And again, though Barabbas was a leader of sedition, and a
+murderer besides,--(that the popular election might be in all respects
+perfect)--yet St. John, in curt and conclusive account of him, fastens
+again on the theft. "Then cried they all again saying, Not this man,
+but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber." I believe myself the reason
+to be that theft is indeed, in its subtle forms, the most complete and
+excuseless of human crimes. Sins of violence usually are committed
+under sudden or oppressive temptation: they may be the madness of
+moments; or they may be apparently the only means of extrication from
+calamity. In other cases, they are the diseased acts or habits of
+lower and brutified natures.[A] But theft involving deliberative
+intellect, and absence of passion, is the purest type of wilful
+iniquity, in persons capable of doing right. Which being so, it seems
+to be fast becoming the practice of modern society to crucify its
+Christ indeed, as willingly as ever, in the persons of His poor; but
+by no means now to crucify its thieves beside Him! It elevates its
+thieves after another fashion; sets them upon a hill, that their light
+may shine before men and that all may see their good works, and
+glorify their Father, in--the Opposite of Heaven.
+
+ [A] See the analysis of the moral system of Dante, respecting
+ punishment, given in 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIII.
+
+86. I think your trade parliament will have to put an end to this kind
+of business somehow! But it cannot be done by laws merely, where the
+interests and circumstances are so extended and complex. Nay, even as
+regards lower and more defined crimes, the assigned punishment is not
+to be thought of as a preventive means; but only as the seal of
+opinion set by society on the fact. Crime cannot be hindered by
+punishment; it will always find some shape and outlet, unpunishable or
+unclosed. Crime can only be truly hindered by letting no man grow up a
+criminal--by taking away the _will_ to commit sin; not by mere
+punishment of its commission. Crime, small and great, can only be
+truly stayed by education--not the education of the intellect only,
+which is, on some men, wasted, and for others mischievous; but
+education of the heart, which is alike good and necessary for all. So,
+on this matter, I will try in my next letter to say one or two things
+of which the silence has kept my own heart heavy this many a day.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI.
+
+OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IRRESPECTIVE OF CLASS-DISTINCTION. IT CONSISTS
+ESSENTIALLY IN GIVING HABITS OF MERCY, AND HABITS OF TRUTH.
+(GENTLENESS[A] AND JUSTICE.)
+
+
+ _March 30th, 1867._
+
+87. Thank you for sending me the pamphlet containing the account of
+the meeting of clergy and workmen, and of the reasonings which there
+took place. I cannot promise you that I shall read much of them, for
+the question to my mind most requiring discussion and explanation is
+not, why workmen don't go to church, but--why other people do.
+However, this I know, that if among our many spiritual teachers, there
+are indeed any who heartily and literally believe that the wisdom they
+have to teach "is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou
+canst desire are not to be compared unto her," and if, so believing,
+they will further dare to affront their congregations by the
+assertion; and plainly tell them they are not to hunt for rubies or
+gold any more, at their peril, till they have gained that which cannot
+be gotten for gold, nor silver weighed for the price thereof,--such
+believers, so preaching, and refusing to preach otherwise till they
+are in that attended to, will never want congregations, both of
+working men, and every other kind of men.
+
+ [A] "Mercy," in its full sense, means delight in perceiving
+ nobleness, or in doing kindness. Compare § 50.
+
+88. Did you ever hear of anything else so ill-named as the phantom
+called the "Philosopher's Stone"? A talisman that shall turn base
+metal into precious metal, nature acknowledges not; nor would any but
+fools seek after it. But a talisman to turn base souls into noble
+souls, nature has given us! and that is a "Philosopher's Stone"
+indeed, but it is a stone which the builders refuse.
+
+89. If there were two valleys in California or Australia, with two
+different kinds of gravel in the bottom of them; and in the one stream
+bed you could dig up, occasionally and by good fortune, nuggets of
+gold; and in the other stream bed, certainly and without hazard, you
+could dig up little caskets, containing talismans which gave length of
+days and peace; and alabaster vases of precious balms, which were
+better than the Arabian Dervish's ointment, and made not only the eyes
+to see, but the mind to know, whatever it would--I wonder in which of
+the stream beds there would be most diggers?
+
+90. "Time is money"--so say your practised merchants and economists.
+None of them, however, I fancy, as they draw towards death, find that
+the reverse is true, and that "money is time"? Perhaps it might be
+better for them, in the end, if they did not turn so much of their
+time into money, lest, perchance, they also turn Eternity into it!
+There are other things, however, which in the same sense are money, or
+can be changed into it, as well as time. Health is money, wit is
+money, knowledge is money; and all your health, and wit, and knowledge
+may be changed for gold; and the happy goal so reached, of a sick,
+insane, and blind, auriferous old age; but the gold cannot be changed
+in its turn back into health and wit.
+
+91. "Time is money;" the words tingle in my ears so that I can't go on
+writing. Is it nothing better, then? If we could thoroughly understand
+that time was--_itself_,--would it not be more to the purpose? A thing
+of which loss or gain was absolute loss, and perfect gain. And that it
+was expedient also to buy health and knowledge with money, if so
+purchasable; but not to buy money with _them_?
+
+And purchasable they are at the beginning of life, though not at its
+close. Purchasable, always, for others, if not for ourselves. You can
+buy, and cheaply, life, endless life, according to your Christian's
+creed--(there's a bargain for you!) but--long years of knowledge, and
+peace, and power, and happiness of love--these assuredly and
+irrespectively of any creed or question,--for all those desolate and
+haggard children about your streets.
+
+92. "That is not political economy, however." Pardon me; the
+all-comfortable saying, "What he layeth out, it shall be paid him
+again," is quite literally true in matters of education; no money seed
+can be sown with so sure and large return at harvest-time as that;
+only of this money-seed, more than of flesh-seed, it is utterly true,
+"That which thou sowest is not quickened except it _die_." You must
+forget your money, and every other material interest, and educate for
+education's sake only! or the very good you try to bestow will become
+venomous, and that and your money will be lost together.
+
+93. And this has been the real cause of failure in our efforts for
+education hitherto--whether from above or below. There is no honest
+desire for the thing itself. The cry for it among the lower orders is
+because they think that, when once they have got it, they must become
+upper orders. There is a strange notion in the mob's mind now-a-days
+(including all our popular economists and educators, as we most justly
+may, under that brief term "mob"), that _everybody_ can be uppermost;
+or at least, that a state of general scramble, in which everybody in
+his turn should come to the top, is a proper Utopian constitution; and
+that, once give every lad a good education, and he cannot but come to
+ride in his carriage (the methods of supply of coachmen and footmen
+not being contemplated). And very sternly I say to you--and say from
+sure knowledge--that a man had better not know how to read and write,
+than receive education on such terms.
+
+94. The first condition under which it can be given usefully is, that
+it should be clearly understood to be no means of getting on in the
+world, but a means of staying pleasantly in your place there. And the
+first elements of State education should be calculated equally for the
+advantage of every order of person composing the State. From the
+lowest to the highest class, every child born in this island should be
+required by law to receive these general elements of human discipline,
+and to be baptized--not with a drop of water on its forehead--but in
+the cloud and sea of heavenly wisdom and of earthly power.
+
+And the elements of this general State education should be briefly
+these:
+
+95. First--The body must be made as beautiful and perfect in its youth
+as it can be, wholly irrespective of ulterior purpose. If you mean
+afterwards to set the creature to business which will degrade its body
+and shorten its life, first, I should say, simply,--you had better let
+such business alone;--but if you must have it done, somehow, yet let
+the living creature, whom you mean to kill, get the full strength of
+its body first, and taste the joy, and bear the beauty of youth. After
+that, poison it, if you will. Economically, the arrangement is a wiser
+one, for it will take longer in the killing than if you began with it
+younger; and you will get an excess of work out of it which will more
+than pay for its training.
+
+Therefore, first teach--as I have said in the preface to 'Unto this
+Last'--"The Laws of Health, and exercises enjoined by them;" and, to
+this end, your schools must be in fresh country, and amidst fresh air,
+and have great extents of land attached to them in permanent estate.
+Riding, running, all the honest, personal exercises of offense and
+defense, and music, should be the primal heads of this bodily
+education.
+
+96. Next to these bodily accomplishments, the two great mental graces
+should be taught, Reverence and Compassion: not that these are in a
+literal sense to be "taught," for they are innate in every well-born
+human creature, but they have to be developed exactly as the strength
+of the body must be, by deliberate and constant exercise. I never
+understood why Goethe (in the plan of education in 'Wilhelm Meister')
+says that reverence is not innate, but must be taught from without; it
+seems to me so fixedly a function of the human spirit, that if men can
+get nothing else to reverence they will worship a fool, or a stone, or
+a vegetable.[A] But to teach reverence rightly is to attach it to the
+right persons and things; first, by setting over your youth masters
+whom they cannot but love and respect; next, by gathering for them,
+out of past history, whatever has been most worthy in human deeds and
+human passion; and leading them continually to dwell upon such
+instances, making this the principal element of emotional excitement
+to them; and, lastly, by letting them justly feel, as far as may be,
+the smallness of their own powers and knowledge, as compared with the
+attainments of others.
+
+ [A] By steady preaching against it, one may quench reverence,
+ and bring insolence to its height; but the instinct cannot be
+ wholly uprooted.
+
+97. Compassion, on the other hand, is to be taught chiefly by making
+it a point of honor, collaterally with courage, and in the same rank
+(as indeed the complement and evidence of courage), so that, in the
+code of unwritten school law, it shall be held as shameful to have
+done a cruel thing as a cowardly one. All infliction of pain on weaker
+creatures is to be stigmatized as unmanly crime; and every possible
+opportunity taken to exercise the youths in offices of some practical
+help, and to acquaint them with the realities of the distress which,
+in the joyfulness of entering into life, it is so difficult, for those
+who have not seen home suffering, to conceive.
+
+98. Reverence, then, and compassion, we are to teach primarily, and
+with these, as the bond and guardian of them, truth of spirit and
+word, of thought and sight. Truth, earnest and passionate, sought for
+like a treasure, and kept like a crown.
+
+This teaching of truth as a habit will be the chief work the master
+has to do; and it will enter into all parts of education. First, you
+must accustom the children to close accuracy of statement; this both
+as a principle of honor, and as an accomplishment of language, making
+them try always who shall speak truest, both as regards the fact he
+has to relate or express (not concealing or exaggerating), and as
+regards the precision of the words he expresses it in, thus making
+truth (which, indeed, it is) the test of perfect language, and giving
+the intensity of a moral purpose to the study and art of words: then
+carrying this accuracy into all habits of thought and observation
+also, so as always to _think_ of things as they truly are, and to see
+them as they truly are, as far as in us rests. And it does rest much
+in our power, for all false thoughts and seeings come mainly of our
+thinking of what we have no business with, and looking for things we
+want to see, instead of things that ought to be seen.
+
+99. "Do not talk but of what you know; do not think but of what you
+have materials to think justly upon; and do not look for things only
+that you like, when there are others to be seen"--this is the lesson
+to be taught to our youth, and inbred in them; and that mainly by our
+own example and continence. Never teach a child anything of which you
+are not yourself sure; and, above all, if you feel anxious to force
+anything into its mind in tender years, that the virtue of youth and
+early association may fasten it there, be sure it is no lie which you
+thus sanctify. There is always more to be taught of absolute,
+incontrovertible knowledge, open to its capacity, than any child can
+learn; there is no need to teach it anything doubtful. Better that it
+should be ignorant of a thousand truths, than have consecrated in its
+heart a single lie.
+
+100. And for this, as well as for many other reasons, the principal
+subjects of education, after history, ought to be natural science and
+mathematics; but with respect to these studies, your schools will
+require to be divided into three groups: one for children who will
+probably have to live in cities, one for those who will live in the
+country, and one for those who will live at sea; the schools for these
+last, of course, being always placed on the coast. And for children
+whose life is to be in cities, the subjects of study should be, as
+far as their disposition will allow of it, mathematics and the arts;
+for children who are to live in the country, natural history of birds,
+insects, and plants, together with agriculture taught practically; and
+for children who are to be seamen, physical geography, astronomy, and
+the natural history of sea-fish and sea-birds.
+
+101. This, then, being the general course and material of education
+for all children, observe farther, that in the preface to 'Unto this
+Last' I said that every child, besides passing through this course,
+was at school to learn "the calling by which it was to live." And it
+may perhaps appear to you that after, or even in the early stages of
+education such as this above described, there are many callings which,
+however much called to them, the children might not willingly
+determine to learn or live by. "Probably," you may say, "after they
+have learned to ride, and fence, and sing, and know birds and flowers,
+it will be little to their liking to make themselves into tailors,
+carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, and the like." And I cannot but
+agree with you as to the exceeding probability of some such reluctance
+on their part, which will be a very awkward state of things indeed,
+(since we can by no means get on without tailoring and shoemaking,)
+and one to be meditated upon very seriously in next letter.
+
+102. P.S.--Thank you for sending me your friend's letter about Gustave
+Doré; he is wrong, however, in thinking there is any good in those
+illustrations of 'Elaine.' I had intended to speak of them afterwards,
+for it is to my mind quite as significant--almost as awful--a sign of
+what is going on in the midst of us, that our great English poet
+should have suffered his work to be thus contaminated, as that the
+lower Evangelicals, never notable for sense in the arts, should have
+got their Bibles dishonored. Those 'Elaine' illustrations are just as
+impure as anything else that Doré has done; but they are also vapid,
+and without any one merit whatever in point of art. The illustrations
+to the 'Contes Drôlatiques' are full of power and invention; but those
+to 'Elaine' are merely and simply stupid; theatrical bêtises, with
+the taint of the charnel-house on them besides.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII.
+
+THE RELATIONS OF EDUCATION TO POSITION IN LIFE.
+
+
+ _April 3, 1867._
+
+103. I am not quite sure that you will feel the awkwardness of the
+dilemma I got into at the end of last letter, as much as I do myself.
+You working men have been crowing and peacocking at such a rate
+lately; and setting yourselves forth so confidently for the cream of
+society, and the top of the world, that perhaps you will not
+anticipate any of the difficulties which suggest themselves to a
+thoroughbred Tory and Conservative, like me. Perhaps you will expect a
+youth properly educated--a good rider--musician--and well-grounded
+scholar in natural philosophy, to think it a step of promotion when he
+has to go and be made a tailor of, or a coalheaver? If you do, I
+should very willingly admit that you might be right, and go on to the
+farther development of my notions without pausing at this
+stumbling-block, were it not that, unluckily, all the wisest men whose
+sayings I ever heard or read, agree in expressing (one way or another)
+just such contempt for those useful occupations, as I dread on the
+part of my foolishly refined scholars. Shakespeare and Chaucer,--Dante
+and Virgil,--Horace and Pindar,--Homer, Æschylus, and Plato,--all the
+men of any age or country who seem to have had Heaven's music on their
+lips, agree in their scorn of mechanic life. And I imagine that the
+feeling of prudent Englishmen, and sensible as well as sensitive
+Englishwomen, on reading my last letter, would mostly be--"Is the man
+mad, or laughing at us, to propose educating the working classes this
+way? He could not, if his wild scheme were possible, find a better
+method of making them acutely wretched."
+
+104. It may be so, my sensible and polite friends; and I am heartily
+willing, as well as curious, to hear you develop your own scheme of
+operative education, so only that it be universal, orderly, and
+careful. I do not say that I shall be prepared to advocate my
+athletics and philosophies instead. Only, observe what you admit, or
+imply, in bringing forward your possibly wiser system. You imply that
+a certain portion of mankind must be employed in degrading work; and
+that, to fit them for this work, it is necessary to limit their
+knowledge, their active powers, and their enjoyments, from childhood
+upwards, so that they may not be able to conceive of any state better
+than the one they were born in, nor possess any knowledge or
+acquirements inconsistent with the coarseness, or disturbing the
+monotony, of their vulgar occupation. And by their labor in this
+contracted state of mind, we superior beings are to be maintained; and
+always to be curtseyed to by the properly ignorant little girls, and
+capped by the properly ignorant little boys, whenever we pass by.
+
+105. Mind, I do not say that this is _not_ the right state of things.
+Only, if it be, you need not be so over-particular about the
+slave-trade, it seems to me. What is the use of arguing so
+pertinaciously that a black's skull will hold as much as a white's,
+when you are declaring in the same breath that a white's skull must
+not hold as much as it can, or it will be the worse for him? It does
+not appear to me at all a profound state of slavery to be whipped into
+doing a piece of low work that I don't like; but it is a very profound
+state of slavery to be kept, myself, low in the forehead, that I may
+not dislike low work.
+
+106. You see, my friend, the dilemma is really an awkward one,
+whichever way you look at it. But, what is still worse, I am not
+puzzled only, at this part of my scheme, about the boys I shall have
+to make _workmen_ of; I am just as much puzzled about the boys I
+shall have to make _nothing_ of! Grant, that by hook or crook, by
+reason or rattan, I persuade a certain number of the roughest ones
+into some serviceable business, and get coats and shoes made for the
+rest,--what is the business of "the rest" to be? Naturally, according
+to the existing state of things, one supposes they are to belong to
+some of the gentlemanly professions; to be soldiers, lawyers, doctors,
+or clergymen. But alas, I shall not want any soldiers of special skill
+or pugnacity. _All_ my boys will be soldiers. So far from wanting any
+lawyers, of the kind that live by talking, I shall have the strongest
+possible objection to their appearance in the country. For doctors, I
+shall always entertain a profound respect; but when I get my athletic
+education fairly established, of what help to them will my respect be?
+They will all starve! And for clergymen, it is true, I shall have a
+large number of episcopates--one over every hundred families--(and
+many positions of civil authority also, for civil officers, above them
+and below), but all these places will involve much hard work, and be
+anything but covetable; while, of clergymen's usual work, admonition,
+theological demonstration, and the like, I shall want very little done
+indeed, and that little done for nothing! for I will allow no man to
+admonish anybody, until he has previously earned his own dinner by
+more productive work than admonition.
+
+Well, I wish, my friend, you would write me a word or two in answer to
+this, telling me your own ideas as to the proper issue out of these
+difficulties. I should like to know what you think, and what you
+suppose others will think, before I tell you my own notions about the
+matter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII.
+
+THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF SERVILE EMPLOYMENTS. THE POSSIBLE PRACTICE AND
+EXHIBITION OF SINCERE HUMILITY BY RELIGIOUS PERSONS.
+
+
+ _April 7, 1867._
+
+107. I have been waiting these three days to know what you would say
+to my last questions; and now you send me two pamphlets of Combe's to
+read! I never read anything in spring-time (except the Ai, Ai, on the
+"sanguine flower inscribed with woe"); and, besides, if, as I gather
+from your letter, Combe thinks that among well-educated boys there
+would be a percentage constitutionally inclined to be cobblers, or
+looking forward with unction to establishment in the oil and tallow
+line, or fretting themselves for a flunkey's uniform, nothing that he
+could say would make me agree with him. I know, as well as he does,
+the unconquerable differences in the clay of the human creature: and I
+know that, in the outset, whatever system of education you adopted, a
+large number of children could be made nothing of, and would
+necessarily fall out of the ranks, and supply candidates enough for
+degradation to common mechanical business: but this enormous
+difference in bodily and mental capacity has been mainly brought about
+by difference in occupation, and by direct maltreatment; and in a few
+generations, if the poor were cared for, their marriages looked after,
+and sanitary law enforced, a beautiful type of face and form, and a
+high intelligence, would become all but universal, in a climate like
+this of England. Even as it is, the marvel is always to me, how the
+race resists, at least in its childhood, influences of ill-regulated
+birth, poisoned food, poisoned air, and soul neglect. I often see
+faces of children, as I walk through the black district of St. Giles's
+(lying, as it does, just between my own house and the British Museum),
+which, through all their pale and corrupt misery, recall the old "Non
+Angli," and recall it, not by their beauty, but by their sweetness of
+expression, even though signed already with trace and cloud of the
+coming life,--a life so bitter that it would make the curse of the
+137th Psalm true upon our modern Babylon, though we were to read it
+thus, "Happy shall _thy children_ be, if one taketh and dasheth them
+against the stones."
+
+108. Yes, very solemnly I repeat to you that in those worst treated
+children of the English race, I yet see the making of gentlemen and
+gentlewomen--not the making of dog-stealers and gin-drinkers, such as
+their parents were; and the child of the average English tradesman or
+peasant, even at this day, well schooled, will show no innate
+disposition such as must fetter him forever to the clod or the
+counter. You say that many a boy runs away, or would run away if he
+could, from good positions to go to sea. Of course he does. I never
+said I should have any difficulty in finding sailors, but I shall in
+finding fishmongers. I am at no loss for gardeners either, but what
+am I to do for greengrocers?
+
+109. The fact is, a great number of quite necessary employments are,
+in the accuratest sense, "Servile;" that is, they sink a man to the
+condition of a serf, or unthinking worker, the proper state of an
+animal, but more or less unworthy of men; nay, unholy in some sense,
+so that a day is made "holy" by the fact of its being commanded, "Thou
+shalt do no _servile_ work therein." And yet, if undertaken in a
+certain spirit, such work might be the holiest of all. If there were
+but a thread or two of sound fiber here and there left in our modern
+religion, so that the stuff of it would bear a real strain, one might
+address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists
+somewhat after this fashion:--"Good friends, these differences of
+opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity,
+and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning
+from you what, perhaps, we ought. But, as we read your Book, we, for
+our part, gather from it that you might, without danger to your own
+souls, set an undivided example to us, for the benefit of ours. You,
+both of you, as far as we understand, agree in the necessity of
+humility to the perfection of your character. We often hear you, of
+Calvinistic persuasion, speaking of yourselves as 'sinful dust and
+ashes,'--would it then be inconsistent with your feelings to make
+yourselves into 'serviceable' dust and ashes? We observe that of late
+many of our roads have been hardened and mended with cinders; now, if,
+in a higher sense, you could allow us to mend the roads of the world
+with _you_ a little, it would be a great proof to us of your
+sincerity. Suppose, only for a little while, in the present difficulty
+and distress, you were to make it a test of conversion that a man
+should regularly give Zaccheus's portion, half his goods, to the
+poor, and at once adopt some disagreeable and despised, but thoroughly
+useful, trade? You cannot think that this would finally be to your
+disadvantage; you doubtless believe the texts, 'He that giveth to the
+poor lendeth to the Lord,' and 'He that would be chief among you, let
+him be your servant.' The more you parted with, and the lower you
+stooped, the greater would be your final reward, and final exaltation.
+You profess to despise human learning and worldly riches; leave both
+of these to _us_; undertake for us the illiterate and ill-paid
+employments which must deprive you of the privileges of society and
+the pleasures of luxury. You cannot possibly preach your faith so
+forcibly to the world by any quantity of the finest words, as by a few
+such simple and painful acts; and over your counters, in honest retail
+business, you might preach a gospel that would sound in more ears than
+any that was ever proclaimed over pulpit cushions or tabernacle rails.
+And, whatever may be your gifts of utterance, you cannot but feel
+(studying St. Paul's Epistles as carefully as you do) that you might
+more easily and modestly emulate the practical teaching of the silent
+Apostle of the Gentiles than the speech or writing of his companion.
+Amidst the present discomforts of your brethren you may surely, with
+greater prospect of good to them, seek the title of Sons of
+Consolation, than of Sons of Thunder, and be satisfied with Barnabas's
+confession of faith, (if you can reach no farther,) who, 'having land,
+sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet.'
+
+110. "To you, on the other hand, gentlemen of the embroidered robe,
+who neither despise learning nor the arts, we know that sacrifices
+such as these would be truly painful, and might at first appear
+inexpedient. But the doctrine of self-mortification is not a new one
+to you; and we should be sorry to think--we would not, indeed, for a
+moment dishonor you by thinking--that these melodious chants, and
+prismatic brightnesses of vitreous pictures, and floral graces of
+deep-wrought stone, were in any wise intended for your own poor
+pleasures, whatever profane attraction they may exercise on more
+fleshly-minded persons. And as you have certainly received no definite
+order for the painting, carving, or lighting up of churches, while the
+temple of the body of so many poor living Christians is so pale, so
+mis-shapen, and so ill-lighted; but have, on the contrary, received
+very definite orders for the feeding and clothing of such sad
+humanity, we may surely ask you, not unreasonably, to humiliate
+yourselves in the most complete way--not with a voluntary, but a
+sternly _in_voluntary humility--not with a show of wisdom in
+will-worship, but with practical wisdom, in all honor, to the
+satisfying of the flesh; and to associate yourselves in monasteries
+and convents for the better practice of useful and humble trades. Do
+not burn any more candles, but mould some; do not paint any more
+windows, but mend a few where the wind comes in, in winter time, with
+substantial clear glass and putty. Do not vault any more high roofs,
+but thatch some low ones; and embroider rather on backs which are
+turned to the cold, than only on those which are turned to
+congregations. And you will have your reward afterwards, and attain,
+with all your flocks thus tended, to a place where you may have as
+much gold, and painted glass, and singing, as you like."
+
+Thus much, it seems to me, one might say with some hope of acceptance,
+to any very earnest member of either of our two great religious
+parties, if, as I say, their faith could stand a strain. I have not,
+however, based any of my imaginary political arrangements on the
+probability of its doing so; and I trust only to such general good
+nature and willingness to help each other, as I presume may be found
+among men of the world; to whom I should have to make quite another
+sort of speech, which I will endeavor to set down the heads of, for
+you, in next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX.
+
+THE GENERAL PRESSURE OF EXCESSIVE AND IMPROPER WORK, IN ENGLISH LIFE.
+
+
+ _April 10, 1867._
+
+111. I cannot go on to-day with the part of my subject I had proposed,
+for I was disturbed by receiving a letter last night, which I herewith
+enclose to you, and of which I wish you to print, here following, the
+parts I have not underlined--
+
+ 1, Phene Street, Chelsea, April 8, 1867.
+
+ MY DEAR R----,--
+
+ It is long since you have heard of me, and now I ask your
+ patience with me for a little. I have but just returned from
+ the funeral of my dear, dear friend ----, the first artist
+ friend I made in London--a loved and prized one. For years
+ past he had lived in the very humblest way, fighting his
+ battle of life against mean appreciation of his talents, the
+ wants of a rising family, and frequent attacks of illness,
+ crippling him for months at a time, the wolf at the door
+ meanwhile.
+
+ But about two years since his prospects brightened * * * and
+ he had but a few weeks since ventured on removal to a larger
+ house. His eldest boy of seventeen years, a very intelligent
+ youth, so strongly desired to be a civil engineer that Mr.
+ ----, not being able to pay the large premium required for
+ his apprenticeship, had been made very glad by the consent
+ of Mr. Penn, of Millwall, to receive him without a premium
+ after the boy should have spent some time at King's College
+ in the study of mechanics. The rest is a sad story. About a
+ fortnight ago Mr. ---- was taken ill, and died last week,
+ the doctors say, of sheer physical exhaustion, not
+ thirty-nine years old, leaving eight young children, and his
+ poor widow expecting her confinement, and so weak and ill as
+ to be incapable of effort. This youth is the eldest, and the
+ other children range downwards to a babe of eighteen months.
+ There is not one who knew him, I believe, that will not give
+ cheerfully, to their ability, for his widow and children;
+ but such aid will go but a little way in this painful case;
+ and it would be a real boon to this poor widow if some of
+ her children could be got into an Orphan Asylum. * * *
+
+ If you are able to do anything I would send particulars of
+ the age and sex of the children.
+
+ I remain, dear Sir, ever obediently yours,
+ FRED. J. SHIELDS.
+
+ P.S.--I ought to say that poor ---- has been quite unable to
+ save, with his large family; and that they would be utterly
+ destitute now, but for the kindness of some with whom he was
+ professionally connected.
+
+112. Now this case, of which you see the entire authenticity, is, out
+of the many of which I hear continually, a _notably_ sad one only in
+so far as the artist in question has died of distress while he was
+catering for the public amusement. Hardly a week now passes without
+some such misery coming to my knowledge; and the quantity of pain, and
+anxiety of daily effort, through the best part of life, ending all at
+last in utter grief, which the lower middle classes in England are now
+suffering, is so great that I feel constantly as if I were living in
+one great churchyard, with people all round me clinging feebly to the
+edges of the open graves, and calling for help, as they fall back into
+them, out of sight.
+
+113. Now I want you to observe here, in a definite case, the working
+of your beautiful modern political economy of "supply and demand."
+Here is a man who could have "supplied" you with good and entertaining
+art,--say for fifty good years,--if you had paid him enough for his
+day's work to find him and his children peacefully in bread. But you
+like having your prints as cheap as possible--you triumph in the
+little that your laugh costs--you take all you can get from the man,
+give the least you can give to him,--and you accordingly kill him at
+thirty-nine; and thereafter have his children to take care of, or to
+kill also, whichever you choose; but, now, observe, you must take care
+of _them_ for nothing, or not at all; and what you might have had good
+value for, if you had given it when it would have cheered the father's
+heart, you now can have no return for at all, to yourselves; and what
+you give to the orphans, if it does not degrade them, at least
+afflicts, coming, not through their father's hand, its honest
+earnings, but from strangers.
+
+Observe, farther, whatever help the orphans may receive, will not be
+from the public at all. It will not be from those who profited by
+their father's labors; it will be chiefly from his fellow-laborers; or
+from persons whose money would have been beneficially spent in other
+directions, from whence it is drawn away to this need, which ought
+never to have occurred,--while those who waste their money without
+doing any service to the public will never contribute one farthing to
+this distress.
+
+114. Now it is this double fault in the help--that it comes too late,
+and that the burden of it falls wholly on those who ought least to be
+charged with it--which would be corrected by that institution of
+overseers of which I spoke to you in the twelfth of these letters,
+saying, you remember, that they were to have farther legal powers,
+which I did not then specify, but which would belong to them chiefly
+in the capacity of public almoners, or help-givers, aided by their
+deacons, the reception of such help, in time of true need, being not
+held disgraceful, but honorable; since the fact of its reception would
+be so entirely public that no impostor or idle person could ever
+obtain it surreptitiously.
+
+115. (11th April.) I was interrupted yesterday, and I am glad of it,
+for here happens just an instance of the way in which the unjust
+distribution of the burden of charity is reflected on general
+interests; I cannot help what taint of ungracefulness you or other
+readers of these letters may feel that I incur, in speaking, in this
+instance, of myself. If I could speak with the same accurate knowledge
+of any one else, most gladly I would; but I also think it right that,
+whether people accuse me of boasting or not, they should know that I
+practise what I preach. I had not intended to say what I now shall,
+but the coming of this letter last night just turns the balance of the
+decision with me. I enclose it with the other; you see it is one from
+my bookseller, Mr. Quaritch, offering me Fischer's work on the _Flora
+of Java_, and Latour's on _Indian Orchidaceæ_, bound together, for
+twenty guineas. Now, I am writing a book on botany just now, for young
+people, chiefly on wild flowers, and I want these two books very much;
+but I simply cannot afford to buy them, because I sent my last spare
+twenty guineas to Mr. Shields yesterday for this widow. And though you
+may think it not the affair of the public that I have not this book on
+Indian flowers, it is their affair finally, that what I write for them
+should be founded on as broad knowledge as possible; whatever value my
+own book may or may not have, it will just be in a given degree worth
+_less_ to them, because of my want of this knowledge.
+
+116. So again--for having begun to speak of myself I will do so yet
+more frankly--I suppose that when people see my name down for a
+hundred pounds to the Cruikshank Memorial, and for another hundred to
+the Eyre Defense Fund, they think only that I have more money than I
+know what to do with. Well, the giving of those subscriptions simply
+decides the question whether or no I shall be able to afford a journey
+to Switzerland this year, in the negative; and I wanted to go, not
+only for health's sake, but to examine the junctions of the molasse
+sandstones and nagelfluh with the Alpine limestone, in order to
+complete some notes I meant to publish next spring on the geology of
+the great northern Swiss valley; notes which must now lie by me at
+least for another year; and I believe this delay (though I say it)
+will be really something of a loss to the traveling public, for the
+little essay was intended to explain to them, in a familiar way, the
+real wonderfulness of their favorite mountain, the Righi; and to give
+them some amusement in trying to find out where the many-colored
+pebbles of it had come from. But it is more important that I should,
+with some stoutness, assert my respect for the genius and earnest
+patriotism of Cruikshank, and my much more than disrespect for the
+Jamaica Committee, than that I should see the Alps this year, or get
+my essay finished next spring; but I tell you the fact, because I want
+you to feel how, in thus leaving their men of worth to be assisted or
+defended only by those who deeply care for them, the public more or
+less cripple, to their own ultimate disadvantage, just the people
+who could serve them in other ways; while the speculators and
+money-seekers, who are only making their profit out of the said
+public, of course take no part in the help of anybody. And even if
+the willing bearers could sustain the burden anywise adequately, none
+of us would complain; but I am certain there is no man, whatever
+his fortune, who is now engaged in any earnest offices of kindness
+to these sufferers, especially of the middle class, among his
+acquaintance, who will not bear me witness that for one we can
+relieve, we must leave three to perish. I have left three, myself, in
+the first three months of this year. One was the artist Paul Gray, for
+whom an appeal was made to me for funds to assist him in going abroad
+out of the bitter English winter. I had not the means by me, and he
+died a week afterwards. Another case was that of a widow whose husband
+had committed suicide, for whom application was made to me at the same
+time; and the third was a personal friend, to whom I refused a sum
+which he said would have saved him from bankruptcy. I believe six
+times as much would not have saved him; however, I refused, and he is
+ruined.
+
+117. And observe, also, it is not the mere crippling of my means that
+I regret. It is the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time. The
+knowledge of all this distress, even when I can assist it,--much more
+when I cannot,--and the various thoughts of what I can and cannot, or
+ought and ought not, to do, are a far greater burden to me than the
+mere loss of the money. It is peremptorily not my business--it is not
+my gift, bodily or mentally, to look after other people's sorrow. I
+have enough of my own; and even if I had not, the sight of pain is not
+good for me. I don't want to be a bishop. In a most literal and
+sincere sense, "_nolo episcopari_." I don't want to be an almoner, nor
+a counselor, nor a Member of Parliament, nor a voter for Members of
+Parliament. (What would Mr. Holyoake say to me if he knew that I have
+never voted for anybody in my life, and never mean to do so!) I am
+essentially a painter and a leaf dissector; and my powers of thought
+are all purely mathematical, seizing ultimate principles only--never
+accidents; a line is always, to me, length without breadth; it is not
+a cable or a crowbar; and though I can almost infallibly reason out
+the final law of anything, if within reach of my industry, I neither
+care for, nor can trace, the minor exigencies of its daily appliance.
+So, in every way, I like a quiet life; and I don't like seeing people
+cry, or die; and should rejoice, more than I can tell you, in giving
+up the full half of my fortune for the poor, provided I knew that the
+public would make Lord Overstone also give the half of his, and other
+people who were independent give the half of theirs; and then set men
+who were really fit for such office to administer the fund, and answer
+to us for nobody's perishing innocently; and so leave us all to do
+what we chose with the rest, and with our days, in peace.
+
+Thus far of the public's fault in the matter. Next, I have a word or
+two to say of the sufferers' own fault--for much as I pity them, I
+conceive that none of them _do_ perish altogether innocently. But this
+must be for next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XX.
+
+OF IMPROVIDENCE IN MARRIAGE IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES; AND OF THE
+ADVISABLE RESTRICTIONS OF IT.
+
+
+ _April 12, 1867._
+
+118. It is quite as well, whatever irregularity it may introduce in
+the arrangement of the general subject, that yonder sad letter warped
+me away from the broad inquiry, to this speciality, respecting the
+present distress of the middle classes. For the immediate cause of
+that distress, in their own imprudence, of which I have to speak to
+you to-day, is only to be finally vanquished by strict laws, which,
+though they have been many a year in my mind, I was glad to have a
+quiet hour of sunshine for the thinking over again, this morning.
+Sunshine which happily rose cloudless; and allowed me to meditate my
+tyrannies before breakfast, under the just opened blossoms of my
+orchard, and assisted by much melodious advice from the birds; who (my
+gardener having positive orders never to trouble any of them in
+anything, or object to their eating even my best peas if they like
+their flavor) rather now get _into_ my way, than out of it, when they
+see me about the walks; and take me into most of their counsels in
+nest-building.
+
+119. The letter from Mr. Shields, which interrupted us, reached me,
+as you see, on the evening of the 9th instant. On the morning of the
+10th, I received another, which I herewith forward to you, for
+verification. It is--characteristically enough--dateless, so you must
+take the time of its arrival on my word. And substituting M. N. for
+the name of the boy referred to, and withholding only the address and
+name of the writer, you see that it may be printed word for word--as
+follows:--
+
+ SIR,--
+
+ May I beg for the favor of your presentation to Christ's
+ Hospital for my youngest son, M. N.? I have nine children,
+ and no means to educate them. I ventured to address you,
+ believing that my husband's name is not unknown to you as
+ an artist.
+
+ Believe me to remain faithfully yours,
+ * * *
+
+120. Now this letter is only a typical example of the entire class of
+those which, being a governor of Christ's Hospital, I receive, in
+common with all the other governors, at the rate of about three a day,
+for a month or six weeks from the date of our names appearing in the
+printed list of the governors who have presentations for the current
+year. Having been a governor now some twenty-five years, I have
+documentary evidence enough to found some general statistics upon;
+from which there have resulted two impressions on my mind, which I
+wish here specially to note to you, and I do not doubt but that all
+the other governors, if you could ask them, would at once confirm what
+I say. My first impression is, a heavy and sorrowful sense of the
+general feebleness of intellect of that portion of the British public
+which stands in need of presentations to Christ's Hospital. This
+feebleness of intellect is mainly shown in the nearly total
+unconsciousness of the writers that anybody else may want a
+presentation, besides themselves. With the exception here and there
+of a soldier's or a sailor's widow, hardly one of them seems to have
+perceived the existence of any distress in the world but their own:
+none know what they are asking for, or imagine, unless as a remote
+contingency, the possibility of its having been promised at a prior
+date. The second most distinct impression on my mind, is that the
+portion of the British public which is in need of presentations to
+Christ's Hospital considers it a merit to have large families, with or
+without the means of supporting them!
+
+121. Now it happened also (and remember, all this is strictly true,
+nor in the slightest particular represented otherwise than as it
+chanced; though the said chance brought thus together exactly the
+evidence I wanted for my letter to you)--it happened, I say, that on
+this same morning of the 10th April, I became accidentally acquainted
+with a case of quite a different kind: that of a noble girl, who,
+engaged at sixteen, and having received several advantageous offers
+since, has remained for ten years faithful to her equally faithful
+lover; while, their circumstances rendering it, as they rightly
+considered, unjustifiable in them to think of marriage, each of them
+simply and happily, aided and cheered by the other's love, discharged
+the duties of their own separate positions in life.
+
+122. In the nature of things, instances of this kind of noble life
+remain more or less concealed, (while imprudence and error proclaim
+themselves by misfortune,) but they are assuredly not unfrequent in
+our English homes. Let us next observe the political and national
+result of these arrangements. You leave your marriages to be settled
+by "supply and demand," instead of wholesome law. And thus, among your
+youths and maidens, the improvident, incontinent, selfish, and foolish
+ones marry, whether you will or not; and beget families of children
+necessarily inheritors in a great degree of these parental
+dispositions; and for whom, supposing they had the best dispositions
+in the world, you have thus provided, by way of educators, the
+foolishest fathers and mothers you could find; (the only rational
+sentence in their letters, usually, is the invariable one, in which
+they declare themselves "incapable of providing for their children's
+education"). On the other hand, whosoever is wise, patient, unselfish,
+and pure among your youth, you keep maid or bachelor; wasting their
+best days of natural life in painful sacrifice, forbidding them their
+best help and best reward, and carefully excluding their prudence and
+tenderness from any offices of parental duty.
+
+Is not this a beatific and beautifully sagacious system for a
+Celestial Empire, such as that of these British Isles?
+
+123. I will not here enter into any statement of the physical laws
+which it is the province of our physicians to explain; and which are
+indeed at last so far beginning to be understood, that there is hope
+of the nation's giving some of the attention to the conditions
+affecting the race of man, which it has hitherto bestowed only on
+those which may better its races of cattle.
+
+It is enough, I think, to say here that the beginning of all sanitary
+and moral law is in the regulation of marriage, and that, ugly and
+fatal as is every form and agency of license, no licentiousness is so
+mortal as licentiousness in marriage.
+
+124. Briefly, then, and in main points, subject in minor ones to such
+modifications in detail as local circumstances and characters would
+render expedient, those following are laws such as a prudent nation
+would institute respecting its marriages. Permission to marry should
+be the reward held in sight of its youth during the entire latter part
+of the course of their education; and it should be granted as the
+national attestation that the first portion of their lives had been
+rightly fulfilled. It should not be attainable without earnest and
+consistent effort, though put within the reach of all who were willing
+to make such effort; and the granting of it should be a public
+testimony to the fact, that the youth or maid to whom it was given
+had lived, within their proper sphere, a modest and virtuous life, and
+had attained such skill in their proper handicraft, and in arts of
+household economy, as might give well-founded expectations of their
+being able honorably to maintain and teach their children.
+
+125. No girl should receive her permission to marry before her
+seventeenth birthday, nor any youth before his twenty-first; and it
+should be a point of somewhat distinguished honor with both sexes to
+gain their permission of marriage in the eighteenth and twenty-second
+years; and a recognized disgrace not to have gained it at least before
+the close of their twenty-first and twenty-fourth. I do not mean that
+they should in any wise hasten actual marriage; but only that they
+should hold it a point of honor to have the right to marry. In every
+year there should be two festivals, one on the first of May, and one
+at the feast of harvest home in each district, at which festivals
+their permissions to marry should be given publicly to the maidens and
+youths who had won them in that half-year; and they should be crowned,
+the maids by the old French title of Rosières, and the youths, perhaps
+by some name rightly derived from one supposed signification of the
+word "bachelor," "laurel fruit," and so led in joyful procession, with
+music and singing, through the city street or village lane, and the
+day ended with feasting of the poor.
+
+126. And every bachelor and rosière should be entitled to claim, if
+they needed it, according to their position in life, a fixed income
+from the State, for seven years from the day of their marriage, for
+the setting up of their homes; and, however rich they might be by
+inheritance, their income should not be permitted to exceed a given
+sum, proportioned to their rank, for the seven years following that in
+which they had obtained their permission to marry, but should
+accumulate in the trust of the State until that seventh year, in which
+they should be put (on certain conditions) finally in possession of
+their property; and the men, thus necessarily not before their
+twenty-eighth, nor usually later than their thirty-first year, become
+eligible to offices of State. So that the rich and poor should not be
+sharply separated in the beginning of the war of life; but the one
+supported against the first stress of it long enough to enable them,
+by proper forethought and economy, to secure their footing; and the
+other trained somewhat in the use of moderate means, before they were
+permitted to have the command of abundant ones. And of the sources
+from which these State incomes for the married poor should be
+supplied, or of the treatment of those of our youth whose conduct
+rendered it advisable to refuse them permission to marry, I defer what
+I have to say till we come to the general subjects of taxation and
+criminal discipline; leaving the proposals made in this letter to
+bear, for the present, whatever aspect of mere romance and
+unrealizable vision they probably may, and to most readers, such as
+they assuredly will. Nor shall I make the slightest effort to redeem
+them from these imputations; for though there is nothing in all their
+purport which would not be approved, as in the deepest sense
+"practical"--by the Spirit of Paradise--
+
+ "Which gives to all the self-same bent,
+ Whose lives are wise and innocent,"
+
+and though I know that national justice in conduct, and peace in
+heart, could by no other laws be so swiftly secured, I confess with
+much _dis_peace of heart, that both justice and happiness have at this
+day become, in England, "romantic impossibilities."
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI.
+
+OF THE DIGNITY OF THE FOUR FINE ARTS; AND OF THE PROPER SYSTEM OF
+RETAIL TRADE.
+
+
+ _April 15, 1867._
+
+127. I return now to the part of the subject at which I was
+interrupted--the inquiry as to the proper means of finding persons
+willing to maintain themselves and others by degrading occupations.
+
+That, on the whole, simply manual occupations _are_ degrading, I
+suppose I may assume you to admit; at all events, the fact is so,
+and I suppose few general readers will have any doubt of it.[A]
+
+ [A] Many of my working readers have disputed this statement
+ eagerly, feeling the good effect of work in themselves; but
+ observe, I only say, _simply_ or _totally_ manual work; and
+ that, alone, _is_ degrading, though often in measure,
+ refreshing, wholesome, and necessary. So it is highly
+ necessary and wholesome to eat sometimes; but degrading to
+ eat all day, as to labor with the hands all day. But it is
+ not degrading to think all day--if you can. A highly-bred
+ court lady, rightly interested in politics and literature,
+ is a much finer type of the human creature than a servant of
+ all work, however clever and honest.
+
+Granting this, it follows as a direct consequence that it is the duty
+of all persons in higher stations of life, by every means in their
+power to diminish their demand for work of such kind, _and to live
+with as little aid from the lower trades_, as they can possibly
+contrive.
+
+128. I suppose you see that this conclusion is not a little at
+variance with received notions on political economy? It is popularly
+supposed that it benefits a nation to invent a want. But the fact is,
+that the true benefit is in extinguishing a want--in living with as
+few wants as possible.
+
+I cannot tell you the contempt I feel for the common writers on
+political economy, in their stupefied missing of this first principle
+of all human economy--individual or political--to live, namely, with
+as few wants as possible, and to waste nothing of what is given you to
+supply them.
+
+129. This ought to be the first lesson of every rich man's political
+code. "Sir," his tutor should early say to him, "you are so placed in
+society,--it may be for your misfortune, it _must_ be for your
+trial--that you are likely to be maintained all your life by the labor
+of other men. You will have to make shoes for nobody, but some one
+will have to make a great many for you. You will have to dig ground
+for nobody, but some one will have to dig through every summer's hot
+day for you. You will build houses and make clothes for no one, but
+many a rough hand must knead clay, and many an elbow be crooked to the
+stitch, to keep that body of yours warm and fine. Now remember,
+whatever you and your work may be worth, the less your keep costs, the
+better. It does not cost money only. It costs degradation. You do not
+merely employ these people. You also tread upon them. It cannot be
+helped;--you have your place, and they have theirs; but see that you
+tread as lightly as possible, and on as few as possible. What food,
+and clothes, and lodging, you honestly need, for your health and
+peace, you may righteously take. See that you take the plainest you
+can serve yourself with--that you waste or wear nothing vainly--and
+that you employ no man in furnishing you with any useless luxury."
+
+130. That is the first lesson of Christian--or human--economy; and
+depend upon it, my friend, it is a sound one, and has every voice and
+vote of the spirits of Heaven and earth to back it, whatever views the
+Manchester men, or any other manner of men, may take respecting
+"demand and supply." Demand what you deserve, and you shall be
+supplied with it, for your good. Demand what you do _not_ deserve, and
+you shall be supplied with something which you have not demanded, and
+which Nature perceives that you deserve, quite to the contrary of your
+good. That is the law of your existence, and if you do not make it the
+law of your resolved acts, so much, precisely, the worse for you and
+all connected with you.
+
+131. Yet observe, though it is out of its proper place said here, this
+law forbids no luxury which men are not degraded in providing. You may
+have Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, if you like, or Benvenuto
+Cellini to make cups for you. But you must not employ a hundred divers
+to find beads to stitch over your sleeve. (Did you see the account of
+the sales of the Esterhazy jewels the other day?)
+
+And the degree in which you recognize the difference between these two
+kinds of services, is precisely what makes the difference between your
+being a civilized person or a barbarian. If you keep slaves to furnish
+forth your dress--to glut your stomach--sustain your indolence--or
+deck your pride, you are a barbarian. If you keep servants, properly
+cared for, to furnish you with what you verily want, and no more than
+that--you are a "civil" person--a person capable of the qualities of
+citizenship.[A]
+
+ [A] Compare 'The Crown of Wild Olive,' §§ 79, 118, and 122.
+
+132. Now, farther, observe that in a truly civilized and disciplined
+state, no man would be allowed to meddle with any material who did not
+know how to make the best of it. In other words, the arts of working
+in wood, clay, stone, and metal, would all be _fine_ arts (working in
+iron for machinery becoming an entirely distinct business). There
+would be no joiner's work, no smith's, no pottery nor stone-cutting,
+so debased in character as to be entirely unconnected with the finer
+branches of the same art; and to at least one of these finer branches
+(generally in metal-work) every painter and sculptor would be
+necessarily apprenticed during some years of his education. There
+would be room, in these four trades alone, for nearly every grade of
+practical intelligence and productive imagination.
+
+133. But it should not be artists alone who are exercised early in
+these crafts. It would be part of my scheme of physical education that
+every youth in the state--from the King's son downwards,--should learn
+to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand, so as to let him
+know what _touch_ meant; and what stout craftsmanship meant; and to
+inform him of many things besides, which no man can learn but by some
+severely accurate discipline in doing. Let him once learn to take a
+straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering,
+or lay a brick level in its mortar; and he has learned a multitude of
+other matters which no lips of man could ever teach him. He might
+choose his craft, but whatever it was, he should learn it to some
+sufficient degree of true dexterity: and the result would be, in after
+life, that among the middle classes a good deal of their house
+furniture would be made, and a good deal of rough work, more or less
+clumsily, but not ineffectively, got through, by the master himself
+and his sons, with much furtherance of their general health and peace
+of mind, and increase of innocent domestic pride and pleasure, and to
+the extinction of a great deal of vulgar upholstery and other mean
+handicraft.
+
+134. Farther. A great deal of the vulgarity, and nearly all the vice,
+of retail commerce, involving the degradation of persons occupied in
+it, depends simply on the fact that their minds are always occupied by
+the vital (or rather mortal) question of profits. I should at once put
+an end to this source of baseness by making all retail dealers merely
+salaried officers in the employ of the trade guilds; the stewards,
+that is to say, of the salable properties of those guilds, and
+purveyors of such and such articles to a given number of families. A
+perfectly well-educated person might, without the least degradation,
+hold such an office as this, however poorly paid; and it would be
+precisely the fact of his being well educated which would enable him
+to fulfil his duties to the public without the stimulus of direct
+profit. Of course the current objection to such a system would be that
+no man, for a regularly paid salary, would take pains to please his
+customers; and the answer to that objection is, that if you can train
+a man to so much unselfishness as to offer himself fearlessly to the
+chance of being shot, in the course of his daily duty, you can most
+assuredly, if you make it also a point of honor with him, train him to
+the amount of self-denial involved in looking you out with care such a
+piece of cheese or bacon as you have asked for.
+
+135. You see that I have already much diminished the number of
+employments involving degradation; and raised the character of many of
+those that are left. There remain to be considered the necessarily
+painful or mechanical works of mining, forging, and the like: the
+unclean, noisome, or paltry manufactures--the various kinds of
+transport--(by merchant shipping, etc.) and the conditions of menial
+service.
+
+It will facilitate the examination of these if we put them for the
+moment aside, and pass to the other division of our dilemma, the
+question, namely, what kind of lives our gentlemen and ladies are to
+live, for whom all this hard work is to be done.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII.
+
+OF THE NORMAL POSITION AND DUTIES OF THE UPPER CLASSES. GENERAL
+STATEMENT OF THE LAND QUESTION.
+
+
+ _April 17, 1867._
+
+136. In passing now to the statement of conditions affecting the
+interests of the upper classes, I would rather have addressed these
+closing letters to one of themselves than to you, for it is with their
+own faults and needs that each class is primarily concerned. As,
+however, unless I kept the letters private, this change of their
+address would be but a matter of courtesy and form, not of any
+true prudential use; and as besides I am now no more inclined to
+reticence--prudent or otherwise; but desire only to state the facts
+of our national economy as clearly and completely as may be, I pursue
+the subject without respect of persons.
+
+137. Before examining what the occupation and estate of the upper
+classes ought, as far as may reasonably be conjectured, finally to
+become, it will be well to set down in brief terms what they actually
+have been in past ages: for this, in many respects, they must also
+always be. The upper classes, broadly speaking, are originally
+composed of the best-bred (in the mere animal sense of the term), the
+most energetic, and most thoughtful, of the population, who either by
+strength of arm seize the land from the rest, and make slaves of them,
+or bring desert land into cultivation, over which they have therefore,
+within certain limits, true personal right; or, by industry,
+accumulate other property, or by choice devote themselves to
+intellectual pursuits, and, though poor, obtain an acknowledged
+superiority of position, shown by benefits conferred in discovery, or
+in teaching, or in gifts of art. This is all in the simple course of
+the law of nature; and the proper offices of the upper classes, thus
+distinguished from the rest, become, therefore, in the main
+threefold:--
+
+138. (A) Those who are strongest of arm have for their proper
+function the restraint and punishment of vice, and the general
+maintenance of law and order; releasing only from its original
+subjection to their power that which truly deserves to be emancipated.
+
+(B) Those who are superior by forethought and industry, have for their
+function to be the providences of the foolish, the weak, and the idle;
+and to establish such systems of trade and distribution of goods as
+shall preserve the lower orders from perishing by famine, or any other
+consequence of their carelessness or folly, and to bring them all,
+according to each man's capacity, at last into some harmonious
+industry.
+
+(C) The third class, of scholars and artists, of course, have for
+function the teaching and delighting of the inferior multitude.
+
+The office of the upper classes, then, as a body, is to keep order
+among their inferiors, and raise them always to the nearest level with
+themselves of which those inferiors are capable. So far as they are
+thus occupied, they are invariably loved and reverenced intensely by
+all beneath them, and reach, themselves, the highest types of human
+power and beauty.
+
+139. This, then, being the natural ordinance and function of
+aristocracy, its corruption, like that of all other beautiful things
+under the Devil's touch, is a very fearful one. Its corruption is,
+that those who ought to be the rulers and guides of the people,
+forsake their task of painful honorableness; seek their own pleasure
+and pre-eminence only; and use their power, subtlety, conceded
+influence, prestige of ancestry, and mechanical instrumentality of
+martial power, to make the lower orders toil for them, and feed and
+clothe them for nothing, and become in various ways their living
+property, goods, and chattels, even to the point of utter
+regardlessness of whatever misery these serfs may suffer through such
+insolent domination, or they themselves, their masters, commit of
+crime to enforce it.
+
+140. And this is especially likely to be the case when means of
+various and tempting pleasures are put within the reach of the upper
+classes by advanced conditions of national commerce and knowledge: and
+it is _certain_ to be the case as soon as position among those upper
+classes becomes any way purchasable with money, instead of being the
+assured measure of some kind of worth, (either strength of hand, or
+true wisdom of conduct, or imaginative gift). It has been becoming
+more and more the condition of the aristocracy of Europe, ever since
+the fifteenth century; and is gradually bringing about its ruin, and
+in that ruin, checked only by the power which here and there a good
+soldier or true statesman achieves over the putrid chaos of its vain
+policy, the ruin of all beneath it; which can be arrested only, either
+by the repentance of that old aristocracy, (hardly to be hoped,) or by
+the stern substitution of other aristocracy worthier than it.
+
+141. Corrupt as it may be, it and its laws together, I would at this
+moment, if I could, fasten every one of its institutions down with
+bands of iron, and trust for all progress and help against its tyranny
+simply to the patience and strength of private conduct. And if I had
+to choose, I would tenfold rather see the tyranny of old Austria
+triumphant in the old and new worlds, and trust to the chance (or
+rather the distant certainty) of some day seeing a true Emperor born
+to its throne, than, with every privilege of thought and act, run the
+most distant risk of seeing the thoughts of the people of Germany and
+England become like the thoughts of the people of America.
+
+My American friends, of whom one, Charles Eliot Norton, of Cambridge,
+is the dearest I have in the world, tell me I know nothing about
+America. It may be so, and they must do me the justice to observe that
+I, therefore, usually _say_ nothing about America. But this much I
+have said, because the Americans, as a nation, set their trust in
+liberty and in equality, of which I detest the one, and deny the
+possibility of the other; and because, also, as a nation, they are
+wholly undesirous of Rest, and incapable of it; irreverent of
+themselves, both in the present and in the future; discontented with
+what they are, yet having no ideal of anything which they desire to
+become.[A]
+
+ [A] Some following passages in this letter, containing
+ personal references which might, in permanence, have given
+ pain or offense, are now omitted--the substance of them being
+ also irrelevant to my main purpose. These few words about the
+ American war, with which they concluded, are, I think, worth
+ retaining:--"All methods of right government are to be
+ communicated to foreign nations by perfectness of example and
+ gentleness of patiently expanded power, not suddenly, nor at
+ the bayonet's point. And though it is the duty of every
+ nation to interfere, at bayonet point, if they have the
+ strength to do so, to save any oppressed multitude, or even
+ individual, from manifest violence, it is wholly unlawful to
+ interfere in such matter, except with sacredly pledged
+ limitation of the objects to be accomplished in the oppressed
+ person's favor, and with absolute refusal of all selfish
+ advantage and _increase of territory or of political power_
+ which might otherwise accrue from the victory."
+
+142. But, however corrupted, the aristocracy of any nation may thus be
+always divided into three great classes. First, the landed proprietors
+and soldiers, essentially one political body (for the possession of
+land can only be maintained by military power); secondly, the moneyed
+men and leaders of commerce; thirdly, the professional men and masters
+in science, art, and literature.
+
+And we were to consider the proper duties of all these, and the laws
+probably expedient respecting them. Whereupon, in the outset, we are
+at once brought face to face with the great land question.
+
+143. Great as it may be, it is wholly subordinate to those we have
+hitherto been considering. The laws you make regarding methods of
+labor, or to secure the genuineness of the things produced by it,
+affect the entire moral state of the nation, and all possibility of
+human happiness for them. The mode of distribution of the land only
+affects their numbers. By this or that law respecting land you decide
+whether the nation shall consist of fifty or of a hundred millions.
+But by this or that law respecting work, you decide whether the given
+number of millions shall be rogues, or honest men;--shall be wretches,
+or happy men. And the question of numbers is wholly immaterial,
+compared with that of character; or rather, its own materialness
+depends on the prior determination of character. Make your nation
+consist of knaves, and, as Emerson said long ago, it is but the case
+of any other vermin--"the more, the worse." Or, to put the matter in
+narrower limits, it is a matter of no final concern to any parent
+whether he shall have two children, or four; but matter of quite final
+concern whether those he has shall, or shall not, deserve to be
+hanged. The great difficulty in dealing with the land question at all
+arises from the false, though very natural, notion on the part of many
+reformers, and of large bodies of the poor, that the division of the
+land among the said poor would be an immediate and everlasting relief
+to them. An _immediate_ relief it would be to the extent of a small
+annual sum (you may easily calculate how little, if you choose) to
+each of them; on the strength of which accession to their finances,
+they would multiply into as much extra personality as the extra pence
+would sustain, and at that point be checked by starvation, exactly as
+they are now.
+
+144. Any other form of pillage would benefit them only in like manner;
+and, in reality, the difficult part of the question respecting
+numbers, is, not where they shall be arrested, but what shall be the
+method of their arrest.
+
+An island of a certain size has standing room only for so many people;
+feeding ground for a great many fewer than could stand on it. Reach
+the limits of your feeding ground, and you must cease to multiply,
+must emigrate or starve. The modes in which the pressure is gradually
+brought to bear on the population depend on the justice of your laws;
+but the pressure itself must come at last, whatever the distribution
+of the land. And arithmeticians seem to me a little slow to remark the
+importance of the old child's puzzle about the nails in the
+horseshoe--when it is populations that are doubling themselves,
+instead of farthings.
+
+145. The essential land question, then, is to be treated quite
+separately from that of the methods of restriction of population. The
+land question is--At what point will you resolve to stop? It is
+separate matter of discussion how you are to stop at it.
+
+And this essential land question--"At what point will you stop?"--is
+itself two-fold. You have to consider first, by what methods of land
+distribution you can maintain the greatest number of healthy persons;
+and secondly, whether, if, by any other mode of distribution and
+relative ethical laws, you can raise their character, while you
+diminish their numbers, such sacrifice should be made, and to what
+extent? I think it will be better, for clearness' sake, to end this
+letter with the putting of these two queries in their decisive form,
+and to reserve suggestions of answer for my next.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII.
+
+OF THE JUST TENURE OF LANDS: AND THE PROPER FUNCTIONS OF HIGH PUBLIC
+OFFICERS.
+
+
+ _20th April, 1867._
+
+146. I must repeat to you, once more, before I proceed, that I only
+enter on this part of our inquiry to complete the sequence of its
+system, and explain fully the bearing of former conclusions, and not
+for any immediately practicable good to be got out of the
+investigation. Whatever I have hitherto urged upon you, it is in the
+power of all men quietly to promote, and finally to secure, by the
+patient resolution of personal conduct; but no action could be taken
+in re-distribution of land or in limitation of the incomes of the
+upper classes, without grave and prolonged civil disturbance.
+
+Such disturbance, however, is only too likely to take place, if the
+existing theories of political economy are allowed credence much
+longer. In the writings of the vulgar economists, nothing more excites
+my indignation than the subterfuges by which they endeavor to
+accommodate their pseudoscience to the existing abuses of wealth, by
+disguising the true nature of rent. I will not waste time in exposing
+their fallacies, but will put the truth for you into as clear a shape
+as I can.
+
+147. Rent, of whatever kind, is, briefly, the price continuously paid
+for the loan of the property of another person. It may be too little,
+or it may be just or exorbitant or altogether unjustifiable, according
+to circumstances. Exorbitant rents can only be exacted from ignorant
+or necessitous rent-payers: and it is one of the most necessary
+conditions of state economy that there should be clear laws to prevent
+such exaction.
+
+148. I may interrupt myself for a moment to give you an instance of
+what I mean. The most wretched houses of the poor in London often pay
+ten or fifteen per cent. to the landlord; and I have known an instance
+of sanitary legislation being hindered, to the loss of many hundreds
+of lives, in order that the rents of a nobleman, derived from the
+necessities of the poor, might not be diminished. And it is a curious
+thing to me to see Mr. J. S. Mill foaming at the mouth, and really
+afflicted conscientiously, because he supposes one man to have been
+unjustly hanged, while by his own failure, (I believe, _wilful_
+failure)[A] in stating clearly to the public one of the first
+elementary truths of the science he professes, he is aiding and
+abetting the commission of the cruelest possible form of murder on
+many thousands of persons yearly, for the sake simply of putting money
+into the pockets of the landlords. I felt this evil so strongly that I
+bought, in the worst part of London, one freehold and one leasehold
+property, consisting of houses inhabited by the lowest poor; in order
+to try what change in their comfort and habits I could effect by
+taking only a just rent, but that firmly. The houses of the leasehold
+pay me five per cent.; the families that used to have one room in them
+have now two; and are more orderly and hopeful besides; and there is a
+surplus still on the rents they pay after I have taken my five per
+cent., with which, if all goes well, they will eventually be able to
+buy twelve years of the lease from me. The freehold pays three per
+cent., with similar results in the comfort of the tenant. This is
+merely an example of what might be done by firm State action in such
+matters.
+
+ [A] See § 156.
+
+149. Next, of wholly unjustifiable rents. These are for things which
+are not, and which it is criminal to consider as, personal or
+exchangeable property. Bodies of men, land, water, and air, are the
+principal of these things.
+
+Parenthetically, may I ask you to observe, that though a fearless
+defender of some forms of slavery, I am no defender of the slave
+_trade_. It is by a blundering confusion of ideas between _governing_
+men, and _trading in_ men, and by consequent interference with the
+restraint, instead of only with the sale, that most of the great
+errors in action have been caused among the emancipation men. I am
+prepared, if the need be clear to my own mind, and if the power is in
+my hands, to throw men into prison, or any other captivity--to bind
+them or to beat them--and force them, for such periods as I may judge
+necessary, to any kind of irksome labor: and on occasion of desperate
+resistance, to hang or shoot them. But I will not _sell_ them.
+
+150. Bodies of men, or women, then (and much more, as I said before,
+their souls), must not be bought or sold. Neither must land, nor
+water, nor air, these being the necessary sustenance of men's bodies
+and souls.
+
+Yet all these may, on certain terms, be bound, or secured in
+possession, to particular persons under certain conditions. For
+instance, it may be proper, at a certain time, to give a man
+permission to possess land, as you give him permission to marry; and
+farther, if he wishes it and works for it, to secure to him the land
+needful for his life; as you secure his wife to him; and make both
+utterly his own, without in the least admitting his right to buy other
+people's wives, or fields, or to sell his own.
+
+151. And the right action of a State respecting its land is, indeed,
+to secure it in various portions to those of its citizens who deserve
+to be trusted with it, according to their respective desires and
+proved capacities; and after having so secured it to each, to exercise
+only such vigilance over his treatment of it as the State must give
+also to his treatment of his wife and servants; for the most part
+leaving him free, but interfering in cases of gross mismanagement or
+abuse of power. And in the case of great old families, which always
+ought to be, and in some measure, however decadent, still truly are,
+the noblest monumental architecture of the kingdom, living temples of
+sacred tradition and hero's religion, so much land ought to be granted
+to them in perpetuity as may enable them to live thereon with all
+circumstances of state and outward nobleness; _but their income must
+in no wise be derived from the rents of it_, nor must they be occupied
+(even in the most distant or subordinately administered methods), in
+the exaction of rents. That is not noblemen's work. Their income must
+be fixed, and paid them by the State, as the King's is.
+
+152. So far from their land being to them a source of income, it
+should be, on the whole, costly to them, great part of it being kept
+in conditions of natural grace, which return no rent but their
+loveliness; and the rest made, at whatever cost, exemplary in
+perfection of such agriculture as develops the happiest peasant
+life;[A] agriculture which, as I will show you hereafter, must reject
+the aid of all mechanism except that of instruments guided solely by
+the human hand, or by animal, or directly natural forces; and which,
+therefore, cannot compete for profitableness with agriculture carried
+on by aid of machinery.
+
+ [A] Compare 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXI., page 22.
+
+And now for the occupation of this body of men, maintained at fixed
+perennial cost of the State.
+
+153. You know I said I should want no soldiers of special skill or
+pugnacity, for all my boys would be soldiers. But I assuredly want
+_captains_ of soldiers, of special skill and pugnacity. And also, I
+said I should strongly object to the appearance of any lawyers in my
+territory; meaning, however, by lawyers, people who live by arguing
+about law,--not people appointed to administer law; and people who
+live by eloquently misrepresenting facts--not people appointed to
+discover and plainly represent them.
+
+Therefore, the youth of this landed aristocracy would be trained, in
+my schools, to these two great callings, not _by_ which, but _in_
+which, they are to live.
+
+They would be trained, all of them, in perfect science of war, and in
+perfect science of essential law. And from their body should be chosen
+the captains and the judges of England, its advocates, and generally
+its State officers, all such functions being held for fixed pay (as
+already our officers of the Church and army are paid), and no function
+connected with the administration of law ever paid by casual fee. And
+the head of such family should, in his own right, having passed due
+(and high) examination in the science of law, and not otherwise, be a
+judge, law-ward or Lord, having jurisdiction both in civil and
+criminal cases, such as our present judges have, after such case shall
+have been fully represented before, and received verdict from, a jury,
+composed exclusively of the middle or lower orders, and in which no
+member of the aristocracy should sit. But from the decision of these
+juries, or from the Lord's sentence, there should be a final appeal to
+a tribunal, the highest in the land, held solely in the King's name,
+and over which, in the capital, the King himself should preside, and
+therein give judgment on a fixed number of days in each year;--and, in
+other places and at other times, judges appointed by election (under
+certain conditions) out of any order of men in the State (the election
+being national, not provincial): and all causes brought before these
+judges should be decided, without appeal, by their own authority; not
+by juries. This, then, recasting it for you into brief view, would be
+the entire scheme of state authorities:--
+
+154. (1) The King: exercising, as part both of his prerogative and his
+duty, the office of a supreme judge at stated times in the central
+court of appeal of his kingdom.
+
+(2) Supreme judges appointed by national election; exercising sole
+authority in courts of final appeal.
+
+(3) Ordinary judges, holding the office hereditarily under conditions;
+and with power to add to their number (and liable to have it increased
+if necessary by the King's appointment); the office of such judges
+being to administer the national laws under the decision of juries.
+
+(4) State officers charged with the direction of public agency in
+matters of public utility.
+
+(5) Bishops, charged with offices of supervision and aid, to family by
+family, and person by person.
+
+(6) The officers of war, of various ranks.
+
+(7) The officers of public instruction, of various ranks.
+
+I have sketched out this scheme for you somewhat prematurely, for I
+would rather have conducted you to it step by step, and as I brought
+forward the reasons for the several parts of it; but it is, on other
+grounds, desirable that you should have it to refer to, as I go on.
+
+155. Without depending anywise upon nomenclature, yet holding it
+important as a sign and record of the meanings of things, I may tell
+you further that I should call the elected supreme judges, "Princes";
+the hereditary judges, "Lords"; and the officers of public guidance,
+"Dukes"; and that the social rank of these persons would be very
+closely correspondent to that implied by such titles under our present
+constitution; only much more real and useful. And in conclusion of
+this letter, I will but add, that if you, or other readers, think it
+idle of me to write or dream of such things; as if any of them were in
+our power, or within possibility of any near realization, and above
+all, vain to write of them to a workman at Sunderland: you are to
+remember what I told you at the beginning, that I go on with this part
+of my subject in some fulfilment of my long-conceived plan, too large
+to receive at present any deliberate execution from my failing
+strength; (being the body of the work to which 'Munera Pulveris' was
+intended merely as an introduction;) and that I address it to you
+because I know that the working men of England must, for some time,
+be the only body to which we can look for resistance to the deadly
+influence of moneyed power.
+
+I intend, however, to write to you at this moment one more letter,
+partly explanatory of minor details necessarily omitted in this, and
+chiefly of the proper office of the soldier; and then I must delay the
+completion of even this poor task until after the days have turned,
+for I have quite other work to do in the brightness of the full-opened
+spring.
+
+156. P.S.--As I have used somewhat strong language, both here and
+elsewhere, of the equivocations of the economists on the subject of
+rent, I had better refer you to one characteristic example. You will
+find in paragraph 5th and 6th of Book II., chap. 2, of Mr. Mill's
+'Principles,' that the right to tenure of land is based, by his
+admission, only on the proprietor's being its improver.
+
+Without pausing to dwell on the objection that land cannot be improved
+beyond a certain point, and that, at the reaching of that point,
+farther claim to tenure would cease, on Mr. Mill's principle--take
+even this admission, with its proper subsequent conclusion, that "in
+no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the
+proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it."
+Now, had that conclusion been farther followed, it would have
+compelled the admission that all rent was unjustifiable which normally
+maintained any person in idleness; which is indeed the whole truth of
+the matter. But Mr. Mill instantly retreats from this perilous
+admission; and after three or four pages of discussion (quite accurate
+for _its_ part) of the limits of power in management of the land
+itself (which apply just as strictly to the peasant proprietor as to
+the cottier's landlord), he begs the whole question at issue in one
+brief sentence, slipped cunningly into the middle of a long one which
+appears to be telling all the other way, and in which the fatal
+assertion (of the right to rent) nestles itself, as if it had been
+already proved,--thus--I italicize the unproved assertion in which the
+venom of the entire falsehood is concentrated.
+
+"Even in the case of cultivated land, a man whom, though only one
+among millions, the law permits to hold thousands of acres as his
+single share, is not entitled to think that all is given to him to use
+and abuse, and deal with it as if it concerned nobody but himself.
+_The rents or profits which he can obtain from it are his, and his
+only_; but with regard to the land, in everything which he abstains
+from doing, he is morally bound, and should, whenever the case admits,
+be legally compelled to make his interest and pleasure consistent with
+the public good."
+
+157. I say, this sentence in italics is slipped _cunningly_ into the
+long sentence, as if it were of no great consequence; and above I have
+expressed my belief that Mr. Mill's equivocations on this subject are
+wilful. It is a grave accusation; but I cannot, by any stretch of
+charity, attribute these misrepresentations to absolute dulness and
+bluntness of brain, either in Mr. Mill or his follower, Mr. Fawcett.
+Mr. Mill is capable of immense involuntary error; but his involuntary
+errors are usually owing to his seeing only one or two of the many
+sides of a thing; not to obscure sight of the side he _does_ see. Thus
+his 'Essay on Liberty' only takes cognizance of facts that make for
+liberty, and of none that make for restraint. But in its statement of
+all that can be said for liberty, it is so clear and keen, that I have
+myself quoted it before now as the best authority on that side. And,
+if arguing in favor of Rent, absolutely, and with clear explanation of
+what it was, he had then defended it with all his might, I should have
+attributed to him only the honest shortsightedness of partisanship;
+but when I find his defining sentences full of subtle entanglement and
+reserve--and that reserve held throughout his treatment of this
+particular subject,--I cannot, whether I utter the suspicion or not,
+keep the sense of wilfulness in the misrepresentation from remaining
+in my mind. And if there be indeed ground for this blame, and Mr.
+Mill, for fear of fostering political agitation,[A] _has_ disguised
+what he knows to be the facts about rent, I would ask him as one of
+the leading members of the Jamaica Committee, which is the greater
+crime, boldly to sign warrant for the sudden death of one man, known
+to be an agitator, in the immediate outbreak of such agitation, or, by
+equivocation in a scientific work, to sign warrants for the deaths of
+thousands of men in slow misery, for _fear_ of an agitation which has
+not begun; and if begun, would be carried on by debate, not by the
+sword?
+
+ [A] With at last the natural consequences of
+ cowardice,--nitro-glycerine and fire-balls! Let the upper
+ classes speak the truth about themselves boldly, and they
+ will know how to defend themselves fearlessly. It is
+ equivocation in principle, and dereliction from duty, which
+ melt at last into tears in a mob's presence.--(Dec. 16th,
+ 1867.)
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV.
+
+THE OFFICE OF THE SOLDIER.
+
+
+ _April 22, 1867._
+
+158. I must once more deprecate your probable supposition that I bring
+forward this ideal plan of State government, either with any idea of
+its appearing, to our present public mind, practicable even at a
+remote period, or with any positive and obstinate adherence to the
+particular form suggested. There are no wiser words among the many
+wise ones of the most rational and keen-sighted of old English men of
+the world, than these:--
+
+ "For forms of government let fools contest;
+ That which is best administered is best."
+
+For, indeed, no form of government is of any use among bad men; and
+any form will work in the hands of the good; but the essence of all
+government among good men is this, that it is mainly occupied in the
+_production and recognition of human worth_, and in the detection and
+extinction of human unworthiness; and every Government which produces
+and recognizes worth, will also inevitably use the worth it has found
+to govern with; and therefore fall into some approximation to such a
+system as I have described. And, as I told you, I do not contend for
+names, nor particular powers--though I state those which seem to me
+most advisable; on the contrary, I know that the precise extent of
+authorities must be different in every nation at different times, and
+ought to be so, according to their circumstances and character; and
+all that I assert with confidence is the necessity, within afterwards
+definable limits, of _some such_ authorities as these; that is to say,
+
+159. I. An _observant_ one:--by which all men shall be looked after
+and taken note of.
+
+II. A _helpful_ one, from which those who need help may get it.
+
+III. A _prudential_ one, which shall not let people dig in wrong
+places for coal, nor make railroads where they are not wanted; and
+which shall also, with true providence, insist on their digging in
+right places for coal, in a safe manner, and making railroads where
+they _are_ wanted.
+
+IV. A _martial_ one, which will punish knaves and make idle persons
+work.
+
+V. An _instructive_ one, which shall tell everybody what it is their
+duty to know, and be ready pleasantly to answer questions if anybody
+asks them.
+
+VI. A _deliberate_ and _decisive_ one, which shall judge by law, and
+amend or make law;
+
+VII. An _exemplary_ one, which shall show what is loveliest in the art
+of life.
+
+You may divide or name those several offices as you will, or they may
+be divided in practice as expediency may recommend; the plan I have
+stated merely puts them all into the simplest forms and relations.
+
+160. You see I have just defined the martial power as that "which
+punishes knaves and makes idle persons work." For that is indeed the
+ultimate and perennial soldiership; that is the essential warrior's
+office to the end of time. "There is no discharge in that war." To the
+compelling of sloth, and the scourging of sin, the strong hand will
+have to address itself as long as this wretched little dusty and
+volcanic world breeds nettles, and spits fire. The soldier's office at
+present is indeed supposed to be the defense of his country against
+other countries; but that is an office which--Utopian as you may think
+the saying--will soon now be extinct. I say so fearlessly, though I
+say it with wide war threatened, at this moment, in the East and West.
+For observe what the standing of nations on their defense really
+means. It means that, but for such armed attitude, each of them would
+go and rob the other; that is to say, that the majority of active
+persons in every nation are at present--thieves. I am very sorry that
+this should still be so; but it will not be so long. National
+exhibitions, indeed, will not bring peace; but national education
+will, and that is soon coming. I can judge of this by my own mind, for
+I am myself naturally as covetous a person as lives in this world, and
+am as eagerly-minded to go and steal some things the French have got,
+as any housebreaker could be, having clue to attractive spoons. If I
+could by military incursion carry off Paul Veronese's "Marriage in
+Cana," and the "Venus Victrix," and the "Hours of St. Louis," it
+would give me the profoundest satisfaction to accomplish the foray
+successfully; nevertheless, being a comparatively educated person, I
+should most assuredly not give myself that satisfaction, though there
+were not an ounce of gunpowder, nor a bayonet, in all France. I have
+not the least mind to rob anybody, however much I may covet what they
+have got; and I know that the French and British public may and will,
+with many other publics, be at last brought to be of this mind also;
+and to see farther that a nation's real strength and happiness do not
+depend on properties and territories, nor on machinery for their
+defense; but on their getting such territory as they _have_, well
+filled with none but respectable persons. Which is a way of
+_infinitely_ enlarging one's territory, feasible to every potentate;
+and dependent no wise on getting Trent turned, or Rhine-edge reached.
+
+161. Not but that, in the present state of things, it may often be
+soldiers' duty to seize territory, and hold it strongly; but only from
+banditti, or savage and idle persons.
+
+Thus, both Calabria and Greece ought to have been irresistibly
+occupied long ago. Instead of quarreling with Austria about Venice,
+the Italians ought to have made a truce with her for ten years, on
+condition only of her destroying no monuments, and not taxing Italians
+more than Germans; and then thrown the whole force of their army on
+Calabria, shot down every bandit in it in a week, and forced the
+peasantry of it into honest work on every hill-side, with stout and
+immediate help from the soldiers in embanking streams, building walls,
+and the like; and Italian finance would have been a much pleasanter
+matter for the King to take account of by this time; and a fleet might
+have been floating under Garganus strong enough to sweep every hostile
+sail out of the Adriatic, instead of a disgraced and useless remnant
+of one, about to be put up to auction.
+
+And similarly, _we_ ought to have occupied Greece instantly, when they
+asked us, whether Russia liked it or not; given them an English king,
+made good roads for them, and stout laws; and kept them, and their
+hills and seas, with righteous shepherding of Arcadian fields, and
+righteous ruling of Salaminian wave, until they could have given
+themselves a Greek king of men again; and obeyed him, like men.
+
+
+ _April 24._
+
+162. It is strange that just before I finish work for this time, there
+comes the first real and notable sign of the victory of the principles
+I have been fighting for, these seven years. It is only a newspaper
+paragraph, but it means much. Look at the second column of the 11th
+page of yesterday's 'Pall Mall Gazette,' The paper has taken a
+wonderful fit of misprinting lately (unless my friend John Simon has
+been knighted on his way to Weimar, which would be much too right and
+good a thing to be a likely one); but its straws of talk mark which
+way the wind blows perhaps more early than those of any other
+journal--and look at the question it puts in that page, "Whether
+political economy be the sordid and materialistic science some
+account it, or almost the noblest on which thought can be employed?"
+Might not you as well have determined that question a little while
+ago, friend Public? and known what political economy _was_, before you
+talked so much about it?
+
+But, hark, again--"Ostentation, parental pride and a host of moral"
+(immoral?) "qualities must be recognized as among the springs of
+industry; political economy should not ignore these, but, to discuss
+them, _it must abandon its pretensions to the precision of a pure
+science_."
+
+163. Well done the 'Pall Mall'! Had it written "Prudence and parental
+affection," instead of "Ostentation and parental pride," "must be
+recognized among the springs of industry," it would have been still
+better; and it would then have achieved the expression of a part of
+the truth, which I put into clear terms in the first sentence of 'Unto
+this Last,' in the year 1862--which it has thus taken five years to
+get half way into the public's head.
+
+"Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed
+themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the
+most curious--certainly the least creditable--is the modern
+_soi-disant_ science of political economy, based on the idea that an
+advantageous code of social action may be determined, irrespectively
+of the influence of social affection."
+
+Look also at the definition of skill, p. 87.
+
+"Under the term 'skill' I mean to include the united force of
+experience, intellect, and passion, in their operation on manual
+labor, and under the term 'passion' to include the entire range of the
+moral feelings."
+
+164. I say half way into the public's head, because you see, a few
+lines further on, the 'Pall Mall' hopes for a pause "half way between
+the rigidity of Ricardo and the sentimentality of Ruskin."
+
+With one hand on their pocket, and the other on their heart! Be it so
+for the present; we shall see how long this statuesque attitude can be
+maintained; meantime, it chances strangely--as several other things
+have chanced while I was writing these notes to you--that they should
+have put in that sneer (two lines before) at my note on the meaning of
+the Homeric and Platonic Sirens, at the very moment when I was
+doubting whether I would or would not tell you the significance of the
+last song of Ariel in 'The Tempest.'
+
+I had half determined not, but now I shall. And this was what brought
+me to think of it:--
+
+165. Yesterday afternoon I called on Mr. H. C. Sorby, to see some of
+the results of an inquiry he has been following all last year, into
+the nature of the coloring matter of leaves and flowers.
+
+You most probably have heard (at all events, may with little trouble
+hear) of the marvelous power which chemical analysis has received in
+recent discoveries respecting the laws of light.
+
+My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rainbow of the
+violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of forest
+leaves being born, and the rainbow of forest leaves dying.
+
+And, last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the
+three-hundredth part of a grain, dissolved in a drop of water; and it
+cast its measured bars, for ever recognizable now to human sight, on
+the chord of the seven colors. And no drop of that red rain can now be
+shed, so small as that the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice
+of it heard out of the ground.
+
+166. But the seeing these flower colors, and the iris of blood
+together with them, just while I was trying to gather into brief space
+the right laws of war, brought vividly back to me my dreaming fancy of
+long ago, that even the trees of the earth were "capable of a kind of
+sorrow, as they opened their innocent leaves in vain for men; and
+along the dells of England her beeches cast their dappled shades only
+where the outlaw drew his bow, and the king rode his careless chase;
+amidst the fair defiles of the Apennines, the twisted olive-trunks hid
+the ambushes of treachery, and on their meadows, day by day, the
+lilies, which were white at the dawn, were washed with crimson at
+sunset."
+
+And so also now this chance word of the daily journal, about the
+Sirens, brought to my mind the divine passage in the Cratylus of
+Plato, about the place of the dead.
+
+"And none of those who dwell there desire to depart thence,--no, not
+even the Sirens; but even they, the seducers, are there themselves
+beguiled, and they who lulled all men, themselves laid to rest--they,
+and all others--such sweet songs doth death know how to sing to them."
+
+So also the Hebrew.
+
+"And desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long home." For you
+know I told you the Sirens were not pleasures, but desires; being
+always represented in old Greek art as having human faces, with birds'
+wings and feet; and sometimes with eyes upon their wings; and there
+are not two more important passages in all literature, respecting the
+laws of labor and of life, than those two great descriptions of the
+Sirens in Homer and Plato,--the Sirens of death, and Sirens of eternal
+life, representing severally the earthly and heavenly desires of men;
+the heavenly desires singing to the motion of circles of the spheres,
+and the earthly on the rocks of fatalest shipwreck. A fact which may
+indeed be regarded "sentimentally," but it is also a profoundly
+important politico-economical one.
+
+And now for Shakespeare's song.
+
+167. You will find, if you look back to the analysis of it, given in
+'Munera Pulveris,' § 134, that the whole play of 'The Tempest' is an
+allegorical representation of the powers of true, and therefore
+spiritual, Liberty, as opposed to true, and therefore carnal and
+brutal Slavery. There is not a sentence nor a rhyme, sung or uttered
+by Ariel or Caliban, throughout the play, which has not this
+under-meaning.
+
+168. Now the fulfilment of all human liberty is in the peaceful
+inheritance of the earth, with its "herb yielding seed, and fruit tree
+yielding fruit" after his kind; the pasture, or arable, land, and the
+blossoming, or wooded and fruited, land uniting the final elements of
+life and peace, for body and soul. Therefore, we have the two great
+Hebrew forms of benediction, "His eyes shall be red with wine, and his
+teeth white with milk," and again, "Butter and honey shall he eat,
+that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good." And as the
+work of war and sin has always been the devastation of this blossoming
+earth, whether by spoil or idleness, so the work of peace and virtue
+is also that of the first day of Paradise, to "Dress it and to keep
+it." And that will always be the song of perfectly accomplished
+Liberty, in her industry, and rest, and shelter from troubled thoughts
+in the calm of the fields, and gaining, by migration, the long
+summer's day from the shortening twilight:--
+
+ "Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;
+ In a cowslip's bell I lie;
+ There I couch when owls do cry.
+ On the bat's back I do fly
+ After summer merrily:
+ Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
+ Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."
+
+And the security of this treasure to all the poor, and not the ravage
+of it down the valleys of the Shenandoah, is indeed the true warrior's
+work. But, that they may be able to restrain vice rightly, soldiers
+must themselves be first in virtue; and that they may be able to
+compel labor sternly, they must themselves be first in toil, and their
+spears, like Jonathan's at Bethaven, enlighteners of the eyes.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV.
+
+OF INEVITABLE DISTINCTION OF RANK, AND NECESSARY SUBMISSION TO
+AUTHORITY. THE MEANING OF PURE-HEARTEDNESS. CONCLUSION.
+
+
+169. I was interrupted yesterday, just as I was going to set my
+soldiers to work; and to-day, here comes the pamphlet you promised me,
+containing the Debates about Church-going, in which I find so
+interesting a text for my concluding letter that I must still let my
+soldiers stand at ease for a little while. Look at its twenty-fifth
+page, and you will find, in the speech of Mr. Thomas, (carpenter,)
+this beautiful explanation of the admitted change in the general
+public mind, of which Mr. Thomas, for his part, highly approves, (the
+getting out of the unreasonable habit of paying respect to anybody.)
+There were many reasons to Mr. Thomas's mind why the working classes
+did not attend places of worship: one was, that "the parson was
+regarded as an object of reverence. In the little town he came from,
+if a poor man did not make a bow to the parson he was a marked man.
+This was no doubt wearing away to a great extent" (the base habit of
+making bows), "because, the poor man was beginning to get education,
+and to think for himself. It was only while the priest kept the press
+from him that he was kept ignorant, and was compelled to bow, as it
+were, to the parson.... It was the case all over England. The
+clergyman seemed to think himself something superior. Now he (Mr.
+Thomas) did not admit there was any inferiority" (laughter, audience
+throughout course of meeting mainly in the right), "except, perhaps,
+on the score of his having received a classical education, which the
+poor man could not get."
+
+Now, my dear friend, here is the element which is the veriest devil of
+all that have got into modern flesh; this infidelity of the nineteenth
+century St. Thomas in there being anything better than himself
+alive;[A] coupled, as it always is, with the farther resolution--if
+unwillingly convinced of the fact,--to seal the Better living thing
+down again out of his way, under the first stone handy. I had not
+intended, till we entered on the second section of our inquiry,
+namely, into the influence of gentleness (having hitherto, you see,
+been wholly concerned with that of justice), to give you the clue out
+of our dilemma about equalities produced by education; but by the
+speech of our superior carpenter, I am driven into it at once, and it
+is perhaps as well.
+
+ [A] Compare 'Crown of Wild Olive,' § 136.
+
+170. The speech is not, observe, without its own root of truth at the
+bottom of it, nor at all, as I think, ill intended by the speaker; but
+you have in it a clear instance of what I was saying in the sixteenth
+of these letters,--that education _was desired by the lower orders
+because they thought it would make them upper orders_, and be a
+leveler and effacer of distinctions. They will be mightily astonished,
+when they really get it, to find that it is, on the contrary, the
+fatalest of all discerners and enforcers of distinctions; piercing,
+even to the division of the joints and marrow, to find out wherein
+your body and soul are less, or greater, than other bodies and souls,
+and to sign deed of separation with unequivocal seal.
+
+171. Education is, indeed, of all differences not divinely appointed,
+an instant effacer and reconciler. Whatever is undivinely poor, it
+will make rich; whatever is undivinely maimed, and halt, and blind, it
+will make whole, and equal, and seeing. The blind and the lame are to
+it as to David at the siege of the Tower of the Kings, "hated of
+David's soul." But there are other divinely-appointed differences,
+eternal as the ranks of the everlasting hills, and as the strength of
+their ceaseless waters. And these, education does _not_ do away with;
+but measures, manifests, and employs.
+
+In the handful of shingle which you gather from the sea-beach, which
+the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal foam, has only
+educated to be, every one, round, you will see little difference
+between the noble and mean stones. But the jeweler's trenchant
+education of them will tell you another story. Even the meanest will
+be better for it, but the noblest so much better that you can class
+the two together no more. The fair veins and colors are all clear now,
+and so stern is nature's intent regarding this, that not only will the
+polish show which is best, but the best will take most polish. You
+shall not merely see they have more virtue than the others, but see
+that more of virtue more clearly; and the less virtue there is, the
+more dimly you shall see what there is of it.
+
+172. And the law about education, which is sorrowfulest to vulgar
+pride, is this--that all its gains are at compound interest; so that,
+as our work proceeds, every hour throws us farther behind the greater
+men with whom we began on equal terms. Two children go to school hand
+in hand, and spell for half an hour over the same page. Through all
+their lives, never shall they spell from the same page more. One is
+presently a page ahead,--two pages, ten pages,--and evermore, though
+each toils equally, the interval enlarges--at birth nothing, at death,
+infinite.
+
+173. And by this you may recognize true education from false. False
+education is a delightful thing, and warms you, and makes you every
+day think more of yourself. And true education is a deadly cold thing
+with a Gorgon's head on her shield, and makes you every day think
+worse of yourself.
+
+Worse in two ways, also, more's the pity. It is perpetually increasing
+the personal sense of ignorance and the personal sense of fault. And
+this last is the truth which is at the bottom of the common
+evangelical notion about conversion, and which the Devil has got hold
+of, and hidden, until, instead of seeing and confessing personal
+ignorance and fault, as compared with the sense and virtue of others,
+people see nothing but corruption in human nature, and shelter their
+own sins under accusation of their race (the worst of all assertions
+of equality and fraternity). And so they avoid the blessed and
+strengthening pain of finding out wherein they are fools, as compared
+with other men, by calling everybody else a fool too; and avoid the
+pain of discerning their own faults, by vociferously claiming their
+share in the great capital of original sin.
+
+I must also, therefore, tell you here what properly ought to have
+begun the next following section of our subject--the point usually
+unnoticed in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
+
+174. First, have you ever observed that all Christ's main teachings,
+by direct order, by earnest parable, and by His own permanent emotion,
+regard the use and misuse of _money_? We might have thought, if we had
+been asked what a divine teacher was most likely to teach, that he
+would have left inferior persons to give directions about money; and
+himself spoken only concerning faith and love, and the discipline of
+the passions, and the guilt of the crimes of soul against soul. But
+not so. He speaks in general terms of these. But He does not speak
+parables about them for all men's memory, nor permit Himself fierce
+indignation against them, in all men's sight. The Pharisees bring Him
+an adulteress. He writes her forgiveness on the dust of which He had
+formed her. Another, despised of all for known sin, He recognized as a
+giver of unknown love. But He acknowledges no love in buyers and
+sellers in His house. One should have thought there were people in
+that house twenty times worse than they;--Caiaphas and his like--false
+priests, false prayer-makers, false leaders of the people--who needed
+putting to silence, or to flight, with darkest wrath. But the scourge
+is only against the _traffickers and thieves_. The two most intense of
+all the parables: the two which lead the rest in love and terror (this
+of the Prodigal, and of Dives), relate, both of them, to management of
+riches. The practical order given to the only seeker of advice, of
+whom it is recorded that Christ "loved him," is briefly about his
+property. "Sell that thou hast."
+
+And the arbitrament of the day of the Last Judgment is made to rest
+wholly, neither on belief in God, nor in any spiritual virtue in man,
+nor on freedom from stress of stormy crime, but on this only, "I was
+an hungered and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and
+ye came unto me."
+
+175. Well, then, the first thing I want you to notice in the parable
+of the Prodigal Son (and the last thing which people usually _do_
+notice in it), is--that it is about a Prodigal! He begins by asking
+for his share of his father's goods; he gets it, carries it off, and
+wastes it. It is true that he wastes it in riotous living, but you are
+not asked to notice in what kind of riot; he spends it with
+harlots--but it is not the harlotry which his elder brother accuses
+him of mainly, but of having devoured his father's living. Nay, it is
+not the sensual life which he accuses himself of--or which the manner
+of his punishment accuses him of. But the _wasteful_ life. It is not
+said that he had become debauched in soul, or diseased in body, by his
+vice; but that at last he would fain have filled his belly with husks,
+and could not. It is not said that he was struck with remorse for the
+consequences of his evil passions, but only that he remembered there
+was bread enough and to spare, even for the servants, at home.
+
+Now, my friend, do not think I want to extenuate sins of passion
+(though, in very truth, the sin of Magdalene is a light one compared
+to that of Judas); but observe, sins of passion, if of _real_ passion,
+are often the errors and backfalls of noble souls; but prodigality is
+mere and pure selfishness, and essentially the sin of an ignoble or
+undeveloped creature; and I would rather, ten times rather, hear of a
+youth that (certain degrees of temptation and conditions of resistance
+being understood) he had fallen into any sin you chose to name, of all
+the mortal ones, than that he was in the habit of running bills which
+he could not pay.
+
+Farther, though I hold that the two crowning and most accursed sins of
+the society of this present day are the carelessness with which it
+regards the betrayal of women, and the brutality with which it suffers
+the neglect of children, both these head and chief crimes, and all
+others, are rooted first in abuse of the laws, and neglect of the
+duties concerning wealth. And thus the love of money, with the
+parallel (and, observe, _mathematically commensurate_ looseness in
+management of it), the "mal tener," followed necessarily by the "mal
+dare," is, indeed, the root of all evil.
+
+176. Then, secondly, I want you to note that when the prodigal comes
+to his senses, he complains of nobody but himself, and speaks of no
+unworthiness but his own. He says nothing against any of the women
+who tempted him--nothing against the citizen who left him to feed on
+husks--nothing of the false friends of whom "no man gave unto
+him"--above all, nothing of the "corruption of human nature," or the
+corruption of things in general. He says that _he himself_ is
+unworthy, as distinguished from honorable persons, and that _he
+himself_ has sinned, as distinguished from righteous persons. And
+_that_ is the hard lesson to learn, and the beginning of faithful
+lessons. All right and fruitful humility, and purging of heart, and
+seeing of God, is in that. It is easy to call yourself the chief of
+sinners, expecting every sinner round you to decline--or return--the
+compliment; but learn to measure the real degrees of your own relative
+baseness, and to be ashamed, not in heaven's sight, but in man's
+sight; and redemption is indeed begun. Observe the phrase, I have
+sinned "_against_ heaven," against the great law of that, and _before_
+thee, visibly degraded before my human sire and guide, unworthy any
+more of being esteemed of his blood, and desirous only of taking the
+place I deserve among his servants.
+
+177. Now, I do not doubt but that I shall set many a reader's teeth on
+edge by what he will think my carnal and material rendering of this
+"beautiful" parable. But I am just as ready to spiritualize it as he
+is, provided I am sure first that we understand it. If we want to
+understand the parable of the sower, we must first think of it as of
+literal husbandry; if we want to understand the parable of the
+prodigal, we must first understand it as of literal prodigality. And
+the story has also for us a precious lesson in this literal sense of
+it, namely this, which I have been urging upon you throughout these
+letters, that all redemption must begin in subjection and in the
+recovery of the sense of Fatherhood and authority, as all ruin and
+desolation begin in the loss of that sense. The lost son began by
+claiming his rights. He is found when he resigns them. He is lost by
+flying from his father, when his father's authority was only paternal.
+He is found by returning to his father, and desiring that his
+authority may be absolute, as over a hired stranger.
+
+And this is the practical lesson I want to leave with you, and all
+other working men.
+
+178. You are on the eve of a great political crisis; and every rascal
+with a tongue in his head will try to make his own stock out of you.
+Now this is the test you must try them with. Those that say to you,
+"Stand up for your rights--get your division of living--be sure that
+you are as well off as others, and have what they have!--don't let any
+man dictate to you--have not you all a right to your opinion?--are you
+not all as good as everybody else?--let us have no governors, or
+fathers--let us all be free and alike." Those, I say, who speak thus
+to you, take Nelson's rough order for--and hate them as you do the
+Devil, for they _are_ his ambassadors. But those, the few, who have
+the courage to say to you, "My friends, you and I, and all of us, have
+somehow got very wrong; we've been hardly treated, certainly; but here
+we are in a piggery, mainly by our own fault, hungry enough, and for
+ourselves, anything but respectable: we _must_ get out of this; there
+are certainly laws we may learn to live by, and there are wiser people
+than we are in the world, and kindly ones, if we can find our way to
+them; and an infinitely wise and kind Father, above all of them and
+us, if we can but find our way to _Him_, and ask Him to take us for
+servants, and put us to any work He will, so that we may never leave
+Him more." The people who will say that to you, and (for by _no_
+saying, but by their fruits, only, you shall finally know them) who
+are themselves orderly and kindly, and do their own business
+well,--take _those_ for your guides, and trust them; on ice and rock
+alike, tie yourselves well together with them, and with much scrutiny,
+and cautious walking (perhaps nearly as much back as forward, at
+first), you will verily get off the glacier, and into meadow land, in
+God's time.
+
+179. I meant to have written much to you respecting the meaning of
+that word "hired servants," and to have gone on to the duties of
+soldiers, for you know "Soldier" means a person who is paid to fight
+with regular pay--literally with "soldi" or "sous"--the "penny a day"
+of the vineyard laborers; but I can't now: only just this much, that
+our whole system of work must be based on the nobleness of
+soldiership--so that we shall all be soldiers of either plowshare or
+sword; and literally all our actual and professed soldiers, whether
+professed for a time only, or for life, must be kept to hard work of
+hand, when not in actual war; their honor consisting in being set to
+service of more pain and danger than others; to life-boat service; to
+redeeming of ground from furious rivers or sea--or mountain ruin; to
+subduing wild and unhealthy land, and extending the confines of
+colonies in the front of miasm and famine, and savage races.
+
+And much of our harder home work must be done in a kind of
+soldiership, by bands of trained workers sent from place to place and
+town to town; doing, with strong and sudden hand, what is needed for
+help, and setting all things in more prosperous courses for the
+future.
+
+Of all which I hope to speak in its proper place after we know what
+offices the higher arts of gentleness have among the lower ones of
+force, and how their prevalence may gradually change spear to
+pruning-hook, over the face of all the earth.
+
+180. And now--but one word more--either for you, or any other readers
+who may be startled at what I have been saying, as to the peculiar
+stress laid by the Founder of our religion on right dealing with
+wealth. Let them be assured that it is with no fortuitous choice among
+the attributes or powers of evil, that "Mammon" is assigned for the
+direct adversary of the Master whom they are bound to serve. You
+cannot, by any artifice of reconciliation, be God's soldier, and his.
+Nor while the desire of gain is within your heart, can any true
+knowledge of the Kingdom of God come there. No one shall enter its
+stronghold,--no one receive its blessing, except, "he that hath clean
+hands and a pure heart;" clean hands that have done no cruel
+deed,--pure heart, that knows no base desire. And, therefore, in the
+highest spiritual sense that can be given to words, be assured, not
+respecting the literal temple of stone and gold, but of the living
+temple of your body and soul, that no redemption, nor teaching, nor
+hallowing, will be anywise possible for it, until these two verses
+have been, for it also, fulfilled:--
+
+"And He went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold
+therein, and them that bought. And He taught daily in the temple."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+Page 21.--_Expenditure on Science and Art._
+
+
+The following is the passage referred to. The fact it relates is so
+curious, and so illustrative of our national interest in science, that
+I do not apologize for the repetition:--
+
+"Two years ago there was a collection of the fossils of Solenhofen to
+be sold in Bavaria; the best in existence, containing many specimens
+unique for perfectness, and one, unique as an example of a species (a
+whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being announced by that
+fossil). This collection, of which the mere market worth, among
+private buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve
+hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred:
+but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have
+been in the Munich museum at this moment, if Professor Owen[A] had
+not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British
+public in the person of its representatives, got leave to give four
+hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other
+three!--which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but
+sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the while; only
+always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of
+you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your annual expenditure for
+public purposes (a third of it for military apparatus) is at least
+fifty millions. Now seven hundred pounds is to fifty million pounds,
+roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose, then, a
+gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was to be conjectured
+from the fact that he spent two thousand a year on his park walls and
+footmen only, professes himself fond of science; and that one of his
+servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique collection of
+fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is to be had for the
+sum of sevenpence sterling; and that the gentleman who is fond of
+science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after
+keeping his servant waiting several months, 'Well, I'll give you
+fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence
+yourself till next year.'"
+
+ [A] I originally stated this fact without Professor Owen's
+ permission; which, of course, he could not with propriety
+ have granted, had I asked it; but I considered it so
+ important that the public should be aware of the fact, that I
+ did what seemed to me right, though rude.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+Page 33.--_Legislation of Frederick the Great._
+
+
+The following are the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters referred to:--
+
+"Well, I am now busy with Frederick the Great; I am not now astonished
+that Carlyle calls him Great, neither that this work of his should
+have had such a sad effect upon him in producing it, when I see the
+number of volumes he must have had to wade through to produce such a
+clear terse set of utterances; and yet I do not feel the work as a
+book likely to do a reader of it the good that some of his other books
+will do. It is truly awful to read these battles after battles, lies
+after lies, called Diplomacy; it's fearful to read all this, and one
+wonders how he that set himself to this--He, of all men--could have
+the rare patience to produce such a labored, heart-rending piece of
+work. Again, when one reads of the stupidity, the shameful waste of
+our moneys by our forefathers, to see our National Debt (the curse to
+our labor now, the millstone to our commerce, to our fair chance of
+competition in our day) thus created, and for what? Even Carlyle
+cannot tell; then how are we to tell? Now, who will deliver us? that
+is the question; who will help us in these days of _idle or no work_,
+while our foreign neighbors have plenty and are actually selling their
+produce to our men of capital cheaper than we can make it? House-rent
+getting dearer, taxes getting dearer, rates, clothing, food, etc. Sad
+times, my master, do seem to have fallen upon us. And the cause of
+nearly all this lies embedded in that Frederick; and yet, so far as I
+know of it, no critic has yet given an exposition of such laying
+there. For our behoof, is there no one that will take this, that there
+lies so woven in with much other stuff so sad to read, to any man that
+does not believe man was made to fight alone, to be a butcher of his
+fellow-man? Who will do this work, or piece of work, so that all who
+care may know how it is that our debt grew so large, and a great deal
+more that we ought to know?--that clearly is one great reason why the
+book was written and was printed. Well, I hope some day all this will
+be clear to our people, and some man or men will arise and sweep us
+clear of these hindrances, these sad drawbacks to the vitality of our
+work in this world."
+
+
+ "57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 7, 1867.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--
+
+"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of two letters as additions to your
+books, which I have read with deep interest, and shall take care of
+them, and read them over again, so that I may thoroughly comprehend
+them, and be able to think of them for future use. I myself am not
+fully satisfied with our co-operation, and never have been; it is too
+much tinged with the very elements that they complain of in our
+present systems of trade--selfishness. I have for years been trying to
+direct the attention of the editor of the _Co-operator_ to such evils
+that I see in it. Now further, I may state that I find you and Carlyle
+seem to agree quite on the idea of the _Masterhood_ qualification.
+There again I find you both feel and write as all working men consider
+just. I can assure you there is not an honest, noble working man that
+would not by far serve under such _master_-hood, than be the employé
+or workman of a co-operative store. Working men do not as a rule make
+good masters; neither do they treat each other with that courtesy as a
+noble master treats his working man. George Fox shadows forth some
+such treatment that Friends ought to make law and guidance for their
+working men and slaves, such as you speak of in your letters. I will
+look the passage up, as it is quite to the point, so far as I now
+remember it. In Vol. VI. of _Frederick the Great_, I find a great deal
+there that I feel quite certain, if our Queen or Government could make
+law, thousands of English working men would hail it with such a shout
+of joy and gladness as would astonish the Continental world. These
+changes suggested by Carlyle and placed before the thinkers of
+England, are the noblest, the truest utterances on real kinghood, that
+I have ever read; the more I think over them, the more I feel the
+truth, the justness, and also the fitness of them, to our nation's
+present dire necessities; yet this is the man, and these are the
+thoughts of his, that our critics seem never to see, or if seen, don't
+think worth printing or in any way wisely directing the attention of
+the public thereto, alas! All this and much more fills me with such
+sadness that I am driven almost to despair. I see from the newspapers,
+Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other places are sternly endeavoring to
+carry out the short time movement until such times as trade revives,
+and I find the masters and men seem to adopt it with a good grace and
+friendly spirit. I also beg to inform you I see a Mr. Morley, a large
+manufacturer at Nottingham, has been giving pensions to all his old
+workmen. I hope such a noble example will be followed by other wealthy
+masters. It would do more to make a master loved, honored, and cared
+for, than thousands of pounds expended in other ways. The Government
+Savings Banks is one of the wisest acts of late years done by our
+Government. I, myself, often wish the Government held all our banks
+instead of private men; that would put an end to false speculations,
+such as we too often in the provinces suffer so severely by, so I hail
+with pleasure and delight the shadowing forth by you of these noble
+plans for the future: I feel glad and uplifted to think of the good
+that such teaching will do for us all.
+
+ "Yours truly,
+ "THOMAS DIXON."
+
+
+ "57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 24, 1867.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--
+
+"I now give you the references to _Frederick the Great_. Vol. VI.:
+Land Question, 365 page, where he increases the number of small
+farmers to 4,000 (202, 204). English soldiers and T. C.'s remarks on
+our system of purchase, etc. His law, (620, 623, 624). State of Poland
+and how he repaired it, (487, 488, 489, 490). I especially value the
+way he introduced all kinds of industries therein, and so soon changed
+the chaos into order. Again, the school-masters also are given (not
+yet in England, says T. C.). Again the use he made of 15,000_l._
+surplus in Brandenburg; how it was applied to better his staff of
+masters. To me, the Vol. VI. is one of the wisest pieces of modern
+thought in our language. I only wish I had either your power, C.
+Kingsley, Maurice, or some such able pen-generalship, to illustrate
+and show forth all the wise teaching on law, government, and social
+life I see in it, and shining like a star through all its pages.[A] I
+feel also the truth of all you have written, and will do all I can to
+make such men or women that care for such thoughts, see it, or read
+it. I am copying the letters as fast and as well as I can, and will
+use my utmost endeavor to have them done that justice to they merit.
+
+ "Yours truly,
+ "THOMAS DIXON."
+
+ [A] I have endeavored to arrange some of the passages to
+ which Mr. Dixon here refers, in a form enabling the reader to
+ see their bearing on each other more distinctly, as a sequel
+ to the essay on War in the 'Crown of Wild Olive.'
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX III.
+
+Page 33.--_Effect of Modern Entertainments on the Mind of Youth._
+
+
+The letter of the _Times'_ correspondent referred to contained an
+account of one of the most singular cases of depravity ever brought
+before a criminal court; but it is unnecessary to bring any of its
+details under the reader's attention, for nearly every other number of
+our journals has of late contained some instances of atrocities before
+unthought of, and, it might have seemed, impossible to humanity.
+The connection of these with the modern love of excitement in the
+sensational novel and drama may not be generally understood, but it is
+direct and constant; all furious pursuit of pleasure ending in actual
+desire of horror and delight in death. I entered into some fuller
+particulars on this subject in a lecture given in the spring at the
+Royal Institution.
+
+[Any part of the Lecture referred to likely to be of permanent
+interest will be printed, somewhere, in this series.]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX IV.
+
+Page 76.--_Drunkenness as the Cause of Crime._
+
+
+The following portions of Mr. Dixon's letter referred to, will be
+found interesting:--
+
+
+"DEAR SIR,--
+
+"Your last letter, I think, will arouse the attention of thinkers more
+than any of the series, it being on topics they in general feel more
+interested in than the others, especially as in these you do not
+assail their pockets so much as in the former ones. Since you seem
+interested with the notes or rough sketches on gin, G * * * of Dublin
+was the man I alluded to as making his money by drink, and then giving
+the results of such traffic to repair the Cathedral of Dublin. It was
+thousands of pounds. I call such charity robbing Peter to pay Paul!
+Immense fortunes are made in the _Liquor Traffic_, and I will tell you
+why; it is all paid for in cash, at least such as the poor people buy;
+they get credit for clothes, butchers' meat, groceries, etc., while
+they give the gin-palace keeper _cash_; they never begrudge the price
+of a glass of gin or beer, they never haggle over _its_ price, never
+once think of doing that; but in the purchase of almost every other
+article they haggle and begrudge its price. To give you an idea of its
+profits--there are houses here whose average weekly takings in cash at
+their bars is 50_l._, 60_l._, 70_l._, 80_l._, 90l_._, to 150_l._, per
+week. Nearly all the men of intelligence in it, say it is the curse of
+the working classes. Men whose earnings are, say 20_s._ to 30_s._ per
+week, spend on the average 3_s._ to 6_s._ per week (some even 10_s._).
+It's my mode of living to supply these houses with corks that makes me
+see so much of the drunkenness; and that is the cause why I never
+really cared for _my trade_, seeing the misery that was entailed on my
+fellow men and women by the use of this stuff. Again, a house with a
+license to sell spirits, wine, and ale, to be consumed on the
+premises, is worth two to three times more money than any other class
+of property. One house here worth nominally 140_l._ sold the other day
+for 520_l._; another one worth 200_l._ sold for 800_l._ I know
+premises with a license that were sold for 1,300_l._, and then sold
+again two years after for 1,800_l._; another place was rented for
+50_l._, now rents at 100_l._--this last is a house used by working men
+and laborers chiefly! No, I honor men like _Sir W. Trevelyan_, that
+are teetotalers, or total abstainers, as an example to poor men, and,
+to prevent his work-people being tempted, will not allow any
+public-house on his estate. If our land had a few such men it would
+help the cause. We possess one such a man here, a banker. I feel sorry
+to say the progress of temperance is not so great as I would like to
+see it. The only religious body that approaches to your ideas of
+political economy is Quakerism as taught by George Fox. Carlyle seems
+deeply tinged with their teachings. _Silence_ to them is as valuable
+to him. Again, why should people howl and shriek over the law that the
+Alliance is now trying to carry out in our land called the Permissive
+Bill? If we had just laws we then would not be so miserable or so much
+annoyed now and then with cries of Reform and cries of Distress. I
+send you two pamphlets;--one gives the working man's reasons why he
+don't go to church; in it you will see a few opinions expressed very
+much akin to those you have written to me. The other gives an account
+how it is the poor Indians have died of _Famine_, simply because they
+have destroyed the very system of Political Economy, or one having
+some approach to it, that you are now endeavoring to direct the
+attention of thinkers to in our country. The _Sesame and Lilies_ I
+have read as you requested. I feel now fully the aim and object you
+have in view in the Letters, but I cannot help directing your
+attention to that portion where you mention or rather exclaim against
+the Florentines pulling down their _Ancient Walls_ to build a
+_Boulevard_. That passage is one that would gladden the hearts of all
+true _Italians_, especially men that love _Italy and Dante_!"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX V.
+
+Page 78.--_Abuse of Food._
+
+
+Paragraphs cut from 'Manchester Examiner' of March 16, 1867:--
+
+
+"A PARISIAN CHARACTER.--A celebrated character has disappeared from
+the Palais Royal. René Lartique was a Swiss, and a man of about sixty.
+He actually spent the last fifteen years in the Palais Royal--that is
+to say, he spent the third of his life at dinner. Every morning at ten
+o'clock he was to be seen going into a restaurant (usually Tissat's),
+and in a few moments was installed in a corner, which he only quitted
+about three o'clock in the afternoon, after having drunk at least six
+or seven bottles of different kinds of wine. He then walked up and
+down the garden till the clock struck five, when he made his
+appearance again at the same restaurant, and always at the same place.
+His second meal, at which he drank quite as much as at the first,
+invariably lasted till half-past nine. Therefore, he devoted nine
+hours a day to eating and drinking. His dress was most wretched--his
+shoes broken, his trousers torn, his paletôt without any lining and
+patched, his waistcoat without buttons, his hat a rusty red from old
+age, and the whole surmounted by a dirty white beard. One day he went
+up to the _comptoir_, and asked the presiding divinity there to allow
+him to run in debt for one day's dinner. He perceived some hesitation
+in complying with the request, and immediately called one of the
+waiters, and desired him to follow him. He went into the office,
+unbuttoned a certain indispensable garment, and, taking off a broad
+leather belt, somewhat startled the waiter by displaying two hundred
+gold pieces, each worth one hundred francs. Taking up one of them, he
+tossed it to the waiter, and desired him to pay whatever he owed. He
+never again appeared at that restaurant, and died a few days ago of
+indigestion."
+
+
+"REVENGE IN A BALL-ROOM.--A distressing event lately took place at
+Castellaz, a little commune of the Alpes-Maritimes, near Mentone. All
+the young people of the place being assembled in a dancing-room, one
+of the young men was seen to fall suddenly to the ground, whilst a
+young woman, his partner, brandished a poniard, and was preparing to
+inflict a second blow on him, having already desperately wounded him
+in the stomach. The author of the crime was at once arrested. She
+declared her name to be Marie P----, twenty-one years of age, and
+added that she had acted from a motive of revenge, the young man
+having led her astray formerly with a promise of marriage, which he
+had never fulfilled. In the morning of that day she had summoned him
+to keep his word, and, upon his refusal, had determined on making the
+dancing-room the scene of her revenge. She was at first locked up in
+the prison of Mentone, and afterwards sent on to Nice. The young man
+continues in an alarming state."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX VI.
+
+Page 94.--_Regulations of Trade._
+
+
+I print portions of two letters of Mr. Dixon's in this place; one
+referring to our former discussion respecting the sale of votes:--
+
+
+ "57, Nile Street, Sunderland, March 21, 1867.
+
+"I only wish I could write in some tolerable good style, so that I
+could idealize, or rather realize to folks, the life and love, and
+marriage of a working man and his wife. It is in my opinion a working
+man that really does know what a true wife is, for his every want, his
+every comfort in life depends on her; and his children's home, their
+daily lives and future lives, are shaped by her. Napoleon wisely said,
+'France needs good mothers more than brave men. Good mothers are the
+makers or shapers of good and brave men.' I cannot say that these are
+the words, but it is the import of his speech on the topic. We have a
+saying amongst us: 'The man may spend and money lend, if his wife be
+_ought_,'--_i. e._ good wife;--'but he may work and try to save, but
+will have _nought_, if his wife be nought,'--_i. e._ bad or thriftless
+wife.
+
+"Now, since you are intending to treat of the working man's parliament
+and its duties, I will just throw out a few suggestions of what I
+consider should be the questions or measures that demand an early
+inquiry into and debate on. That guilds be established in every town,
+where masters and men may meet, so as to avoid the temptations of the
+public-house and _drink_. And then, let it be made law that every lad
+should serve an apprenticeship of not less than seven years to a trade
+or art, before he is allowed to be a member of such guild; also, that
+all wages be based on a rate of so much _per hour_, and not day, as at
+present; and let every man prove his workmanship before such a guild,
+and then allow to him such payment per hour as his craft merits. Let
+there be three grades, and then let there be trials of skill in
+workmanship every year; and then, if the workman of the third grade
+prove that he has made progress in his craft, reward him accordingly.
+Then, before a lad is put to any trade, why not see what he is
+naturally fitted for? Combe's book, entitled _The Constitution of
+Man_, throws a good deal of truth on to these matters. Now, here are
+two branches of the science of life that, so far, have never once been
+given trial of in this way. We certainly use them after a _crime_ has
+been committed, but not till then.
+
+"Next to that, cash, payment for all and everything needed in life.
+_Credit is a curse_ to him that gives it, and that takes it. He that
+lives by credit lives in general carelessly. If there was no credit,
+people then would have to live on what they earned! Then, after that,
+the Statute of Limitations of Fortune you propose. By the hour system,
+not a single man _need be idle_; it would give employment to all, and
+even two hours per day would realize more to a man than _breaking
+stones_. Thus you would make every one self-dependent--also no fear of
+being out of work altogether. Then let there be a Government fund for
+all the savings of the working man. I am afraid you will think this a
+wild, discursive sort of a letter.
+
+ "Yours truly,
+ "THOMAS DIXON."
+
+
+"I have read your references to the _Times_ on 'Bribery.' Well, that
+has long been my own opinion; they simply have a vote to sell, and
+sell it the same way as they sell potatoes, or a coat, or any other
+salable article. Voters generally say, 'What does this gentleman want
+in Parliament? Why, to help himself and his family or friends; he does
+not spend all the money he spends over his election for pure good of
+his country! No: it's to benefit his pocket, to be sure. Why should I
+not make a penny with my vote, as well as he does with his in
+Parliament?' I think that if the system of canvassing or election
+agents were done away with, and all personal canvassing for votes
+entirely abolished, it would help to put down bribery. Let each
+gentleman send to the electors his political opinions in a circular,
+and then let papers be sent, or cards, to each elector, and then let
+them go and record their votes in the same way they do for a
+councillor in the Corporation. It would save a great deal of expense,
+and prevent those scenes of drunkenness so common in our towns during
+elections. _Bewick's opinions_ of these matters are quite to the
+purpose, I think (_see page 201 of Memoir_). Again, respecting the
+Paris matter referred to in your last letter, I have read it. Does it
+not manifest plainly enough that Europeans are also in a measure
+possessed with that same _demoniacal spirit like the Japanese_?"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX VII.
+
+
+The following letter did not form part of the series written to Mr.
+Dixon; but is perhaps worth reprinting. I have not the date of the
+number of the _Gazette_ in which it appeared, but it was during the
+tailors' strike in London.
+
+
+ "TO THE EDITOR OF THE _Pall Mall Gazette_.
+
+"Sir,--
+
+"In your yesterday's article on strikes you have very neatly and
+tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy--to
+wit, that 'the value of any piece of labor cannot be defined'--and
+that 'all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got
+to do it for a certain sum.' Now, sir, the 'value' of any piece of
+labor, that is to say, the quantity of food and air which will enable
+a man to perform it without losing actually any of his flesh or his
+nervous energy, is as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of
+powder necessary to carry a given ball a given distance. And within
+limits varying by exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it
+is an ascertainable quantity. I told the public this five years
+ago--and under pardon of your politico-economical contributors--it is
+not a 'sentimental,' but a chemical fact.
+
+"Let any half-dozen of recognized London physicians state in precise
+terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they
+consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a laborer in
+any given manufacture, and the number of hours he may, without
+shortening his life, work at such business daily, if so sustained.
+
+"And let all masters be bound to give their men a choice between an
+order for that quantity of food and lodging, or such wages as the
+market may offer for that number of hours' work.
+
+"Proper laws for the maintenance of families would require further
+concession--but, in the outset, let but _this_ law of wages be
+established, and if then we have any more strikes you may denounce
+them without one word of remonstrance either from sense or
+sensibility.
+
+ "I am, Sir,
+ "Your obedient servant,
+ "JOHN RUSKIN."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, by John Ruskin
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+ The Project Gutenberg eBook of Time and Tide by Weare And Tyne, by John Ruskin.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, by John Ruskin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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 www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne
+ Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2010 [EBook #31196]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px;">
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="650" height="463" alt="FRONTISPIECE" title="FRONTISPIECE" />
+<span class="caption">CONISTON<br />
+<small>FROM A PHOTOGRAPH</small></span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="bbox">
+<h4>Library Edition</h4>
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+<h3>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h3>
+<h6>OF</h6>
+
+<h1>JOHN RUSKIN<br /><br /></h1>
+
+<h4>CROWN OF WILD OLIVE<br />
+TIME AND TIDE<br />
+QUEEN OF THE AIR<br />
+LECTURES ON ART AND LANDSCAPE<br />
+ARATRA PENTELICI</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+<h3>NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION<br />
+NEW YORK &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; CHICAGO</h3>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>TIME AND TIDE</h1>
+
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h2>WEARE AND TYNE<br /><br /></h2>
+
+<h5>TWENTY-FIVE LETTERS<br />
+TO<br />
+<big>A WORKING MAN OF SUNDERLAND</big><br />
+ON<br />
+<big>THE LAWS OF WORK.</big></h5>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+ <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+ <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td>&nbsp;</td>
+ <td><a href="#PREFACE"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></a></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><small>LETTER</small></td>
+ <td colspan="2">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_I">I.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Co-operation</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The two kinds of Co-operation.&mdash;In its highest sense it
+is not yet thought of.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_II">II.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Contentment</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_4">4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Co-operation, as hitherto understood, is perhaps not expedient.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_III">III.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Legislation</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of True Legislation.&mdash;That every Man may be a Law to himself.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_IV">IV.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Expenditure</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Expenses for Art and for War.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_V">V.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Entertainment</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.&mdash;(Covent Garden Pantomime.)</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_VI">VI.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Dexterity</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.&mdash;(The Japanese Jugglers.)</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_VII">VII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Festivity</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of the Various Expressions of National Festivity.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Things Written</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Four Possible Theories respecting the Authority of the Bible.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_IX">IX.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Thanksgiving</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Use of Music and Dancing under the Jewish
+Theocracy, compared with their Use by the Modern French.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_X">X.</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Wheat-Sifting</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Meaning, and Actual Operation, of Satanic or Demoniacal Influence.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XI">XI.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Golden Bough</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Satanic Power is mainly Twofold: the Power of causing Falsehood and the
+Power of causing Pain. The Resistance is by Law of Honor and Law of Delight.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XII">XII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Dictatorship</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Necessity of Imperative Law to the Prosperity of States.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Episcopacy and Dukedom</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Proper Offices of the Bishop and Duke; or, "Overseer" and "Leader."</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Trade-Warrant</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The First Group of Essential Laws.&mdash;Against Theft by
+False Work, and by Bankruptcy.&mdash;Necessary Publicity of Accounts.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XV">XV.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Per-Centage</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Nature of Theft by Unjust Profits.&mdash;Crime can
+finally be arrested only by Education.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Education</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of Public Education irrespective of Class distinction. It consists essentially
+in giving Habits of Mercy, and Habits of Truth. (<i>Gentleness and Justice.</i>)</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Difficulties</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Relations of Education to Position in Life.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Humility</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The harmful Effects of Servile Employments. The possible Practice and Exhibition of sincere Humility by Religious Persons.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Broken Reeds</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The General Pressure of Excessive and Improper Work, in English Life.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XX">XX.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Rose-gardens</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of Improvidence in Marriage in the Middle Classes; nd of the advisable Restrictions of it.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XXI">XXI.</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Gentillesse</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of the Dignity of the Four Fine Arts; and of the Proper System of Retail Trade.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Master</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of the Normal Position and Duties of the Upper Classes. General Statement of the Land Question.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Landmarks</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of the Just Tenure of Lands; and the Proper Functions of high Public Officers.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">The Rod and Honeycomb</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>The Office of the Soldier.</td><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#LETTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Hyssop</span></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>&nbsp;</td><td>Of inevitable Distinction of Rank, and necessary Submission
+to Authority. The Meaning of Pure-Heartedness. Conclusion.</td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>APPENDICES.</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Appendices">
+<tr>
+ <td><small>APPENDIX</small></td>
+ <td>&nbsp;</td>
+ <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_I">I.</a></td>
+ <td>Expenditure on Science and Art</td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_II">II.</a></td>
+ <td>Legislation of Frederick the Great</td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_III">III.</a></td>
+ <td>Effect of Modern Entertainments on the Mind of Youth</td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_IV">IV.</a></td>
+ <td>Drunkenness as the Cause of Crime</td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_V">V.</a></td>
+ <td>Abuse of Food</td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_VI">VI.</a></td>
+ <td>Regulations of Trade</td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_VII">VII.</a></td>
+ <td>Letter to the Editor of the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i></td>
+ <td align="right"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following Letters were written to Mr. Thomas Dixon, a working
+cork-cutter of Sunderland, during the agitation for Reform in the
+spring of the present year. They contain, in the plainest terms I
+could use, the substance of what I then desired to say to our English
+workmen, which was briefly this:&mdash;"The reform you desire may give you
+more influence in Parliament; but your influence there will of course
+be useless to you,&mdash;perhaps worse than useless, until you have wisely
+made up your minds what you wish Parliament to do for you; and when
+you <i>have</i> made up your minds about that, you will find, not only that
+you can do it for yourselves, without the intervention of Parliament;
+but that eventually nobody <i>but</i> yourselves can do it. And to help
+you, as far as one of your old friends may, in so making up your
+minds, such and such things are what it seems to me you should ask
+for, and, moreover, strive for with your heart and might."</p>
+
+<p>The letters now published relate only to one division of the laws
+which I desired to recommend to the consideration of our
+operatives,&mdash;those, namely, bearing upon honesty of work, and honesty
+of exchange. I hope in the course of next year that I may be able to
+complete the second part of the series, [I could not; but 'Fors
+Clavigera' is now (1872) answering the same end:] which will relate to
+the possible comforts and wholesome laws, of familiar household life,
+and the share which a laboring nation may attain in the skill, and the
+treasures, of the higher arts.</p>
+
+<p>The letters are republished as they were written, with,
+here and there, correction of a phrase, and omission of one
+or two passages of merely personal or temporary interest;
+the headings only are added, in order to give the reader some
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>
+clue to the general aim of necessarily desultory discussion;
+and the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters in reply, referred to
+in the text, are added in the Appendix, and will be found
+well deserving of attention.</p>
+
+<p class="salute">
+<span class="smcap">Denmark Hill</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>December 14, 1867</i>.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h1>TIME AND TIDE,</h1>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+<h3>WEARE AND TYNE.</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_I" id="LETTER_I"></a>LETTER I.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE TWO KINDS OF CO-OPERATION.&mdash;IN ITS HIGHEST SENSE IT
+IS NOT YET THOUGHT OF.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><span class="smcap">Denmark Hill</span>, <i>February 4, 1867</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Friend</span>,</p>
+
+<p>1. You have now everything I have yet published on political economy;
+but there are several points in these books of mine which I intended
+to add notes to, and it seems little likely I shall get that soon
+done. So I think the best way of making up for the want of these is to
+write you a few simple letters, which you can read to other people, or
+send to be printed, if you like, in any of your journals where you
+think they may be useful.</p>
+
+<p>I especially want you, for one thing, to understand the sense in which
+the word "co-operation" is used in my books. You will find I am always
+pleading for it; and yet I don't at all mean the co-operation of partnership
+(as opposed to the system of wages) which is now so gradually extending
+itself among our great firms. I am glad to see it doing so, yet not
+altogether glad: for none of you who are engaged in the immediate struggle
+between the system of co-operation and the system of mastership know how
+much the dispute involves; and none of us know the results to which it
+may finally lead. For the alternative is not, in reality, only between
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+two modes of conducting business&mdash;it is between two different
+states of society. It is not the question whether an amount of wages,
+no greater in the end than that at present received by the men, may be
+paid to them in a way which shall give them share in the risks and
+interest in the prosperity of the business. The question is, really,
+whether the profits which are at present taken, as his own right, by
+the person whose capital, or energy, or ingenuity, has made him head
+of the firm, are not in some proportion to be divided among the
+subordinates of it.</p>
+
+<p>2. I do not wish, for the moment, to enter into any inquiry as to the
+just claims of capital, or as to the proportions in which profits
+ought to be, or are in actually existing firms, divided. I merely take
+the one assured and essential condition, that a somewhat larger income
+will be in co-operative firms secured to the subordinates, by the
+diminution of the income of the chief. And the general tendency of
+such a system is to increase the facilities of advancement among the
+subordinates; to stimulate their ambition; to enable them to lay by,
+if they are provident, more ample and more early provision for
+declining years; and to form in the end a vast class of persons wholly
+different from the existing operative:&mdash;members of society, possessing
+each a moderate competence; able to procure, therefore, not indeed
+many of the luxuries, but all the comforts of life; and to devote some
+leisure to the attainments of liberal education, and to the other
+objects of free life. On the other hand, by the exact sum which is
+divided among them, more than their present wages, the fortune of the
+man who, under the present system, takes all the profits of the
+business, will be diminished; and the acquirement of large private
+fortune by regular means, and all the conditions of life belonging to
+such fortune, will be rendered impossible in the mercantile community.</p>
+
+<p>3. Now, the magnitude of the social change hereby involved,
+and the consequent differences in the moral relations between
+individuals, have not as yet been thought of,&mdash;much less
+estimated,&mdash;by any of your writers on commercial subjects;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+and it is because I do not yet feel able to grapple with them that I
+have left untouched, in the books I send you, the question of
+co-operative labor. When I use the word "co-operation," it is not
+meant to refer to these new constitutions of firms at all. I use the
+word in a far wider sense, as opposed, not to masterhood, but to
+<i>competition</i>. I do not mean, for instance, by co-operation, that all
+the master bakers in a town are to give a share of their profits to
+the men who go out with the bread; but that the masters are not to try
+to undersell each other, nor seek each to get the other's business,
+but are all to form one society, selling to the public under a common
+law of severe penalty for unjust dealing, and at an established price.
+I do not mean that all bankers' clerks should be partners in the bank;
+but I do mean that all bankers should be members of a great national
+body, answerable as a society for all deposits; and that the private
+business of speculating with other people's money should take another
+name than that of "banking." And, for final instance, I mean by
+"co-operation" not only fellowships between trading <i>firms</i>, but
+between trading <i>nations</i>; so that it shall no more be thought (as it
+is now, with ludicrous and vain selfishness) an advantage for one
+nation to undersell another; and take its occupation away from it; but
+that the primal and eternal law of vital commerce shall be of all men
+understood&mdash;namely, that every nation is fitted by its character,
+and the nature of its territories, for some particular employments or
+manufactures; and that it is the true interest of every other nation
+to encourage it in such speciality, and by no means to interfere with,
+but in all ways forward and protect, its efforts, ceasing all
+rivalship with it, so soon as it is strong enough to occupy its proper
+place. You see, therefore, that the idea of co-operation, in the sense
+in which I employ it, has hardly yet entered into the minds of
+political inquirers; and I will not pursue it at present; but return
+to that system which is beginning to obtain credence and practice
+among us. This, however, must be in a following letter.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_II" id="LETTER_II"></a>LETTER II.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">CO-OPERATION, AS HITHERTO UNDERSTOOD, IS PERHAPS NOT EXPEDIENT.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>February 4, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>4. Limiting the inquiry, then, for the present, as proposed in the
+close of my last letter, to the form of co-operation which is now upon
+its trial in practice, I would beg of you to observe that the points
+at issue, in the comparison of this system with that of mastership,
+are by no means hitherto frankly stated; still less can they as yet be
+fairly brought to test. For all mastership is not alike in principle;
+there are just and unjust masterships; and while, on the one hand,
+there can be no question but that co-operation is better than unjust
+and tyrannous mastership, there is very great room for doubt whether
+it be better than a just and benignant mastership.</p>
+
+<p>5. At present you&mdash;every one of you&mdash;speak, and act, as if there were
+only one alternative; namely, between a system in which profits shall
+be divided in due proportion among all; and the present one, in which
+the workman is paid the least wages he will take, under the pressure
+of competition in the labor-market. But an intermediate method is
+conceivable; a method which appears to me more prudent, and in its
+ultimate results more just, than the co-operative one. An arrangement
+may be supposed, and I have good hope also may one day be effected, by
+which every subordinate shall be paid sufficient and regular wages,
+according to his rank; by which due provision shall be made out of the
+profits of the business for sick and superannuated workers; and by which
+the master, <i>being held responsible, as a minor king or governor, for
+the conduct as well as the comfort of all those under his rule</i>, shall,
+on that condition, be permitted to retain to his own use the surplus profits
+of the business which the fact of his being its master may be assumed to
+prove that he has organized by superior intellect and energy. And
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+I think this principle of regular wage-paying, whether it be in the
+abstract more just, or not, is at all events the more prudent; for
+this reason mainly, that in spite of all the cant which is continually
+talked by cruel, foolish, or designing persons about "the duty of
+remaining content in the position in which Providence has placed you,"
+there is a root of the very deepest and holiest truth in the saying,
+which gives to it such power as it still retains, even uttered by
+unkind and unwise lips, and received into doubtful and embittered
+hearts.</p>
+
+<p>6. If, indeed, no effort be made to discover, in the course of their
+early training, for what services the youths of a nation are
+individually qualified; nor any care taken to place those who have
+unquestionably proved their fitness for certain functions, in the
+offices they could best fulfil,&mdash;then, to call the confused wreck
+of social order and life brought about by malicious collision and
+competition, an arrangement of Providence, is quite one of the most
+insolent and wicked ways in which it is possible to take the name of
+God in vain. But if, at the proper time, some earnest effort be made
+to place youths, according to their capacities, in the occupations for
+which they are fitted, I think the system of organization will be
+finally found the best, which gives the least encouragement to
+thoughts of any great future advance in social life.</p>
+
+<p>7. The healthy sense of progress, which is necessary to the strength
+and happiness of men, does not consist in the anxiety of a struggle to
+attain higher place, or rank, but in gradually perfecting the manner,
+and accomplishing the ends, of the life which we have chosen, or which
+circumstances have determined for us. Thus, I think the object of a
+workman's ambition should not be to become a master; but to attain
+daily more subtle and exemplary skill in his own craft, to save from
+his wages enough to enrich and complete his home gradually with more
+delicate and substantial comforts; and to lay by such store as shall
+be sufficient for the happy maintenance of his old age (rendering him
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+independent of the help provided for the sick and indigent by the
+arrangement pre-supposed), and sufficient also for the starting of his
+children in a rank of life equal to his own. If his wages are not
+enough to enable him to do this, they are unjustly low; if they are
+once raised to this adequate standard, I do not think that by the
+possible increase of his gains under contingencies of trade, or by
+divisions of profits with his master, he should be enticed into
+feverish hope of an entire change of condition; and as an almost
+necessary consequence, pass his days in an anxious discontent with
+immediate circumstances, and a comfortless scorn of his daily life,
+for which no subsequent success could indemnify him. And I am the more
+confident in this belief, because, even supposing a gradual rise in
+social rank possible for all well-conducted persons, my experience
+does not lead me to think the elevation itself, when attained, would
+be conducive to their happiness.</p>
+
+<p>8. The grounds of this opinion I will give you in a future letter; in
+the present one, I must pass to a more important point&mdash;namely,
+that if this stability of condition be indeed desirable for those in
+whom existing circumstances might seem to justify discontent, much
+more must it be good and desirable for those who already possess
+everything which can be conceived necessary to happiness. It is the
+merest insolence of selfishness to preach contentment to a laborer who
+gets thirty shillings a week, while we suppose an active and plotting
+covetousness to be meritorious in a man who has three thousand a year.
+In this, as in all other points of mental discipline, it is the duty
+of the upper classes to set an example to the lower; and to recommend
+and justify the restraint of the ambition of their inferiors, chiefly
+by severe and timely limitation of their own. And, without at present
+inquiring into the greater or less convenience of the possible methods
+of accomplishing such an object, (every detail in suggestions of this
+kind necessarily furnishing separate matter of dispute,) I will merely
+state my long-fixed conviction, that one of the most important
+conditions of a healthful system
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+of social economy, would be the restraint of the properties and
+incomes of the upper classes within certain fixed limits. The
+temptation to use every energy in the accumulation of wealth being
+thus removed, another, and a higher ideal of the duties of advanced
+life would be necessarily created in the national mind; by withdrawal
+of those who had attained the prescribed limits of wealth from
+commercial competition, earlier worldly success, and earlier marriage,
+with all its beneficent moral results, would become possible to the
+young; while the older men of active intellect, whose sagacity is now
+lost or warped in the furtherance of their own meanest interests,
+would be induced unselfishly to occupy themselves in the
+superintendence of public institutions, or furtherance of public
+advantage. And out of this class it would be found natural and prudent
+always to choose the members of the legislative body of the Commons;
+and to attach to the order also some peculiar honors, in the
+possession of which such complacency would be felt as would more than
+replace the unworthy satisfaction of being supposed richer than
+others, which to many men is the principal charm of their wealth. And
+although no law of this purport would ever be imposed on themselves by
+the actual upper classes, there is no hindrance to its being gradually
+brought into force from beneath, without any violent or impatient
+proceedings; and this I will endeavor to show you in my next letter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_III" id="LETTER_III"></a>LETTER III.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF TRUE LEGISLATION. THAT EVERY MAN MAY BE A LAW TO HIMSELF.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>February 17, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>9. No, I have not been much worse in health; but I was asked
+by a friend to look over some work in which you will all be
+deeply interested one day, so that I could not write again
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+till now. I was the more sorry, because there were several things I
+wished to note in your last letter; one especially leads me directly
+to what I in any case was desirous of urging upon you. You say, "In
+vol. 6th of 'Frederick the Great' I find a great deal that I feel
+quite certain, if our Queen or Government could make law, thousands of
+our English workmen would hail with a shout of joy and gladness." I do
+not remember to what you especially allude, but whatever the rules you
+speak of may be, unless there be anything in them contrary to the
+rights of present English property, why should you care whether the
+Government makes them law or not? Can you not, you thousands of
+English workmen, simply make them a law to yourselves, by practising
+them?</p>
+
+<p>It is now some five or six years since I first had occasion to speak
+to the members of the London Working Men's College on the subject of
+Reform, and the substance of what I said to them was this: "You are
+all agape, my friends, for this mighty privilege of having your
+opinions represented in Parliament. The concession might be
+desirable,&mdash;at all events courteous,&mdash;if only it were quite
+certain you had got any opinions to represent. But have you? Are you
+agreed on any single thing you systematically want? Less work and more
+wages, of course; but how much lessening of work do you suppose is
+possible? Do you think the time will ever come for everybody to have
+<i>no</i> work and <i>all</i> wages? Or have you yet taken the trouble so much
+as to think out the nature of the true connection between wages and
+work, and to determine, even approximately, the real quantity of the
+one, that can, according to the laws of God and nature, be given for
+the other; for, rely on it, make what laws you like, that quantity
+only can you at last get.</p>
+
+<p>10. "Do you know how many mouths can be fed on an acre of land, or how
+fast those mouths multiply? and have you considered what is to be done
+finally with unfeedable mouths? 'Send them to be fed elsewhere,' do
+you say? Have you, then, formed any opinion as to the time at which
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+emigration should begin, or the countries to which it should
+preferably take place, or the kind of population which should be left
+at home? Have you planned the permanent state which you would wish
+England to hold, emigrating over her edges, like a full well,
+constantly? How full would you have her be of people, first? and of
+what sort of people? Do you want her to be nothing but a large
+workshop and forge, so that the name of 'Englishman' shall be
+synonymous with 'ironmonger,' all over the world? or would you like to
+keep some of your lords and landed gentry still, and a few green
+fields and trees?</p>
+
+<p>11. "You know well enough that there is not one of these questions, I
+do not say which you can answer, but which you have ever <i>thought</i> of
+answering; and yet you want to have voices in Parliament! Your voices
+are not worth a rat's squeak, either in Parliament or out of it, till
+you have some ideas to utter with them; and when you have the
+thoughts, you will not want to utter them, for you will see that your
+way to the fulfilling of them does not lie through speech. You think
+such matters need debating about? By all means debate about them; but
+debate among yourselves, and with such honest helpers of your thoughts
+as you can find; if by that way you cannot get at the truth, do you
+suppose you could get at it sooner in the House of Commons, where the
+only aim of many of the members would be to refute every word uttered
+in your favor; and where the settlement of any question whatever
+depends merely on the perturbations of the balance of conflicting
+interests?"</p>
+
+<p>12. That was, in main particulars, what I then said to the men of the
+Working Men's College; and in this recurrent agitation about Reform,
+that is what I would steadfastly say again. Do you think it is only
+under the lacquered splendors of Westminster,&mdash;you working men
+of England,&mdash;that your affairs can be rationally talked over?
+You have perfect liberty and power to talk over, and establish for
+yourselves, whatever laws you please; so long as you do not interfere
+with other people's liberties or properties. Elect a parliament
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+of your own. Choose the best men among you, the best at least you can
+find, by whatever system of election you think likeliest to secure
+such desirable result. Invite trustworthy persons of other classes to
+join your council; appoint time and place for its stated sittings, and
+let this parliament, chosen after your own hearts, deliberate upon the
+possible modes of the regulation of industry, and advisablest schemes
+for helpful discipline of life; and so lay before you the best laws
+they can devise, which such of you as were wise might submit to, and
+teach their children to obey. And if any of the laws thus determined
+appear to be inconsistent with the present circumstances or customs of
+trade, do not make a noise about them, nor try to enforce them
+suddenly on others, nor embroider them on flags, nor call meetings in
+parks about them, in spite of railings and police; but keep them in
+your thoughts and sight, as objects of patient purpose and future
+achievement by peaceful strength.</p>
+
+<p>13. For you need not think that even if you obtained a majority of
+representatives in the existing parliament, you could immediately
+compel any system of business, broadly contrary to that now
+established by custom. If you could pass laws to-morrow, wholly
+favorable to yourselves, as you might think, because unfavorable to
+your masters, and to the upper classes of society,&mdash;the only result
+would be that the riches of the country would at once leave it, and
+you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great change
+for the better can ever be easily accomplished, or quickly; nor by
+impulsive, ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men,
+without much suffering. The suffering must, indeed, come, one way or
+another, in all greatly critical periods; the only question, for us,
+is whether we will reach our ends (if we ever reach them) through a
+chain of involuntary miseries, many of them useless, and all ignoble;
+or whether we will know the worst at once, and deal with it by the
+wisely sharp methods of Godsped courage.</p>
+
+<p>14. This, I repeat to you, it is wholly in your own power
+to do, but it is in your power on one condition only, that of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+steadfast truth to yourselves, and to all men. If there is not, in
+the sum of it, honesty enough among you to teach you to frame, and
+strengthen you to obey, <i>just</i> laws of trade, there is no hope left
+for you. No political constitution can ennoble knaves; no privileges
+can assist them; no possessions enrich them. Their gains are occult
+curses; comfortless loss their truest blessing; failure and pain
+Nature's only mercy to them. Look to it, therefore, first that you get
+some wholesome honesty for the foundation of all things. Without the
+resolution in your hearts to do good work, so long as your right hands
+have motion in them; and to do it whether the issue be that you die or
+live, no life worthy the name will ever be possible to you, while, in
+once forming the resolution that your work is to be well done, life is
+really won, here and for ever. And to make your children capable of
+such resolution, is the beginning of all true education, of which I
+have more to say in a future letter.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_IV" id="LETTER_IV"></a>LETTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE EXPENSES FOR ART AND FOR WAR.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>February 19, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>15. In the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of yesterday, second column of second
+page, you will find, close to each other, two sentences which bear
+closely on matters in hand. The first of these is the statement, that
+in the debate on the grant for the Blacas collection, "Mr. Bernal
+Osborne got an assenting cheer, when he said that 'whenever science
+and art were mentioned it was a sign to look after the national
+pockets.'" I want you to notice this fact, <i>i. e.</i>, (the debate in
+question being on a <i>total</i> grant of 164,000<i>l.</i>, of which 48,000<i>l.</i>
+only were truly for art's sake, and the rest for shop's sake,) in
+illustration of a passage in my 'Sesame and Lilies' (pp. 69, 70 of the
+small edition, and pp. 46, 47 of Vol. I. of the Revised Series of the
+Entire Works),<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#APPENDIX_I" class="fnanchor">[I]</a>
+to which I shall have again to refer you,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+with some further comments, in the sequel of these letters. The second passage
+is to the effect that "The Trades' Union Bill was read a second time,
+after a claim from Mr. Hadfield, Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Samuelson, to
+admit working men into the commission; to which Mr. Watkin answered
+'that the working men's friend was too conspicuous in the body;' and
+Mr. Roebuck, 'that when a butcher was tried for murder it was not
+necessary to have butchers on the jury.'"</p>
+
+<p>16. Note this second passage with respect to what I said in my last
+letter, as to the impossibility of the laws of work being investigated
+in the House of Commons. What admixture of elements, think you, would
+avail to obtain so much as decent hearing (how should we then speak of
+impartial judgment?) of the cause of working men, in an assembly which
+permits to one of its principal members this insolent discourtesy of
+language, in dealing with a preliminary question of the highest
+importance; and permits it as so far expressive of the whole color and
+tone of its own thoughts, that the sentence is quoted by one of the
+most temperate and accurate of our daily journals, as representing the
+total answer of the opposite side in the debate? No! be assured you
+can do nothing yet at Westminster. You must have your own parliament,
+and if you cannot detect enough honesty among you to constitute a
+justly minded one, for the present matters must take their course, and
+that will be, yet awhile, to the worse.</p>
+
+<p>17. I meant to have continued this subject, but I see two
+other statements in the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of to-day, with
+which, and a single remark upon them, I think it will be well
+to close my present letter.</p>
+
+<p>(1) "The total sum asked for in the army estimates,
+published this morning, is 14,752,200<i>l.</i>, being an increase of
+412,000<i>l.</i> over the previous year."</p>
+
+<p>(2) "Yesterday the annual account of the navy receipts
+and expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1866, was
+issued from the Admiralty. The expenditure was 10,268,115<i>l.</i>
+7<i>s.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Omitting the seven shillings, and even the odd hundred-thousands
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+of pounds, the net annual expenditure for army and navy appears to be
+twenty-four millions.</p>
+
+<p>The "grant in science and art," two-thirds of which was
+not in reality for either, but for amusement and shop interests
+in the Paris Exhibition&mdash;the grant which the House of Commons
+feels to be indicative of general danger to the national
+pockets&mdash;is, as above stated, 164,000<i>l.</i> Now, I believe the
+three additional ciphers which turn thousands into millions
+produce on the intelligent English mind usually the effect of&mdash;three
+ciphers. But calculate the proportion of these two
+sums, and then imagine to yourself the beautiful state of
+rationality of any private gentleman, who, having regretfully
+spent 164<i>l.</i> on pictures for his walls, paid willingly 24,000<i>l.</i>
+annually to the policeman who looked after his shutters!
+You practical English!&mdash;will you ever unbar the shutters of
+your brains, and hang a picture or two in those state-chambers?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_V" id="LETTER_V"></a>LETTER V.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.&mdash;(COVENT GARDEN
+PANTOMIME.)</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>February 25, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>18. There is this great advantage in the writing real letters,
+that the direct correspondence is a sufficient reason for
+saying, in or out of order, everything that the chances of the
+day bring into one's head, in connection with the matter in
+hand; and as such things very usually go out of one's head
+again, after they get tired of their lodging, they would otherwise
+never get said at all. And thus to-day, quite out of
+order, but in very close connection with another part of our
+subject, I am going to tell you what I was thinking on Friday
+evening last, in Covent Garden Theater, as I was looking,
+and not laughing, at the pantomime of 'Ali Baba and the
+Forty Thieves.'</p>
+
+<p>When you begin seriously to consider the question referred
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+to in my second letter, of the essential, and in the outcome
+inviolable, connection between quantity of wages, and quantity of
+work, you will see that "wages" in the full sense don't mean "pay"
+merely, but the reward, whatever it may be, of pleasure as well as
+profit, and of various other advantages, which a man is meant by
+Providence to get during life, for work well done. Even limiting the
+idea to "pay," the question is not so much what quantity of coin you
+get, as&mdash;what you can get for it when you have it. Whether a
+shilling a day be good pay or not, depends wholly on what a
+"shilling's worth" is; that is to say, what quantity of the things you
+want may be had for a shilling. And that again depends, and a great
+deal more than that depends, on what you <i>do</i> want. If only drink, and
+foul clothes, such and such pay may be enough for you; if you want
+good meat and good clothes, you must have larger wage; if clean rooms
+and fresh air, larger still, and so on. You say, perhaps, "every one
+wants these better things." So far from that, a wholesome taste for
+cleanliness and fresh air is one of the final attainments of humanity.
+There are now not many European gentlemen, even in the highest
+classes, who have a pure and right love of fresh air. They would put
+the filth of tobacco even into the first breeze of a May morning.</p>
+
+<p>19. But there are better things even than these, which one may want.
+Grant that one has good food, clothes, lodging, and breathing, is that
+all the pay one ought to have for one's work? Wholesome means of
+existence and nothing more? Enough, perhaps, you think, if everybody
+could get these. It may be so; I will not, at this moment, dispute it;
+nevertheless, I will boldly say that you should sometimes want more
+than these; and for one of many things more, you should want
+occasionally to be amused!</p>
+
+<p>You know, the upper classes, most of them, want to be amused all day
+long. They think</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><p>
+"One moment <i>un</i>amused a misery<br />
+Not made for feeble men."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+Perhaps you have been in the habit of despising them for
+this; and thinking how much worthier and nobler it was to
+work all day, and care at night only for food and rest, than
+to do no useful thing all day, eat unearned food, and spend
+the evening, as the morning, in "change of follies and relays
+of joy." No, my good friend, that is one of the fatalest deceptions.
+It is not a noble thing, in sum and issue of it, not
+to care to be amused. It is indeed a far higher <i>moral</i> state,
+but is a much lower <i>creature</i> state, than that of the upper
+classes.</p>
+
+<p>20. Yonder poor horse, calm slave in daily chains at the railroad
+siding, who drags the detached rear of the train to the front again,
+and slips aside so deftly as the buffers meet; and, within eighteen
+inches of death every ten minutes, fulfils his changeless duty all day
+long, content, for eternal reward, with his night's rest, and his
+champed mouthful of hay;&mdash;anything more earnestly moral and beautiful
+one cannot image&mdash;I never see the creature without a kind of worship.
+And yonder musician, who used the greatest power which (in the art he
+knew) the Father of spirits ever yet breathed into the clay of this
+world;&mdash;who used it, I say, to follow and fit with perfect sound the
+words of the 'Zauberfl&ouml;te' and of 'Don Giovanni'&mdash;foolishest and most
+monstrous of conceivable human words and subjects of thought&mdash;for the
+future "amusement" of his race!&mdash;No such spectacle of unconscious (and
+in that unconsciousness all the more fearful) moral degradation of the
+highest faculty to the lowest purpose can be found in history. But
+Mozart is nevertheless a nobler creature than the horse at the siding;
+nor would it be the least nearer the purpose of his Maker that he, and
+all his frivolous audiences, should evade the degradation of the
+profitless piping, only by living, like horses, in daily physical
+labor for daily bread.</p>
+
+<p>21. There are three things to which man is
+born<a name="FNanchor_A_2" id="FNanchor_A_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_2" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>&mdash;labor,
+and sorrow, and joy. Each of these three things has its baseness
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+and its nobleness. There is base labor, and noble labor.
+There is base sorrow, and noble sorrow. There is base
+joy, and noble joy. But you must not think to avoid the corruption
+of these things by doing without the things themselves.
+Nor can any life be right that has not all three.
+Labor without joy is base. Labor without sorrow is base.
+Sorrow without labor is base. Joy without labor is base.</p>
+
+<p>22. I dare say you think I am a long time in coming to the pantomime;
+I am not ready to come to it yet in due course, for we ought to go and
+see the Japanese jugglers first, in order to let me fully explain to
+you what I mean. But I can't write much more to-day; so I shall merely
+tell you what part of the play set me thinking of all this, and leave
+you to consider of it yourself, till I can send you another letter.
+The pantomime was, as I said, 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.' The
+forty thieves were girls. The forty thieves had forty companions, who
+were girls. The forty thieves and their forty companions were in some
+way mixed up with about four hundred and forty fairies, who were
+girls. There was an Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, in which the
+Oxford and Cambridge men were girls. There was a transformation scene,
+with a forest, in which the flowers were girls, and a chandelier, in
+which the lamps were girls, and a great rainbow which was all of
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>23. Mingled incongruously with these seraphic, and, as far as my
+boyish experience extends, novel, elements of pantomime, there were
+yet some of its old and fast-expiring elements. There were, in
+speciality, two thoroughly good pantomime actors&mdash;Mr. W. H. Payne and
+Mr. Frederick Payne. All that these two did, was done admirably. There
+were two subordinate actors, who played, subordinately well, the fore
+and hind legs of a donkey. And there was a little actress of whom I
+have chiefly to speak, who played exquisitely the little part she had
+to play. The scene in which she appeared was the only one in the whole
+pantomime in which there was any dramatic effort, or, with a few rare
+exceptions, any dramatic possibility. It was the home scene, in which
+Ali Baba's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+wife, on washing day, is called upon by butcher, baker,
+and milkman, with unpaid bills; and in the extremity of her distress
+hears her husband's knock at the door, and opens it for him to drive
+in his donkey, laden with gold. The children who have been beaten
+instead of getting breakfast, presently share in the raptures of their
+father and mother; and the little lady I spoke of, eight or nine years
+old,&mdash;dances a <i>pas-de-deux</i> with the donkey.</p>
+
+<p>24. She did it beautifully and simply, as a child ought to dance. She
+was not an infant prodigy; there was no evidence, in the finish or
+strength of her motion, that she had been put to continual torture
+through half her eight or nine years. She did nothing more than any
+child well taught, but painlessly, might easily do. She caricatured no
+older person,&mdash;attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She was
+dressed decently,&mdash;she moved decently,&mdash;she looked and behaved
+innocently,&mdash;and she danced her joyful dance with perfect grace,
+spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness. And through all the vast
+theater, full of English fathers and mothers and children, there was
+not one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.</p>
+
+<p>Presently after this, came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you,
+were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and
+time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty
+thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British
+public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a thinking; and
+saw little more of the piece, except as an ugly and disturbing dream.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_2" id="Footnote_A_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_2"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+I ask the reader's thoughtful attention to this
+paragraph, on which much of what else I have to say depends.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_VI" id="LETTER_VI"></a>LETTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.&mdash;(THE JAPANESE JUGGLERS.)</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>February 28, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>25. I have your pleasant letter with references to Frederick. I will look at them
+carefully.<a name="FNanchor_A_3" id="FNanchor_A_3"></a><a href="#APPENDIX_II" class="fnanchor">[II]</a>
+Mr. Carlyle himself will be pleased to hear this letter when he comes
+home. I heard from him last week at Mentone. He is well, and glad of
+the light and calm of Italy. I must get back to the evil light and
+uncalm, of the places I was taking you through.</p>
+
+<p>(Parenthetically, did you see the article in the 'Times' of yesterday
+on bribery, and the conclusion of the commission&mdash;"No one sold any
+opinions, for no one had any opinions to sell"?)</p>
+
+<p>Both on Thursday and Friday last I had been tormented by many things,
+and wanted to disturb my course of thought any way I could. I have
+told you what entertainment I got on Friday, first, for it was then
+that I began meditating over these letters; let me tell you now what
+entertainment I found on Thursday.</p>
+
+<p>26. You may have heard that a company of Japanese jugglers has come
+over to exhibit in London. There has long been an increasing interest in
+Japanese art, which has been very harmful to many of our own painters,
+and I greatly desired to see what these people were, and what they did.
+Well, I have seen Blondin, and various English and French circus work,
+but never yet anything that surprised me so much as one of these men's
+exercises on a suspended pole. Its special character was a close
+approximation to the action and power of the monkey; even to the
+prehensile power in the foot; so that I asked a sculptor-friend who
+sat in front of me, whether he thought such a grasp could be acquired
+by practice, or indicated difference in race. He said he thought
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+it might be got by practice. There was also much inconceivably
+dexterous work in spinning of tops,&mdash;making them pass in balanced
+motion along the edge of a sword, and along a level string, and the
+like;&mdash;the father performing in the presence of his two children,
+who encouraged him continually with short, sharp cries, like those of
+animals. Then there was some fairly good sleight-of-hand juggling of
+little interest; ending with a dance by the juggler, first as an
+animal, and then as a goblin, Now, there was this great difference
+between the Japanese masks used in this dance and our common pantomime
+masks for beasts and demons,&mdash;that our English masks are only
+stupidly and loathsomely ugly, by exaggeration of feature, or of
+defect of feature. But the Japanese masks (like the frequent monsters
+of Japanese art) were inventively frightful, like fearful dreams; and
+whatever power it is that acts on human minds, enabling them to invent
+such, appears to me not only to deserve the term "demoniacal," as the
+only word expressive of its character; but to be logically capable of
+no other definition.</p>
+
+<p>27. The impression, therefore, produced upon me by the whole scene,
+was that of being in the presence of human creatures of a partially
+inferior race, but not without great human gentleness, domestic
+affection, and ingenious intellect; who were, nevertheless, as a
+nation, afflicted by an evil spirit, and driven by it to recreate
+themselves in achieving, or beholding the achievement, through years
+of patience, of a certain correspondence with the nature of the lower
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>28. These, then, were the two forms of diversion or recreation of my
+mind possible to me, in two days, when I needed such help, in this
+metropolis of England. I might, as a rich man, have had better music,
+if I had so chosen, though, even so, not rational or helpful; but a
+poor man could only have these, or worse than these, if he cared for
+any manner of spectacle. (I am not at present, observe, speaking of
+pure acting, which is a study, and recreative only as a noble book is;
+but of means of <i>mere</i> amusement.)</p>
+
+<p>Now, lastly, in illustration of the effect of these and other
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+such "amusements," and of the desire to obtain them, on the minds of our
+youth, read the 'Times' correspondent's letter from Paris, in the tenth
+page of the paper, to-day;<a name="FNanchor_A_4" id="FNanchor_A_4"></a><a href="#APPENDIX_III" class="fnanchor">[III]</a>
+and that will be quite enough for you to read, for the present, I believe.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_VII" id="LETTER_VII"></a>LETTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF THE VARIOUS EXPRESSIONS OF NATIONAL FESTIVITY.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 4, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>29. The subject which I want to bring before you is now branched, and
+worse than branched, reticulated, in so many directions, that I hardly
+know which shoot of it to trace, or which knot to lay hold of first.</p>
+
+<p>I had intended to return to those Japanese jugglers, after a visit to
+a theater in Paris; but I had better, perhaps, at once tell you the
+piece of the performance which, in connection with the scene in the
+English pantomime, bears most on matters in hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was also a dance by a little girl&mdash;though one older than Ali
+Baba's daughter, (I suppose a girl of twelve or fourteen). A dance, so
+called, which consisted only in a series of short, sharp contractions
+and jerks of the body and limbs, resulting in attitudes of distorted
+and quaint ugliness, such as might be produced in a puppet by sharp
+twitching of strings at its joints: these movements being made to the
+sound of two instruments, which between them accomplished only a quick
+vibratory beating and strumming, in nearly the time of a
+hearth-cricket's song, but much harsher, and of course louder, and
+without any sweetness; only in the monotony and unintended aimless
+construction of it, reminding one of various other insect and reptile
+cries or warnings: partly of the cicala's hiss; partly of the little
+melancholy German frog which says "Mu, mu, mu," all summer-day long,
+with its nose out of the pools by Dresden and Leipsic; and partly of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+the deadened quivering and intense continuousness of the alarm of the
+rattlesnake.</p>
+
+<p>While this was going on, there was a Bible text repeating itself
+over and over again in my head, whether I would or no:&mdash;"And
+Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her
+hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with
+dances." To which text and some others, I shall ask your attention
+presently; but I must go to Paris first.</p>
+
+<p>30. Not at once, however, to the theater, but to a bookseller's shop,
+No. 4, Rue Voltaire, where, in the year 1858, was published the fifth
+edition of Balzac's 'Contes Dr&ocirc;latiques,' illustrated by 425
+designs by Gustave Dor&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Both text and illustrations are as powerful as it is ever in the
+nature of evil things to be (there is no <i>final</i> strength but in
+rightness). Nothing more witty, nor more inventively horrible, has yet
+been produced in the evil literature, or by the evil art, of man: nor
+can I conceive it possible to go beyond either in their specialities
+of corruption. The text is full of blasphemies, subtle, tremendous,
+hideous in shamelessness, some put into the mouths of priests; the
+illustrations are, in a word, one continuous revelry in the most
+loathsome and monstrous aspects of death and sin, enlarged into
+fantastic ghastliness of caricature, as if seen through the distortion
+and trembling of the hot smoke of the mouth of hell. Take this
+following for a general type of what they seek in death: one of the
+most labored designs is of a man cut in two, downwards, by the sweep
+of a sword&mdash;one half of him falls toward the spectator; the other
+half is elaborately drawn in its section&mdash;giving the profile of
+the divided nose and lips; cleft jaw&mdash;breast&mdash;and entrails;
+and this is done with farther pollution and horror of intent in the
+circumstances, which I do not choose to describe&mdash;still less some
+other of the designs which seek for fantastic extreme of sin, as this
+for the utmost horror of death. But of all the 425, there is not one,
+which does not violate every instinct of decency and law of virtue or
+life, written in the human soul.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+31. Now, my friend, among the many "Signs of the Times" the production
+of a book like this is a significant one: but it becomes more
+significant still when connected with the farther fact, that M.
+Gustave Dor&eacute;, the designer of this series of plates, has just
+been received with loud acclaim by the British Evangelical Public, as
+the fittest and most able person whom they could at present find to
+illustrate, to their minds, and recommend with grace of sacred art,
+their hitherto unadorned Bible for them.</p>
+
+<p>Of which Bible, and of the use we at present make of it in England,
+having a grave word or two to say in my next letter (preparatory to
+the examination of that verse which haunted me through the Japanese
+juggling, and of some others also), I leave you first this sign of the
+public esteem of it to consider at your leisure.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_VIII" id="LETTER_VIII"></a>LETTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE FOUR POSSIBLE THEORIES RESPECTING THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 7, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>32. I have your yesterday's letter, but must not allow myself to be
+diverted from the business in hand for this once, for it is the most
+important of which I have to write to you.</p>
+
+<p>You must have seen long ago that the essential difference between the
+political economy I am trying to teach, and the popular science, is,
+that mine is based on <i>presumably attainable honesty</i> in men, and
+conceivable respect in them for the interests of others, while the
+popular science founds itself wholly on their supposed constant regard
+for their own, and on their honesty only so far as thereby likely to
+be secured.</p>
+
+<p>It becomes, therefore, for me, and for all who believe anything I say,
+a great primal question on what this presumably attainable honesty is
+to be based.</p>
+
+<p>33. "Is it to be based on religion?" you may ask. "Are
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+we to be honest for fear of losing heaven if we are dishonest, or (to
+put it as generously as we may) for fear of displeasing God? Or, are
+we to be honest on speculation, because honesty is the best policy;
+and to invest in virtue as in an undepreciable stock?"</p>
+
+<p>And my answer is&mdash;not in any hesitating or diffident way (and you
+know, my friend, that whatever people may say of me, I often do speak
+diffidently; though, when I am diffident of things, I like to avoid
+speaking of them, if it may be; but here I say with no shadow of
+doubt)&mdash;your honesty is <i>not</i> to be based either on religion or
+policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on <i>it</i>. Your
+honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the
+lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the
+night. If you ask why you are to be honest&mdash;you are, in the question
+itself, dishonored. "Because you are a man," is the only answer; and
+therefore I said in a former letter that to make your children
+<i>capable of honesty</i> is the beginning of education. Make them men
+first, and religious men afterwards, and all will be sound; but a
+knave's religion is always the rottenest thing about him.</p>
+
+<p>34. It is not, therefore, because I am endeavoring to lay down a
+foundation of religious concrete, on which to build piers of policy,
+that you so often find me quoting Bible texts in defense of this or
+that principle or assertion. But the fact that such references are an
+offense, as I know them to be, to many of the readers of these
+political essays, is one among many others, which I would desire you
+to reflect upon (whether you are yourself one of the offended or not),
+as expressive of the singular position which the mind of the British
+public has at present taken with respect to its worshiped Book. The
+positions, honestly tenable, before I use any more of its texts, I
+must try to define for you.</p>
+
+<p>35. All the theories possible to theological disputants respecting
+the Bible are resolvable into four, and four only.</p>
+
+<p>(1.) The first is that of the illiterate modern religious
+world, that every word of the book known to them as "The
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+Bible" was dictated by the Supreme Being, and is in every syllable
+of it His "Word."</p>
+
+<p>This theory is of course tenable by no ordinarily well-educated
+person.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) The second theory is, that, although admitting verbal error,
+the substance of the whole collection of books called the Bible is
+absolutely true, and furnished to man by Divine inspiration of the
+speakers and writers of it; and that every one who honestly and
+prayerfully seeks for such truth in it as is necessary for his
+salvation, will infallibly find it there.</p>
+
+<p>This theory is that held by most of our good and upright clergymen,
+and the better class of the professedly religious laity.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) The third theory is that the group of books which we call the
+Bible were neither written nor collected under any Divine guidance,
+securing them from substantial error; and that they contain, like all
+other human writings, false statements mixed with true, and erring
+thoughts mixed with just thoughts; but that they nevertheless relate,
+on the whole, faithfully, the dealings of the one God with the first
+races of man, and His dealings with them in aftertime through Christ:
+that they record true miracles, and bear true witness to the
+resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.</p>
+
+<p>This is a theory held by many of the active leaders of modern thought.</p>
+
+<p>(4.) The fourth, and last possible, theory is that the mass of
+religious Scripture contains merely the best efforts which we hitherto
+know to have been made by any of the races of men towards the
+discovery of some relations with the spiritual world; that they are
+only trustworthy as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or beliefs
+of earnest men oppressed by the world's darkness, and have no more
+authoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations and
+histories of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, in
+common with all these, to be reverently studied, as containing a
+portion, divinely appointed, of the best wisdom which human
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+intellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has hitherto been able
+to gather between birth and death.</p>
+
+<p>This has been, for the last half-century, the theory of the soundest
+scholars and thinkers of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>36. There is yet indeed one farther condition of incredulity
+attainable, and sorrowfully attained, by many men of powerful
+intellect&mdash;the incredulity, namely, of inspiration in any sense,
+or of help given by any Divine power to the thoughts of men. But this
+form of infidelity merely indicates a natural incapacity for receiving
+certain emotions; though many honest and good men belong to this
+insentient class.</p>
+
+<p>37. The educated men, therefore, who may be seriously appealed to, in
+these days, on questions of moral responsibility, as modified by
+Scripture, are broadly divisible into three classes, severally holding
+the last three theories above stated.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whatever power a passage from the statedly authoritative portions
+of the Bible may have over the mind of a person holding the fourth
+theory, it will have a proportionately greater over that of persons
+holding the third or the second. I, therefore, always imagine myself
+speaking to the fourth class of theorists. If I can persuade or
+influence <i>them</i>, I am logically sure of the others. I say
+"logically," for the actual fact, strange as it may seem, is that no
+persons are so little likely to submit to a passage of Scripture not
+to their fancy, as those who are most positive on the subject of its
+general inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>38. Addressing, then, this fourth class of thinkers, I would say to
+them, when asking them to enter on any subject of importance to
+national morals, or conduct, "This book, which has been the accepted
+guide of the moral intelligence of Europe for some fifteen hundred
+years, enforces certain simple laws of human conduct which you know
+have also been agreed upon, in every main point, by all the religious,
+and by all the greatest profane writers, of every age and country.
+This book primarily forbids pride, lasciviousness, and covetousness;
+and you know that all great thinkers, in every nation
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+of mankind, have similarly forbidden these mortal vices. This book
+enjoins truth, temperance, charity, and equity; and you know that
+every great Egyptian, Greek, and Indian, enjoins these also. You know
+besides, that through all the mysteries of human fate and history,
+this one great law of fate is written on the walls of cities, or in
+their dust; written in letters of light, and letters of
+blood,&mdash;that where truth, temperance, and equity have been
+preserved, all strength, and peace, and joy have been preserved
+also;&mdash;that where lying, lasciviousness, and covetousness have
+been practised, there has followed an infallible, and, for centuries,
+irrecoverable ruin. And you know, lastly, that the observance of this
+common law of righteousness, commending itself to all the pure
+instincts of men, and fruitful in their temporal good, is by the
+religious writers of every nation, and chiefly in this venerated
+Scripture of ours, connected with some distinct hope of better life,
+and righteousness, to come.</p>
+
+<p>39. "Let it not then offend you if, deducing principles of action
+first from the laws and facts of nature, I nevertheless fortify them
+also by appliance of the precepts, or suggestive and probable
+teachings of this Book, of which the authority is over many around
+you, more distinctly than over you, and which, confessing to be
+divine, <i>they</i>, at least, can only disobey at their moral peril."</p>
+
+<p>On these grounds, and in this temper, I am in the habit of appealing
+to passages of Scripture in my writings on political economy; and in
+this temper I will ask you to consider with me some conclusions which
+appear to me derivable from that text about Miriam, which haunted me
+through the jugglery; and from certain others.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_IX" id="LETTER_IX"></a>LETTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE USE OF MUSIC AND DANCING UNDER THE JEWISH THEOCRACY,
+COMPARED WITH THEIR USE BY THE MODERN FRENCH.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 10, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>40. Having, I hope, made you now clearly understand with what feeling
+I would use the authority of the book which the British public,
+professing to consider sacred, have lately adorned for themselves with
+the work of the boldest violator of the instincts of human honor and
+decency known yet in art-history, I will pursue by the help of that
+verse about Miriam, and some others, the subject which occupied my
+mind at both theaters, and to which, though in so apparently desultory
+manner, I have been nevertheless very earnestly endeavoring to lead
+you.</p>
+
+<p>41. The going forth of the women of Israel after Miriam with timbrels
+and with dances, was, as you doubtless remember, their expression of
+passionate triumph and thankfulness, after the full accomplishment of
+their deliverance from the Egyptians. That deliverance had been by the
+utter death of their enemies, and accompanied by stupendous miracle;
+no human creatures could in an hour of triumph be surrounded by
+circumstances more solemn. I am not going to try to excite your
+feelings about them. Consider only for yourself what that seeing of
+the Egyptians "dead upon the sea-shore" meant to every soul that saw
+it. And then reflect that these intense emotions of mingled horror,
+triumph, and gratitude were expressed, in the visible presence of the
+Deity, by music and dancing. If you answer that you do not believe the
+Egyptians so perished, or that God ever appeared in a pillar of
+cloud, I reply, "Be it so&mdash;believe or disbelieve, as you
+choose;&mdash;This is yet assuredly the fact, that the author
+of the poem or fable of the Exodus supposed that, under such
+circumstances of Divine interposition as he had invented, the
+triumph of the Israelitish women would have been, and ought
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+to have been, under the direction of a prophetess, expressed by
+music and dancing."</p>
+
+<p>42. Nor was it possible that he should think otherwise, at whatever
+period he wrote; both music and dancing being, among all great ancient
+nations, an appointed and very principal part of the worship of the
+gods.</p>
+
+<p>And that very theatrical entertainment at which I sate thinking over
+these things for you&mdash;that pantomime, which depended throughout for
+its success on an appeal to the vices of the lower London populace,
+was, in itself, nothing but a corrupt remnant of the religious
+ceremonies which guided the most serious faiths of the Greek mind, and
+laid the foundation of their gravest moral and didactic&mdash;more forcibly
+so because at the same time dramatic&mdash;literature.</p>
+
+<p>43. Returning to the Jewish history, you find soon afterwards this
+enthusiastic religious dance and song employed, in their more common
+and habitual manner, in the idolatries under Sinai; but beautifully
+again and tenderly, after the triumph of Jephthah, "And behold his
+daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances." Again,
+still more notably, at the triumph of David with Saul, "the women came
+out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul
+with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music." And you have
+this joyful song and dance of the virgins of Israel not only
+incidentally alluded to in the most solemn passages of Hebrew
+religious poetry (as in Psalm lxviii. 24, 25, and Psalm cxlix. 2, 3),
+but approved, and the restoration of it promised as a sign of God's
+perfect blessing, most earnestly by the saddest of the Hebrew
+prophets, and in one of the most beautiful of all his sayings.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, 'Yea, I have loved
+thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving-kindness have I
+drawn thee.&mdash;I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of
+Israel; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and thou shalt
+go forth in dances with them that make merry,'" (Jer. xxxi. 3, 4; and
+compare v. 13). And finally, you have in two of quite the most
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+important passages in the whole series of Scripture (one in the Old
+Testament, one in the New), the rejoicing in the repentance from, and
+remission of, sins, expressed by means of music and dancing, namely,
+in the rapturous dancing of David before the returning ark; and in the
+joy of the father's household at the repentance of the prodigal son.</p>
+
+<p>44. I could put all this much better, and more convincingly, before
+you, if I were able to take any pains in writing at present; but I am
+not, as I told you; being weary and ill; neither do I much care now to
+use what, in the very truth, are but tricks of literary art, in
+dealing with this so grave subject. You see I write you my letter
+straightforward, and let you see all my scratchings out and puttings
+in; and if the way I say things shocks you, or any other reader of
+these letters, I cannot help it; this only I know, that what I tell
+you is true, and written more earnestly than anything I ever wrote
+with my best literary care; and that you will find it useful to think
+upon, however it be said. Now, therefore, to draw towards our
+conclusion. Supposing the Bible inspired, in any of the senses above
+defined, you have in these passages a positively Divine authority for
+the use of song and dance, as a means of religious service, and
+expression of national thanksgiving. Supposing it not inspired, you
+have (taking the passages for as slightly authoritative as you choose)
+record in them, nevertheless, of a state of mind in a great nation,
+producing the most beautiful religious poetry and perfect moral law
+hitherto known to us, yet only expressible by them, to the fulfilment
+of their joyful passion, by means of professional dance and choral
+song.</p>
+
+<p>45. Now I want you to contrast this state of religious rapture with
+some of our modern phases of mind in parallel circumstances. You see
+that the promise of Jeremiah's, "Thou shalt go forth in the dances of
+them that make merry," is immediately followed by this, "Thou shalt
+yet <i>plant vines</i> upon the mountains of Samaria." And again, at the
+yearly feast to the Lord in Shiloh, the dancing of the virgins was in
+the midst of the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), the feast of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+vintage being in the south, as our harvest home in the north, a peculiar
+occasion of joy and thanksgiving. I happened to pass the autumn of
+1863 in one of the great vine districts of Switzerland, under the
+slopes of the outlying branch of the Jura which limits the arable
+plain of the Canton Zurich, some fifteen miles north of Zurich itself.
+That city has always been a renowned, stronghold of Swiss
+Protestantism, next in importance only to Geneva; and its evangelical
+zeal for the conversion of the Catholics of Uri, and endeavors to
+bring about that spiritual result by stopping the supplies of salt
+they needed to make their cheeses with, brought on (the Uri men
+reading their Matt. v. 13, in a different sense) the battle of Keppel,
+and the death of the reformer Zwinglius. The town itself shows the
+most gratifying signs of progress in all the modern arts and sciences
+of life. It is nearly as black as Newcastle&mdash;has a railroad station
+larger than the London terminus of the Chatham and Dover&mdash;fouls the
+stream of the Limmat as soon as it issues from the lake, so that you
+might even venture to compare the formerly simple and innocent Swiss
+river (I remember it thirty years ago&mdash;a current of pale green
+crystal) with the highly educated English streams of Weare or Tyne;
+and, finally, has as many French prints of dissolute tendency in its
+principal shop windows as if they had the privilege of opening on the
+Parisian Boulevards.</p>
+
+<p>46. I was somewhat anxious to see what species of thanksgiving or
+exultation would be expressed at <i>their</i> vintage, by the peasantry in
+the neighborhood of this much enlightened, evangelical, and commercial
+society. It consisted in two ceremonies only. During the day, the
+servants of the farms where the grapes had been gathered, collected in
+knots about the vineyards, and slowly fired horse-pistols, from
+morning to evening. At night they got drunk, and staggered up and down
+the hill paths, uttering, at short intervals, yells and shrieks,
+differing only from the howling of wild animals by a certain intended
+and insolent discordance, only attainable by the malignity of debased
+human creatures.</p>
+
+<p>47. I must not do the injustice to the Zurich peasantry of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+implying that this manner of festivity is peculiar to them. A year before,
+in 1862, I had formed the intention of living some years in the
+neighborhood of Geneva, and had established myself experimentally on
+the eastern slope of the Mont Sal&egrave;ve; but I was forced to abandon
+my purpose at last, because I could not endure the rabid howling, on
+Sunday evenings, of the holiday-makers who came out from Geneva to get
+drunk in the mountain village. By the way, your last letter, with its
+extracts about our traffic in gin, is very valuable. I will come to
+that part of the business in a little while. Meantime, my friend, note
+this, respecting what I have told you, that in the very center of
+Europe, in a country which is visited for their chief pleasure by the
+most refined and thoughtful persons among all Christian nations&mdash;a
+country made by God's hand the most beautiful in the temperate regions
+of the earth, and inhabited by a race once capable of the sternest
+patriotism and simplest purity of life, your modern religion, in the
+very stronghold of it, has reduced the song and dance of ancient
+virginal thanksgiving to the howlings and staggerings of men
+betraying, in intoxication, a nature sunk more than half-way towards
+the beasts; and you will begin to understand why the Bible should have
+been "illustrated" by Gustave Dor&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>48. One word more is needful, though this letter is long already. The
+peculiar ghastliness of this Swiss mode of festivity is in its utter
+failure of joy; the paralysis and helplessness of a vice in which
+there is neither pleasure, nor art. But we are not, throughout Europe,
+wholly thus. There is such a thing, yet, as rapturous song and dance
+among us, though not indicative, by any means, of joy over repentant
+sinners. You must come back to Paris with me again. I had an evening
+to spare there, last summer, for investigation of theaters; and as there
+was nothing at any of them that I cared much about seeing, I asked a
+valet-de-place at Meurice's what people were generally going to. He said,
+"All the English went to see the <i>Lanterne Magique</i>." I do not care
+to tell you what general entertainment I received in following, for once, the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+lead of my countrymen; but it closed with the representation of the
+characteristic dancing of all ages of the world; and the dance given
+as characteristic of modern time was the Cancan, which you will see
+alluded to in the extract given in the note at page 80 of 'Sesame and
+Lilies' (the small edition; and page 54 of Vol. I. of the Revised
+Series of the Entire Works). "The ball terminated with a Devilish
+Chain and a Cancan of Hell, at seven in the morning." It was led by
+four principal dancers (who have since appeared in London in the
+<i>Huguenot Captain</i>), and it is many years since I have seen such
+perfect dancing, as far as finish and accuracy of art and fulness of
+animal power and fire are concerned. Nothing could be better done, in
+its own evil way, the object of the dance throughout being to express,
+in every gesture, the wildest fury of insolence and vicious passions
+possible to human creatures. So that you see, though, for the present,
+we find ourselves utterly incapable of a rapture of gladness or
+thanksgiving, the dance which is presented as characteristic of modern
+civilization is still rapturous enough&mdash;but it is with rapture of
+blasphemy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_X" id="LETTER_X"></a>LETTER X.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE MEANING AND ACTUAL OPERATION OF SATANIC OR DEMONIACAL INFLUENCE.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 16, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>49. You may gather from the facts given you in my last
+letter that, as the expression of true and holy gladness was in
+old time statedly offered up by men for a part of worship to
+God their Father, so the expression of false and unholy gladness
+is in modern times, with as much distinctness and plainness,
+asserted by them openly to be offered to another spirit:
+"Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being the
+names assigned to these modern forms of joyous procession.</p>
+
+<p>Now, you know that, among the best and wisest of our
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+present religious teachers, there is a gradual tendency to disbelieve,
+and to preach their disbelief, in the commonly received ideas of the
+Devil, and of his place, and his work. While, among some of our
+equally well-meaning, but far less wise, religious teachers, there is,
+in consequence, a panic spreading in anticipation of the moral dangers
+which must follow on the loss of the help of the Devil. One of the
+last appearances in public of the author of the 'Christian Year' was
+at a conclave of clergymen assembled in defense of faith in
+damnation.<a name="FNanchor_A_5" id="FNanchor_A_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_5" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+The sense of the meeting generally was, that there <i>must</i> be such a
+place as hell, because no one would ever behave decently upon earth
+unless they were kept in wholesome fear of the fires beneath it: and
+Mr. Keble, especially insisting on this view, related a story of an
+old woman who had a wicked son, and who, having lately heard with
+horror of the teaching of Mr. Maurice and others, exclaimed
+pathetically, "My son is bad enough as it is, and if he were not
+afraid of hell, what would become of him!" (I write from memory, and
+cannot answer for the words, but I can for their purport.)</p>
+
+<p>50. Now, my friend, I am afraid that I must incur the
+charge of such presumption as may be involved in variance
+from <i>both</i> these systems of teaching.</p>
+
+<p>I do not merely <i>believe</i> there is such a place as hell. I
+<i>know</i> there is such a place; and I know also that when men
+have got to the point of believing virtue impossible but
+through dread of it, they have got <i>into</i> it.</p>
+
+<p>I mean, that according to the distinctness with which they
+hold such a creed, the stain of nether fire has passed upon
+them. In the depth of his heart Mr. Keble could not have
+entertained the thought for an instant; and I believe it was
+only as a conspicuous sign to the religious world of the state
+into which they were sinking, that this creed, possible in its
+sincerity only to the basest of them, was nevertheless appointed
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+to be uttered by the lips of the most tender, gracious,
+and beloved of their teachers.</p>
+
+<p>51. "Virtue impossible but for fear of hell"&mdash;a lofty
+creed for your English youth&mdash;and a holy one! And yet, my
+friend, there was something of right in the terrors of this
+clerical conclave. For, though you should assuredly be able
+to hold your own in the straight ways of God, without always
+believing that the Devil is at your side, it is a state of mind
+much to be dreaded, that you should not <i>know</i> the Devil when
+you <i>see</i> him there. For the probability is that when you do
+see him, the way you are walking in is not one of God's ways
+at all, but is leading you quite into other neighborhoods than
+His. On His way, indeed, you may often, like Albert D&uuml;rer's
+Knight, see the Fiend behind you, but you will find that
+he drops always farther and farther behind; whereas, if he
+jogs with you at your side, it is probably one of his own bypaths
+you are got on. And, in any case, it is a highly desirable
+matter that you should know him when you set eyes
+on him, which we are very far from doing in these days, having
+convinced ourselves that the graminivorous form of him,
+with horn and tail, is extant no longer. But in fearful truth,
+the Presence and Power of Him <i>is</i> here; in the world, with
+us, and within us, mock as you may; and the fight with him,
+for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous.</p>
+
+<p>Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically,
+or with any other than literal and earnest meaning of words.
+Hear me, I pray you, therefore, for a little while, as earnestly
+as I speak.</p>
+
+<p>52. Every faculty of man's soul, and every instinct of it
+by which he is meant to live, is exposed to its own special
+form of corruption: and whether within Man, or in the external
+world, there is a power or condition of temptation
+which is perpetually endeavoring to reduce every glory of his
+soul, and every power of his life, to such corruption as is
+possible to them. And the more beautiful they are, the more
+fearful is the death which is attached as a penalty to their
+degradation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+53. Take, for instance, that which, in its purity, is the
+source of the highest and purest mortal happiness&mdash;Love.
+Think of it first at its highest&mdash;as it may exist in the disciplined
+spirit of a perfect human creature; as it has so existed
+again and again, and does always, wherever it truly exists at
+all, as the <i>purifying</i> passion of the soul. I will not speak of
+the transcendental and imaginative intensity in which it may
+reign in noble hearts, as when it inspired the greatest religious
+poem yet given to men; but take it in its true and quiet purity
+in any simple lover's heart,&mdash;as you have it expressed, for instance,
+thus, exquisitely, in the 'Angel in the House':&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><p>
+"And there, with many a blissful tear,<br />
+I vowed to love and prayed to wed<br />
+The maiden who had grown so dear;&mdash;<br />
+Thanked God, who had set her in my path;<br />
+And promised, as I hoped to win,<br />
+I never would sully my faith<br />
+By the least selfishness or sin;<br />
+Whatever in her sight I'd seem<br />
+I'd really be; I ne'er would blend,<br />
+With my delight in her, a dream<br />
+'Twould change her cheek to comprehend;<br />
+And, if she wished it, would prefer<br />
+Another's to my own success;<br />
+And always seek the best for her<br />
+With unofficious tenderness."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Take this for the pure type of it in its simplicity; and then
+think of what corruption this passion is capable. I will give
+you a type of that also, and at your very doors. I cannot refer
+you to the time when the crime happened; but it was some
+four or five years ago, near Newcastle, and it has remained
+always as a ghastly landmark in my mind, owing to the horror
+of the external circumstances. The body of the murdered
+woman was found naked, rolled into a heap of ashes, at the
+mouth of one of your pits.</p>
+
+<p>54. You have thus two limiting examples, of the Pure Passion,
+and of its corruption. Now, whatever influence it is,
+without or within us, which has a tendency to degrade the one
+towards the other, is literally and accurately "Satanic."
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+And this treacherous or deceiving spirit is perpetually at
+work, so that all the worst evil among us is a betrayed or corrupted
+good. Take religion itself: the desire of finding out
+God, and placing one's self in some true son's or servant's
+relation to Him. The Devil, that is to say, the deceiving
+spirit within us, or outside of us, mixes up our own vanity
+with this desire; makes us think that in our love to God we
+have established some connection with Him which separates
+us from our fellow-men, and renders us superior to them.
+Then it takes but one wave of the Devil's hand; and we are
+burning them alive for taking the liberty of contradicting us.</p>
+
+<p>55. Take the desire of teaching&mdash;the entirely unselfish and
+noble instinct for telling to those who are ignorant, the truth
+we know, and guarding them from the errors we see them in
+danger of;&mdash;there is no nobler, no more constant instinct in
+honorable breasts; but let the Devil formalize it, and mix the
+pride of a profession with it&mdash;get foolish people entrusted
+with the business of instruction, and make their giddy heads
+giddier by putting them up in pulpits above a submissive
+crowd&mdash;and you have it instantly corrupted into its own reverse;
+you have an alliance <i>against</i> the light, shrieking at the
+sun, and the moon, and stars, as profane spectra:&mdash;a company
+of the blind, beseeching those they lead to remain blind also.
+"The heavens and the lights that rule them are untrue; the
+laws of creation are treacherous; the poles of the earth are
+out of poise. But <i>we</i> are true. Light is in us only. Shut
+your eyes close and fast, and we will lead you."</p>
+
+<p>56. Take the desire and faith of mutual help; the virtue
+of vowed brotherhood for the accomplishment of common
+purpose, (without which nothing great can be wrought by
+multitudinous bands of men); let the Devil put pride of caste
+into it, and you have a military organization applied for a
+thousand years to maintain that higher caste in idleness by
+robbing the laboring poor; let the Devil put a few small personal
+interests into it, and you have all faithful deliberation
+on national law rendered impossible in the parliaments of Europe,
+by the antagonism of parties.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+57. Take the instinct for justice, and the natural sense of
+indignation against crime; let the Devil color it with personal
+passion, and you have a mighty race of true and tender-hearted
+men living for centuries in such bloody feud that
+every note and word of their national songs is a dirge, and
+every rock of their hills is a gravestone. Take the love of
+beauty, and power of imagination, which are the source of
+every true achievement in art; let the Devil touch them with
+sensuality, and they are stronger than the sword or the flame
+to blast the cities where they were born, into ruin without
+hope. Take the instinct of industry and ardor of commerce,
+which are meant to be the support and mutual maintenance
+of man; let the Devil touch them with avarice, and you shall
+see the avenues of the exchange choked with corpses that have
+died of famine.</p>
+
+<p>58. Now observe&mdash;I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what
+you like&mdash;or to theorize about it as you like. All that I desire
+you to recognize is the fact of its being here, and the need of its
+being fought with. If you take the Bible's account of it, or Dante's,
+or Milton's, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual
+creature, commanding others, and resisted by others: if you take
+&AElig;schylus's or Hesiod's account of it, you will hold it for a
+partly elementary and unconscious adversity of fate, and partly for a
+group of monstrous spiritual agencies connected with death, and
+begotten out of the dust; if you take a modern rationalist's, you will
+accept it for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral
+nature exposing it to loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is
+capable of mortification or leprosy. I do not care what you call
+it,&mdash;whose history you believe of it,&mdash;nor what you
+yourself can imagine about it; the origin, or nature, or name may
+be as you will, but the deadly reality of the thing is with us, and
+warring against us, and on our true war with it depends whatever
+life we can win. Deadly reality, I say. The puff-adder or horned
+asp is not more real. Unbelievable,&mdash;<i>those</i>,&mdash;unless
+you had seen them; no fable could have been coined out of any
+human brain so dreadful, within its own poor
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+material sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent&mdash;working its way
+sidelong in the sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death&mdash;this
+worm that dies not, and fire that is not quenched,
+within our souls or around them. Eternal death, I say&mdash;sure,
+that, whatever creed you hold;&mdash;if the old Scriptural
+one, Death of perpetual banishment from before God's face;
+if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal for <i>us</i>, instant
+and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.</p>
+
+<p>This is what this unquestionably present&mdash;this, according
+to his power, <i>omni</i>-present&mdash;fiend, brings us towards, daily.
+He is the person to be "voted" against, my working friend;
+it is worth something, having a vote against <i>him</i>, if you can
+get it! Which you can, indeed; but not by gift from Cabinet
+Ministers; you must work warily with your own hands, and
+drop sweat of heart's blood, before you can record that vote
+effectually.</p>
+
+<p>Of which more in next letter.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_5" id="Footnote_A_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_5"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+<i>Physical</i> damnation, I should have said. It is strange how seldom
+pain of heart is spoken of as a possible element of future, or as the
+worst of present pain.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XI" id="LETTER_XI"></a>LETTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE SATANIC POWER IS MAINLY TWOFOLD: THE POWER OF
+CAUSING FALSEHOOD AND THE POWER OF CAUSING PAIN.
+THE RESISTANCE IS BY LAW OF HONOR AND LAW OF DELIGHT.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 19, 1857.</i></p>
+
+<p>59. You may perhaps have thought my last three or four
+letters mere rhapsodies. They are nothing of the kind; they
+are accurate accounts of literal facts, which we have to deal
+with daily. This thing, or power, opposed to God's power,
+and specifically called "Mammon" in the Sermon on the
+Mount, is, in deed and in truth, a continually present and
+active enemy, properly called "<i>Arch</i>-enemy," that is to say,
+"Beginning and Prince of Enemies," and daily we have to
+record our vote for, or against him. Of the manner of which
+record we were next to consider.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+60. This enemy is always recognizable, briefly in two functions.
+He is pre-eminently the Lord of <i>Lies</i> and the Lord of
+<i>Pain</i>. Wherever Lies are, he is; wherever Pain is, he has
+been&mdash;so that of the Spirit of Wisdom (who is called God's
+Helper, as Satan His Adversary) it is written, not only that
+by her Kings reign, and Princes decree justice, but also that
+her ways are ways of Pleasantness, and all her paths Peace.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, you will succeed, you working men, in recording
+your votes against this arch-enemy, precisely in the degree in
+which you can do away with falsehood and pain in your work
+and lives; and bring truth into the one, and pleasure into the
+other; all education being directed to make yourselves and
+your children <i>capable of Honesty</i> and <i>capable of Delight</i>;
+and to rescue yourselves from iniquity and agony. And this is
+what I meant by saying in the preface to 'Unto this Last'
+that the central requirement of education consisted in giving
+habits of gentleness and justice; "gentleness" (as I will
+show you presently) being the best single word I could have
+used to express the capacity for giving and receiving true
+pleasure; and "justice" being similarly the most comprehensive
+word for all kind of honest dealing.</p>
+
+<p>61. Now, I began these letters with the purpose of explaining
+the nature of the requirements of justice first, and then
+those of gentleness, but I allowed myself to be led into that
+talk about the theaters, not only because the thoughts could
+be more easily written as they came, but also because I was
+able thus to illustrate for you more directly the nature of
+the enemy we have to deal with. You do not perhaps know,
+though I say this diffidently (for I often find working men
+know many things which one would have thought were out of
+their way), that music was, among the Greeks, quite the first
+means of education; and that it was so connected with their
+system of ethics and of intellectual training, that the God of
+Music is with them also the God of Righteousness;&mdash;the God
+who purges and avenges iniquity, and contends with their
+Satan as represented under the form of Python, "the corrupter."
+And the Greeks were incontrovertibly right in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+this. Music is the nearest at hand, the most orderly, the
+most delicate, and the most perfect, of all bodily pleasures;
+it is also the only one which is equally helpful to all the ages
+of man,&mdash;helpful from the nurse's song to her infant, to the
+music, unheard of others, which so often haunts the deathbed
+of pure and innocent spirits. And the action of the deceiving
+or devilish power is in <i>nothing</i> shown quite so distinctly
+among us at this day,&mdash;not even in our commercial dishonesties,
+nor in our social cruelties,&mdash;as in its having been able
+to take away music, as an instrument of education, altogether;
+and to enlist it almost wholly in the service of superstition
+on the one hand, and of sensuality on the other.</p>
+
+<p>62. This power of the Muses, then, and its proper influence over you
+workmen, I shall eventually have much to insist upon with you; and in
+doing so I shall take that beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son
+(which I have already referred to), and explain, as far as I know, the
+significance of it, and then I will take the three means of festivity,
+or wholesome human joy, therein stated,&mdash;fine dress, rich food,
+and music;&mdash;("bring forth the fairest robe for him,"&mdash;"bring
+forth the fatted calf, and kill it;" "as he drew nigh, he heard music
+and dancing"); and I will show you how all these three things, fine
+dress, rich food, and music (including ultimately all the other arts)
+are meant to be sources of life, and means of moral discipline, to all
+men; and how they have all three been made, by the Devil, the means of
+guilt, dissoluteness, and death.<a name="FNanchor_A_6" id="FNanchor_A_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_6" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+But first I must return to my original plan of these letters, and
+endeavor to set down for you some of the laws which, in a true Working
+Men's Parliament, must be ordained in defense of Honesty.</p>
+
+<p>Of which laws (preliminary to all others, and necessary above all
+others), having now somewhat got my raveled threads together again, I
+will begin talk in my next letter.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_6" id="Footnote_A_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_6"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+See 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIV.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XII" id="LETTER_XII"></a>LETTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE NECESSITY OF IMPERATIVE LAW TO THE PROSPERITY OF STATES.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 20, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>63. I have your most interesting letter,<a name="FNanchor_A_7" id="FNanchor_A_7"></a><a href="#APPENDIX_IV" class="fnanchor">[IV]</a>
+which I keep for reference, when I come to the consideration of its
+subject in its proper place, under the head of the abuse of Food. I do
+not wonder that your life should be rendered unhappy by the scenes of
+drunkenness which you are so often compelled to witness; nor that this
+so gigantic and infectious evil should seem to you the root of the
+greater part of the misery of our lower orders. I do not wonder that
+George Cruikshank has warped the entire current of his thoughts and
+life, at once to my admiration and my sorrow, from their natural field
+of work, that he might spend them, in struggle with this fiend, for
+the poor lowest people whom he knows so well. I wholly sympathize with
+you in indignation at the methods of temptation employed, and at the
+use of the fortunes made by the vendors of death; and whatever
+immediately applicable legal means there might be of restricting the
+causes of drunkenness, I should without hesitation desire to bring
+into operation. But all such appliance I consider temporary and
+provisionary; nor, while there is record of the miracle at Cana (not
+to speak of the sacrament) can I conceive it possible, without
+(logically) the denial of the entire truth of the New Testament, to
+reprobate the use of wine as a stimulus to the powers of life.
+Supposing we did deny the words and deeds of the Founder of
+Christianity, the authority of the wisest heathens, especially that of
+Plato in the 'Laws,' is wholly against abstinence from wine; and much
+as I can believe, and as I have been endeavoring to make you believe
+also, of the subtlety of the Devil, I do not suppose the vine to have
+been one of his inventions. Of this, however, more in another place.
+By the way, was it not curious that in the 'Manchester Examiner,'
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+in which that letter of mine on the abuse of dancing appeared, there
+chanced to be, in the next column, a paragraph giving an account of a
+girl stabbing her betrayer in a ball-room; and another paragraph
+describing a Parisian character, which gives exactly the extreme
+type I wanted, for example of the abuse of
+Food?<a name="FNanchor_B_8" id="FNanchor_B_8"></a><a href="#APPENDIX_V" class="fnanchor">[V]</a></p>
+
+<p>64. I return, however, now to the examination of possible
+means for the enforcement of justice, in temper and in act,
+as the first of political requirements. And as, in stating my
+conviction of the necessity of certain stringent laws on this
+matter, I shall be in direct opposition to Mr. Stuart Mill;
+and, more or less, in opposition to other professors of modern
+political economy, as well as to many honest and active promoters
+of the privileges of working men (as if privilege only
+were wanted and never restraint!), I will give you, as briefly
+as I can, the grounds on which I am prepared to justify such
+opposition.</p>
+
+<p>65. When the crew of a wrecked ship escape in an open
+boat, and the boat is crowded, the provisions scanty, and the
+prospect of making land distant, laws are instantly established
+and enforced which no one thinks of disobeying. An entire
+equality of claim to the provisions is acknowledged without
+dispute; and an equal liability to necessary labor. No man
+who can row is allowed to refuse his oar; no man, however
+much money he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so
+much as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous
+person who endangered the safety of the rest would be bound,
+and laid in the bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction,
+for such violation of the principles of individual
+liberty; and, on the other hand, any child, or woman, or aged
+person, who was helpless, and exposed to great danger and
+suffering by their weakness, would receive more than ordinary
+care and indulgence, not unaccompanied with unanimous self-sacrifice
+on the part of the laboring crew.</p>
+
+<p>There is never any question under circumstances like these,
+of what is right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, wise or
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+foolish. If there <i>be</i> any question, there is little hope for boat
+or crew. The right man is put at the helm; every available
+hand is set to the oars; the sick are tended, and the vicious
+restrained, at once, and decisively; or if not, the end is near.</p>
+
+<p>66. Now, the circumstances of every associated group of
+human society, contending bravely for national honors and
+felicity of life, differ only from those thus supposed, in the
+greater, instead of less, necessity for the establishment of restraining
+law. There is no point of difference in the difficulties
+to be met, nor in the rights reciprocally to be exercised.
+Vice and indolence are not less, but more, injurious in a nation
+than in a boat's company; the modes in which they affect
+the interests of worthy persons being far more complex, and
+more easily concealed. The right of restraint, vested in those
+who labor, over those who would impede their labor, is as absolute
+in the large as in the small society; the equal claim
+to share in whatever is necessary to the common life (or commonwealth)
+is as indefeasible; the claim of the sick and helpless
+to be cared for by the strong with earnest self-sacrifice,
+is as pitiful and as imperative; the necessity that the governing
+authority should be in the hands of a true and trained
+pilot is as clear and as constant. In none of these conditions
+is there any difference between a nation and a boat's company.
+The only difference is in this, that the impossibility of discerning
+the effects of individual error and crime, or of counteracting
+them by individual effort, in the affairs of a great
+nation renders it tenfold more necessary than in a small society
+that direction by law should be sternly established. Assume
+that your boat's crew is disorderly and licentious, and
+will, by agreement, submit to no order;&mdash;the most troublesome
+of them will yet be easily discerned; and the chance is
+that the best man among them knocks him down. Common
+instinct of self-preservation will make the rioters put a good
+sailor at the helm, and impulsive pity and occasional help will
+be, by heart and hand, here and there given to visible distress.
+Not so in the ship of the realm. The most troublesome
+persons in <i>it</i> are usually the least recognized for such,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+and the most active in its management; the best men mind
+their own business patiently, and are never thought of; the
+good helmsman never touches the tiller but in the last extremity;
+and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only
+from every eye, but from every thought. On the deck, the
+aspect is of Cleopatra's galley&mdash;under hatches there is a slave
+hospital; while, finally (and this is the most fatal difference
+of all), even the few persons who care to interfere energetically,
+with purpose of doing good, can, in a large society, discern
+so little of the real state of evil to be dealt with, and
+judge so little of the best means of dealing with it, that half
+of their best efforts will be misdirected, and some may even
+do more harm than good. Whereas it is the sorrowful law
+of this universe, that evil, even unconscious and unintended,
+never fails of <i>its</i> effect; and in a state where the evil and the
+good, under conditions of individual "liberty," are allowed
+to contend together, not only every <i>stroke</i> on the Devil's side
+tells&mdash;but every <i>slip</i>, (the mistakes of wicked men being as
+mischievous as their successes); while on the side of right,
+there will be much direct and fatal defeat, and, even of its
+measure of victory, half will be fruitless.</p>
+
+<p>67. It is true, of course, that, in the end of ends, nothing
+but the right conquers; the prevalent thorns of wrong, at last,
+crackle away in indiscriminate flame: and of the good seed
+sown, one grain in a thousand some day comes up&mdash;and somebody
+lives by it; but most of our great teachers, not excepting
+Carlyle and Emerson themselves, are a little too encouraging
+in their proclamation of this comfort, not, to my mind, very
+sufficient, when for the present our fields are full of nothing
+but darnel instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley;
+and none of them seem to me yet to have enough insisted on
+the inevitable power and infectiousness of all evil, and the
+easy and utter extinguishableness of good. Medicine often
+fails of its effect&mdash;but poison never: and while, in summing
+the observation of past life, not unwatchfully spent, I can
+truly say that I have a thousand times seen patience disappointed
+of her hope, and wisdom of her aim, I have never yet
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+seen folly fruitless of mischief, nor vice conclude but in
+calamity.</p>
+
+<p>68. There is, however, one important condition in national
+economy, in which the analogy of that of a ship's company is
+incomplete: namely, that while labor at oar or sail is necessarily
+united, and can attain no independent good, or personal
+profit, the labor properly undertaken by the several
+members of a political community is necessarily, and justly,
+within certain limits, independent; and obtains for them independent
+advantage, of which, if you will glance at the last
+paragraph of the first chapter of 'Munera Pulveris,' you will
+see I should be the last person to propose depriving them.
+This great difference in final condition involves necessarily
+much complexity in the system and application of general
+laws; but it in no wise abrogates,&mdash;on the contrary, it renders
+yet more imperative,&mdash;the necessity for the firm ordinance of
+such laws, which, marking the due limits of independent
+agency, may enable it to exist in full energy, not only without
+becoming injurious, but so as more variously and perfectly to
+promote the entire interests of the commonwealth.</p>
+
+<p>I will address myself therefore in my next letter to the
+statement of some of these necessary laws.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XIII" id="LETTER_XIII"></a>LETTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE PROPER OFFICES OF THE BISHOP AND DUKE; OR, "OVERSEER"
+AND "LEADER."</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 21, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>69. I see, by your last letter, for which I heartily thank
+you, that you would not sympathize with me in my sorrow
+for the desertion of his own work by George Cruikshank, that
+he may fight in the front of the temperance ranks. But you
+do not know what work he has left undone, nor how much
+richer inheritance you might have received from his hand. It
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+was no more <i>his</i> business to etch diagrams of drunkenness
+than it is mine at this moment to be writing these letters
+against anarchy. It is "the first mild day of March" (high
+time, I think, that it should be!), and by rights I ought to
+be out among the budding banks and hedges, outlining sprays
+of hawthorn and clusters of primrose. That is <i>my</i> right
+work; and it is not, in the inner gist and truth of it, right nor
+good, for you, or for anybody else, that Cruikshank with his
+great gift, and I with my weak, but yet thoroughly clear and
+definite one, should both of us be tormented by agony of indignation
+and compassion, till we are forced to give up our
+peace, and pleasure, and power; and rush down into the
+streets and lanes of the city, to do the little that is in the
+strength of our single hands against their uncleanliness and
+iniquity. But, as in a sorely besieged town, every man must
+to the ramparts, whatsoever business he leaves, so neither he
+nor I have had any choice but to leave our household stuff,
+and go on crusade, such as we are called to; not that I mean,
+if Fate may be anywise resisted, to give up the strength of
+my life, as he has given his; for I think he was wrong in
+doing so; and that he should only have carried the fiery cross
+his appointed leagues, and then given it to another hand;
+and, for my own part, I mean these very letters to close my
+political work for many a day; and I write them, not in any
+hope of their being at present listened to, but to disburthen
+my heart of the witness I have to bear, that I may be free to
+go back to my garden lawns, and paint birds and flowers there.</p>
+
+<p>70. For these same statutes which we are to consider to-day,
+have indeed been in my mind now these fourteen
+years, ever since I wrote the last volume of the 'Stones of
+Venice,' in which you will find, in the long note on Modern
+Education, most of what I have been now in detail writing
+to you, hinted in abstract; and, at the close of it, this sentence,
+of which I solemnly now avouch (in thankfulness that
+I was permitted to write it), every word: "Finally, I hold
+it for indisputable, that the first duty of a State is to see that
+every child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+educated, till it attain years of discretion. But in order to
+the effecting this the Government must have an authority over
+the people of which we now do not so much as dream."</p>
+
+<p>That authority I did not then endeavor to define, for I
+knew all such assertions would be useless, and that the necessarily
+resultant outcry would merely diminish my influence in
+other directions. But now I do not care about influence any
+more, it being only my concern to say truly that which I
+know, and, if it may be, get some quiet life, yet, among the
+fields in the evening shadow.</p>
+
+<p>71. There is, I suppose, no word which men are prouder of
+the right to attach to their names, or more envious of others
+who bear it, when they themselves may not, than the word
+"noble." Do you know what it originally meant, and always,
+in the right use of it, means? It means a "known"
+person; one who has risen far enough above others to draw
+men's eyes to him, and to be known (honorably) for such and
+such an one. "Ignoble," on the other hand, is derived from
+the same root as the word "ignorance." It means an unknown,
+inglorious person. And no more singular follies have
+been committed by weak human creatures than those which
+have been caused by the instinct, pure and simple, of escaping
+from this obscurity. Instinct, which, corrupted, will hesitate
+at no means, good or evil, of satisfying itself with notoriety&mdash;instinct,
+nevertheless, which, like all other natural ones, has a
+true and pure purpose, and ought always in a worthy way
+to be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>All men ought to be in this sense "noble"; known of each
+other, and desiring to be known. And the first law which a
+nation, desiring to conquer all the devices of the Father of
+Lies, should establish among its people, is that they <i>shall</i> be
+so known.</p>
+
+<p>72. Will you please now read &sect; 22 of 'Sesame and Lilies'?
+The reviewers in the ecclesiastical journals laughed at it,
+as a rhapsody, when the book came out; none having the
+slightest notion of what I meant: (nor, indeed, do I well see
+how it could be otherwise!). Nevertheless, I meant precisely
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+and literally what is there said, namely, that a bishop's duty
+being to watch over the souls of his people, and <i>give</i> account
+of every one of them, it becomes practically necessary for
+him first to <i>get</i> some account of their bodies. Which he was
+wont to do in the early days of Christianity by help of a person
+called "deacon" or "ministering servant," whose name
+is still retained among preliminary ecclesiastical dignities,
+vainly enough! Putting, however, all questions of forms and
+names aside, the thing actually needing to be done is this&mdash;that
+over every hundred (more or less) of the families composing
+a Christian State, there should be appointed an overseer,
+or bishop, to render account, to the State, of the life
+of every individual in those families; and to have care both
+of their interest and conduct to such an extent as they may
+be willing to admit, or as their faults may justify: so that it
+may be impossible for any person, however humble, to suffer
+from unknown want, or live in unrecognized crime;&mdash;such
+help and observance being rendered without officiousness
+either of interference or inquisition (the limits of both being
+determined by national law), but with the patient and gentle
+watchfulness which true Christian pastors now exercise over
+their flocks; only with a higher legal authority presently to
+be defined, of interference on due occasion.</p>
+
+<p>And with this farther function, that such overseers shall
+be not only the pastors, but the biographers, of their people;
+a written statement of the principal events in the life of
+each family being annually required to be rendered by them
+to a superior State Officer. These records, laid up in public
+offices, would soon furnish indications of the families whom
+it would be advantageous to the nation to advance in position,
+or distinguish with honor, and aid by such reward as it
+should be the object of every Government to distribute no
+less punctually, and far more frankly, than it distributes
+punishment: (compare 'Munera Pulveris,' Essay IV., in
+paragraph on Critic Law), while the mere fact of permanent
+record being kept of every event of importance, whether disgraceful
+or worthy of praise, in each family, would of itself
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+be a deterrent from crime, and a stimulant to well-deserving
+conduct, far beyond mere punishment or reward.</p>
+
+<p>73. Nor need you think that there would be anything in
+such a system un-English, or tending to espionage. No uninvited
+visits should ever be made in any house, unless law
+had been violated; nothing recorded, against its will, of any
+family, but what was inevitably known of its publicly visible
+conduct, and the results of that conduct. What else was written
+should be only by the desire, and from the communications,
+of its head. And in a little while it would come to be
+felt that the true history of a nation was indeed not of its
+wars, but of its households; and the desire of men would
+rather be to obtain some conspicuous place in these honorable
+annals, than to shrink behind closed shutters from public
+sight. Until at last, George Herbert's grand word of command
+would hold not only on the conscience, but the actual
+system and outer economy of life,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><p>
+"Think the King sees thee still, for <i>his</i> King does."
+</p></div>
+
+<p>74. Secondly, above these bishops or pastors, who are only
+to be occupied in offices of familiar supervision and help,
+should be appointed higher officers of State, having executive
+authority over as large districts as might be conveniently (according
+to the number and circumstances of their inhabitants)
+committed to their care; officers who, according to the
+reports of the pastors, should enforce or mitigate the operation
+of too rigid general law, and determine measures exceptionally
+necessary for public advantage. For instance, the general
+law being that all children of the operative classes, at
+a certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior
+officers should have power, on the report of the pastors, to
+dispense with the attendance of children who had sick parents
+to take charge of, or whose home-life seemed to be one of
+better advantage for them than that of the common schools;
+or who, for any other like cause, might justifiably claim remission.
+And it being the general law that the entire body
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+of the public should contribute to the cost, and divide the
+profits, of all necessary public works and undertakings, as
+roads, mines, harbor protections, and the like, and that nothing
+of this kind should be permitted to be in the hands of
+private speculators, it should be the duty of the district officer
+to collect whatever information was accessible respecting such
+sources of public profit; and to represent the circumstances
+in Parliament: and then, with Parliamentary authority, but
+on his own sole personal responsibility, to see that such enterprises
+were conducted honestly and with due energy and
+order.</p>
+
+<p>The appointment to both these offices should be by election,
+and for life; by what forms of election shall be matter of
+inquiry, after we have determined some others of the necessary
+constitutional laws.</p>
+
+<p>75. I do not doubt but that you are already beginning to
+think it was with good reason I held my peace these fourteen
+years,&mdash;and that, for any good likely to be done by speaking,
+I might as well have held it altogether!</p>
+
+<p>It may be so: but merely to complete and explain my own
+work, it is necessary that I should say these things finally;
+and I believe that the imminent danger to which we are now
+in England exposed by the gradually accelerated fall of our
+aristocracy (wholly their own fault), and the substitution of
+money-power for their martial one; and by the correspondingly
+imminent prevalence of mob violence here, as in America;
+together with the continually increasing chances of insane
+war, founded on popular passion, whether of pride, fear,
+or acquisitiveness,&mdash;all these dangers being further darkened
+and degraded by the monstrous forms of vice and selfishness
+which the appliances of recent wealth, and of vulgar mechanical
+art, make possible to the million,&mdash;will soon bring
+us into a condition in which men will be glad to listen to
+almost any words but those of a demagogue, and to seek any
+means of safety rather than those in which they have lately
+trusted. So, with your good leave, I will say my say to the
+end, mock at it who may.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+P.S.&mdash;I take due note of the regulations of trade proposed in your letter just
+received<a name="FNanchor_A_9" id="FNanchor_A_9"></a><a href="#APPENDIX_VI" class="fnanchor">[VI]</a>&mdash;all
+excellent. I shall come to them presently, "Cash payment" above all.
+You may write that on your trade-banners in letters of gold, wherever
+you would have them raised victoriously.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XIV" id="LETTER_XIV"></a>LETTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE FIRST GROUP OF ESSENTIAL LAWS&mdash;AGAINST THEFT BY
+FALSE WORK, AND BY BANKRUPTCY.&mdash;NECESSARY PUBLICITY
+OF ACCOUNTS.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 26, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>76. I feel much inclined to pause at this point, to answer
+the kind of questions and objections which I know must be
+rising in your mind, respecting the authority supposed to
+be lodged in the persons of the officers just specified. But I
+can neither define, nor justify to you, the powers I would
+desire to see given to them, till I state to you the kind of laws
+they would have to enforce: of which the first group should
+be directed to the prevention of all kinds of thieving; but
+chiefly of the occult and polite methods of it; and, of all
+occult methods, chiefly, the making and selling of bad goods.
+No form of theft is so criminal as this&mdash;none so deadly to
+the State. If you break into a man's house and steal a hundred
+pounds' worth of plate, he knows his loss, and there
+is an end (besides that you take your risk of punishment for
+your gain, like a man). And if you do it bravely and openly,
+and habitually live by such inroad, you may retain nearly
+every moral and manly virtue, and become a heroic rider and
+reiver, and hero of song. But if you swindle me out of
+twenty shillings' worth of quality on each of a hundred bargains,
+I lose my hundred pounds all the same, and I get a
+hundred untrustworthy articles besides, which will fail me
+and injure me in all manner of ways, when I least expect it;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+and you, having done your thieving basely, are corrupted by
+the guilt of it to the very heart's core.</p>
+
+<p>77. This is the first thing, therefore, which your general
+laws must be set to punish, fiercely, immitigably, to the
+utter prevention and extinction of it, or there is no hope for
+you. No religion that ever was preached on this earth of
+God's rounding ever proclaimed any salvation to sellers of
+bad goods. If the Ghost that is in you, whatever the essence
+of it, leaves your hand a juggler's, and your heart a cheat's,
+it is not a Holy Ghost, be assured of that. And for the rest,
+all political economy, as well as all higher virtue, depends
+<i>first on sound work</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Let your laws, then, I say, in the beginning, be set to secure
+this. You cannot make punishment too stern for subtle
+knavery. Keep no truce with this enemy, whatever pardon
+you extend to more generous ones. For light weights and
+false measures, or for proved adulteration or dishonest manufacture
+of article, the penalty should be simply confiscation of
+goods and sending out of the country. The kind of person
+who desires prosperity by such practices could not be made to
+"emigrate" too speedily. What to do with him in the place
+you appoint to be blessed by his presence, we will in time consider.</p>
+
+<p>78. Under such penalty, however, and yet more under the
+pressure of such a right public opinion as could pronounce
+and enforce such penalty, I imagine that sham articles would
+become speedily as rare as sound ones are now. The chief
+difficulty in the matter would be to fix your standard. This
+would have to be done by the guild of every trade in its own
+manner, and within certain easily recognizable limits, and
+this fixing of standard would necessitate much simplicity in
+the forms and kinds of articles sold. You could only warrant
+a certain kind of glazing or painting in china, a certain
+quality of leather or cloth, bricks of a certain clay, loaves
+of a defined mixture of meal. Advisable improvements or
+varieties in manufacture would have to be examined and
+accepted by the trade guild: when so accepted, they would
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+be announced in public reports; and all puffery and self-proclamation,
+on the part of tradesmen, absolutely forbidden,
+as much as the making of any other kind of noise or disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>79. But observe, this law is only to have force over tradesmen
+whom I suppose to have joined voluntarily in carrying
+out a better system of commerce. Outside of their guild,
+they would have to leave the rogue to puff and cheat as he
+chose, and the public to be gulled as they chose. All that is
+necessary is that the said public should clearly know the shops
+in which they could get warranted articles; and, as clearly,
+those in which they bought at their own risk.</p>
+
+<p>And the above-named penalty of confiscation of goods
+should of course be enforced only against dishonest members
+of the trade guild. If people chose to buy of those
+who had openly refused to join an honest society, they should
+be permitted to do so, at their pleasure, and peril: and this
+for two reasons,&mdash;the first, that it is always necessary, in enacting
+strict law, to leave some safety valve for outlet of irrepressible
+vice (nearly all the stern lawgivers of old time
+erred by oversight in this; so that the morbid elements of the
+State, which it should be allowed to get rid of in a cutaneous
+and openly curable manner, were thrown inwards, and corrupted
+its constitution, and broke all down);&mdash;the second,
+that operations of trade and manufacture conducted under,
+and guarded by, severe law, ought always to be subject to the
+stimulus of such erratic external ingenuity as cannot be
+tested by law, or would be hindered from its full exercise by
+the dread of it; not to speak of the farther need of extending
+all possible indulgence to foreign traders who might wish to
+exercise their industries here without liability to the surveillance
+of our trade guilds.</p>
+
+<p>80. Farther, while for all articles warranted by the guild
+(as above supposed) the prices should be annually fixed for
+the trade throughout the kingdom; and the producing workman's
+wages fixed, so as to define the master's profits within
+limits admitting only such variation as the nature of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+given article of sale rendered inevitable;&mdash;yet, in the production
+of other classes of articles, whether by skill of applied
+handicraft, or fineness of material above the standard of the
+guild, attaining, necessarily, values above its assigned prices,
+every firm should be left free to make its own independent
+efforts and arrangements with its workmen, subject always to
+the same penalty, if it could be proved to have consistently
+described, or offered, anything to the public for what it was
+not: and finally, the state of the affairs of every firm should
+be annually reported to the guild, and its books laid open to
+inspection, for guidance in the regulation of prices in the
+subsequent year; and any firm whose liabilities exceeded its
+assets by a hundred pounds should be forthwith declared
+bankrupt. And I will anticipate what I have to say in succeeding
+letters so far as to tell you that I would have this condition
+extend to every firm in the country, large or small,
+and of whatever rank in business. And thus you perceive,
+my friend, I shall not have to trouble you or myself much
+with deliberations respecting commercial "panics," nor to
+propose legislative cures for <i>them</i>, by any laxatives or purgatives
+of paper currency, or any other change of pecuniary
+diet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XV" id="LETTER_XV"></a>LETTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE NATURE OF THEFT BY UNJUST PROFITS.&mdash;CRIME CAN
+FINALLY BE ARRESTED ONLY BY EDUCATION.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>29th March.</i></p>
+
+<p>81. The first methods of polite robbery, by dishonest manufacture
+and by debt, of which we have been hitherto speaking,
+are easily enough to be dealt with and ended, when
+once men have a mind to end them. But the third method
+of polite robbery, by dishonest <i>acquisition</i>, has many branches,
+and is involved among honest arts of acquisition, so that it is
+difficult to repress the one without restraining the other.</p>
+
+<p>Observe, first, large fortunes cannot honestly be made by
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+the work of any <i>one</i> man's hands, or head. If his work benefits
+multitudes, and involves position of high trust, it may be
+(I do not say that it <i>is</i>) expedient to reward him with great
+wealth or estate; but fortune of this kind is freely given in
+gratitude for benefit, not as repayment for labor. Also, men
+of peculiar genius in any art, if the public can enjoy the product
+of their genius, may set it at almost any price they
+choose; but this, I will show you when I come to speak of art,
+is unlawful on their part and ruinous to their own powers.
+Genius must not be sold; the sale of it involves, in a transcendental,
+but perfectly true, sense, the guilt both of simony
+and prostitution. Your labor only may be sold; your soul
+must not.</p>
+
+<p>82. Now, by fair pay for fair labor, according to the rank
+of it, a man can obtain means of comfortable, or if he needs
+it, refined life. But he cannot obtain large fortune. Such
+fortunes as are now the prizes of commerce can be made only
+in one of three ways:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(1.) By obtaining command over the labor of multitudes
+of other men and taxing it for our own profit.</p>
+
+<p>(2.) By treasure-trove,&mdash;as of mines, useful vegetable products,
+and the like,&mdash;in circumstances putting them under
+our own exclusive control.</p>
+
+<p>(3.) By speculation, (commercial gambling).</p>
+
+<p>The first two of these means of obtaining riches are, in
+some forms and within certain limits, lawful, and advantageous
+to the State. The third is entirely detrimental to it;
+for in all cases of profit derived from speculation, at best,
+what one man gains another loses; and the net results to the
+State is zero, (pecuniarily,) with the loss of the time and
+ingenuity spent in the transaction; besides the disadvantage
+involved in the discouragement of the losing party, and the
+corrupted moral natures of both. This is the result of speculation
+at its best. At its worst, not only B loses what A gains
+(having taken his fair risk of such loss for his fair chance
+of gain), but C and D, who never had any chance at all, are
+drawn in by B's fall, and the final result is that A sets up his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+carriage on the collected sum which was once the means of
+living to a dozen families.</p>
+
+<p>83. Nor is this all. For while real commerce is founded
+on real necessities or uses, and limited by these, speculation,
+of which the object is merely gain, seeks to excite imaginary
+necessities and popular desires, in order to gather its temporary
+profit from the supply of them. So that not only the
+persons who lend their money to it will be finally robbed, but
+the work done with their money will be, for the most part,
+useless, and thus the entire body of the public injured as
+well as the persons concerned in the transaction. Take,
+for instance, the architectural decorations of railways throughout
+the kingdom,&mdash;representing many millions of money for
+which no farthing of dividend can ever be forthcoming. The
+public will not be induced to pay the smallest fraction of
+higher fare to Rochester or Dover because the ironwork of
+the bridge which carries them over the Thames is covered
+with floral cockades, and the piers of it edged with ornamental
+cornices. All that work is simply put there by the builders
+that they may put the percentage upon it into their own
+pockets; and, the rest of the money being thrown into that
+floral form, there is an end of it, as far as the shareholders
+are concerned. Millions upon millions have thus been spent,
+within the last twenty years, on ornamental arrangements
+of zigzag bricks, black and blue tiles, cast-iron foliage, and
+the like; of which millions, as I said, not a penny can ever
+return into the shareholders' pockets, nor contribute to public
+speed or safety on the line. It is all sunk forever in ornamental
+architecture, and (trust me for this!) <i>all that architecture
+is bad</i>. As such, it had incomparably better not have
+been built. Its only result will be to corrupt what capacity
+of taste or right pleasure in such work we have yet left to
+us! And consider a little, what other kind of result than that
+might have been attained if all those millions had been spent
+usefully: say, in buying land for the people, or building
+good houses for them, or (if it had been imperatively required
+to be spent decoratively) in laying out gardens and parks for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+them,&mdash;or buying noble works of art for their permanent
+possession,&mdash;or, best of all, establishing frequent public
+schools and libraries. Count what those lost millions would
+have so accomplished for you! But you left the affair to
+"supply and demand," and the British public had not brains
+enough to "demand" land, or lodging, or books. It "demanded"
+cast-iron cockades and zigzag cornices, and is
+"supplied" with them, to its beatitude for evermore.</p>
+
+<p>84. Now, the theft we first spoke of, by falsity of workmanship
+or material, is, indeed, so far worse than these thefts
+by dishonest acquisition, that there is no possible excuse for
+it on the ground of self-deception; while many speculative
+thefts are committed by persons who really mean to do no
+harm, but think the system on the whole a fair one, and do
+the best they can in it for themselves. But in the real fact
+of the crime, when consciously committed, in the numbers
+reached by its injury, in the degree of suffering it causes to
+those whom it ruins, in the baseness of its calculated betrayal
+of implicit trust, in the yet more perfect vileness of the
+obtaining such trust by misrepresentation, only that it may
+be betrayed, and in the impossibility that the crime should be
+at all committed, except by persons of good position and large
+knowledge of the world&mdash;what manner of theft is so wholly
+unpardonable, so inhuman, so contrary to every law and instinct
+which binds or animates society?</p>
+
+<p>And then consider farther, how many of the carriages that
+glitter in our streets are driven, and how many of the stately
+houses that gleam among our English fields are inhabited,
+by this kind of thief!</p>
+
+<p>85. I happened to be reading this morning (29th March)
+some portions of the Lent services, and I came to a pause over
+the familiar words, "And with Him they crucified two
+thieves." Have you ever considered (I speak to you now as
+a professing Christian), why, in the accomplishment of the
+"numbering among transgressors," the transgressors chosen
+should have been especially thieves&mdash;not murderers, nor, as
+far as we know, sinners by any gross violence? Do you observe
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+how the sin of theft is again and again indicated as the
+chiefly antagonistic one to the law of Christ? "This he said,
+not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and
+had the bag" (of Judas). And again, though Barabbas was
+a leader of sedition, and a murderer besides,&mdash;(that the popular
+election might be in all respects perfect)&mdash;yet St. John,
+in curt and conclusive account of him, fastens again on the
+theft. "Then cried they all again saying, Not this man, but
+Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber." I believe myself
+the reason to be that theft is indeed, in its subtle forms, the
+most complete and excuseless of human crimes. Sins of violence
+usually are committed under sudden or oppressive temptation:
+they may be the madness of moments; or they may be
+apparently the only means of extrication from calamity. In
+other cases, they are the diseased acts or habits of lower and
+brutified natures.<a name="FNanchor_A_10" id="FNanchor_A_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_10" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+But theft involving deliberative intellect,
+and absence of passion, is the purest type of wilful iniquity,
+in persons capable of doing right. Which being so, it seems
+to be fast becoming the practice of modern society to crucify
+its Christ indeed, as willingly as ever, in the persons of His
+poor; but by no means now to crucify its thieves beside
+Him! It elevates its thieves after another fashion; sets them
+upon a hill, that their light may shine before men and that
+all may see their good works, and glorify their Father, in&mdash;the
+Opposite of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>86. I think your trade parliament will have to put an end
+to this kind of business somehow! But it cannot be done by
+laws merely, where the interests and circumstances are so
+extended and complex. Nay, even as regards lower and more
+defined crimes, the assigned punishment is not to be thought
+of as a preventive means; but only as the seal of opinion
+set by society on the fact. Crime cannot be hindered by punishment;
+it will always find some shape and outlet, unpunishable
+or unclosed. Crime can only be truly hindered by letting
+no man grow up a criminal&mdash;by taking away the <i>will</i> to commit
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+sin; not by mere punishment of its commission. Crime,
+small and great, can only be truly stayed by education&mdash;not
+the education of the intellect only, which is, on some men,
+wasted, and for others mischievous; but education of the
+heart, which is alike good and necessary for all. So, on this
+matter, I will try in my next letter to say one or two things
+of which the silence has kept my own heart heavy this many a
+day.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_10" id="Footnote_A_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_10"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+See the analysis of the moral system of Dante, respecting punishment,
+given in 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIII.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XVI" id="LETTER_XVI"></a>LETTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IRRESPECTIVE OF CLASS-DISTINCTION.
+IT CONSISTS ESSENTIALLY IN GIVING HABITS OF MERCY, AND HABITS OF TRUTH.
+(GENTLENESS<a name="FNanchor_A_11" id="FNanchor_A_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_11" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+AND JUSTICE.)</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>March 30th, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>87. Thank you for sending me the pamphlet containing
+the account of the meeting of clergy and workmen, and of the
+reasonings which there took place. I cannot promise you that
+I shall read much of them, for the question to my mind most
+requiring discussion and explanation is not, why workmen
+don't go to church, but&mdash;why other people do. However,
+this I know, that if among our many spiritual teachers, there
+are indeed any who heartily and literally believe that the
+wisdom they have to teach "is more precious than rubies, and
+all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto
+her," and if, so believing, they will further dare to affront
+their congregations by the assertion; and plainly tell them
+they are not to hunt for rubies or gold any more, at their
+peril, till they have gained that which cannot be gotten for
+gold, nor silver weighed for the price thereof,&mdash;such believers,
+so preaching, and refusing to preach otherwise till
+they are in that attended to, will never want congregations,
+both of working men, and every other kind of men.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+88. Did you ever hear of anything else so ill-named as the
+phantom called the "Philosopher's Stone"? A talisman that
+shall turn base metal into precious metal, nature acknowledges
+not; nor would any but fools seek after it. But a talisman to
+turn base souls into noble souls, nature has given us! and that
+is a "Philosopher's Stone" indeed, but it is a stone which
+the builders refuse.</p>
+
+<p>89. If there were two valleys in California or Australia,
+with two different kinds of gravel in the bottom of them; and
+in the one stream bed you could dig up, occasionally and by
+good fortune, nuggets of gold; and in the other stream bed,
+certainly and without hazard, you could dig up little caskets,
+containing talismans which gave length of days and peace;
+and alabaster vases of precious balms, which were better than
+the Arabian Dervish's ointment, and made not only the eyes
+to see, but the mind to know, whatever it would&mdash;I wonder
+in which of the stream beds there would be most diggers?</p>
+
+<p>90. "Time is money"&mdash;so say your practised merchants
+and economists. None of them, however, I fancy, as they
+draw towards death, find that the reverse is true, and that
+"money is time"? Perhaps it might be better for them, in
+the end, if they did not turn so much of their time into money,
+lest, perchance, they also turn Eternity into it! There are
+other things, however, which in the same sense are money,
+or can be changed into it, as well as time. Health is money,
+wit is money, knowledge is money; and all your health, and
+wit, and knowledge may be changed for gold; and the happy
+goal so reached, of a sick, insane, and blind, auriferous old
+age; but the gold cannot be changed in its turn back into
+health and wit.</p>
+
+<p>91. "Time is money;" the words tingle in my ears so that
+I can't go on writing. Is it nothing better, then? If we
+could thoroughly understand that time was&mdash;<i>itself</i>,&mdash;would it
+not be more to the purpose? A thing of which loss or gain
+was absolute loss, and perfect gain. And that it was expedient
+also to buy health and knowledge with money, if so
+purchasable; but not to buy money with <i>them</i>?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+And purchasable they are at the beginning of life, though
+not at its close. Purchasable, always, for others, if not for
+ourselves. You can buy, and cheaply, life, endless life, according
+to your Christian's creed&mdash;(there's a bargain for
+you!) but&mdash;long years of knowledge, and peace, and power,
+and happiness of love&mdash;these assuredly and irrespectively of
+any creed or question,&mdash;for all those desolate and haggard
+children about your streets.</p>
+
+<p>92. "That is not political economy, however." Pardon
+me; the all-comfortable saying, "What he layeth out, it shall
+be paid him again," is quite literally true in matters of
+education; no money seed can be sown with so sure and large
+return at harvest-time as that; only of this money-seed, more
+than of flesh-seed, it is utterly true, "That which thou sowest
+is not quickened except it <i>die</i>." You must forget your
+money, and every other material interest, and educate for
+education's sake only! or the very good you try to bestow
+will become venomous, and that and your money will be lost
+together.</p>
+
+<p>93. And this has been the real cause of failure in our
+efforts for education hitherto&mdash;whether from above or below.
+There is no honest desire for the thing itself. The cry for
+it among the lower orders is because they think that, when
+once they have got it, they must become upper orders. There
+is a strange notion in the mob's mind now-a-days (including
+all our popular economists and educators, as we most justly
+may, under that brief term "mob"), that <i>everybody</i> can be
+uppermost; or at least, that a state of general scramble, in
+which everybody in his turn should come to the top, is a
+proper Utopian constitution; and that, once give every lad a
+good education, and he cannot but come to ride in his carriage
+(the methods of supply of coachmen and footmen not
+being contemplated). And very sternly I say to you&mdash;and
+say from sure knowledge&mdash;that a man had better not know
+how to read and write, than receive education on such terms.</p>
+
+<p>94. The first condition under which it can be given usefully
+is, that it should be clearly understood to be no means
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+of getting on in the world, but a means of staying pleasantly in your
+place there. And the first elements of State education should be
+calculated equally for the advantage of every order of person
+composing the State. From the lowest to the highest class, every child
+born in this island should be required by law to receive these general
+elements of human discipline, and to be baptized&mdash;not with a drop
+of water on its forehead&mdash;but in the cloud and sea of heavenly
+wisdom and of earthly power.</p>
+
+<p>And the elements of this general State education should be briefly
+these:</p>
+
+<p>95. First&mdash;The body must be made as beautiful and perfect in its
+youth as it can be, wholly irrespective of ulterior purpose. If you
+mean afterwards to set the creature to business which will degrade its
+body and shorten its life, first, I should say, simply,&mdash;you had
+better let such business alone;&mdash;but if you must have it done,
+somehow, yet let the living creature, whom you mean to kill, get the
+full strength of its body first, and taste the joy, and bear the
+beauty of youth. After that, poison it, if you will. Economically, the
+arrangement is a wiser one, for it will take longer in the killing
+than if you began with it younger; and you will get an excess of work
+out of it which will more than pay for its training.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, first teach&mdash;as I have said in the preface to 'Unto
+this Last'&mdash;"The Laws of Health, and exercises enjoined by them;"
+and, to this end, your schools must be in fresh country, and amidst
+fresh air, and have great extents of land attached to them in
+permanent estate. Riding, running, all the honest, personal exercises
+of offense and defense, and music, should be the primal heads of this
+bodily education.</p>
+
+<p>96. Next to these bodily accomplishments, the two great
+mental graces should be taught, Reverence and Compassion:
+not that these are in a literal sense to be "taught," for they
+are innate in every well-born human creature, but they have
+to be developed exactly as the strength of the body must be,
+by deliberate and constant exercise. I never understood why
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+Goethe (in the plan of education in 'Wilhelm Meister') says that
+reverence is not innate, but must be taught from without; it seems to
+me so fixedly a function of the human spirit, that if men can get
+nothing else to reverence they will worship a fool, or a stone, or a
+vegetable.<a name="FNanchor_A_12" id="FNanchor_A_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_12" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>
+But to teach reverence rightly is to attach it to the right persons
+and things; first, by setting over your youth masters whom they cannot
+but love and respect; next, by gathering for them, out of past
+history, whatever has been most worthy in human deeds and human
+passion; and leading them continually to dwell upon such instances,
+making this the principal element of emotional excitement to them;
+and, lastly, by letting them justly feel, as far as may be, the
+smallness of their own powers and knowledge, as compared with the
+attainments of others.</p>
+
+<p>97. Compassion, on the other hand, is to be taught chiefly by making
+it a point of honor, collaterally with courage, and in the same rank
+(as indeed the complement and evidence of courage), so that, in the
+code of unwritten school law, it shall be held as shameful to have
+done a cruel thing as a cowardly one. All infliction of pain on weaker
+creatures is to be stigmatized as unmanly crime; and every possible
+opportunity taken to exercise the youths in offices of some practical
+help, and to acquaint them with the realities of the distress which,
+in the joyfulness of entering into life, it is so difficult, for those
+who have not seen home suffering, to conceive.</p>
+
+<p>98. Reverence, then, and compassion, we are to teach
+primarily, and with these, as the bond and guardian of them,
+truth of spirit and word, of thought and sight. Truth, earnest
+and passionate, sought for like a treasure, and kept like
+a crown.</p>
+
+<p>This teaching of truth as a habit will be the chief work the
+master has to do; and it will enter into all parts of education.
+First, you must accustom the children to close accuracy of
+statement; this both as a principle of honor, and as an accomplishment
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+of language, making them try always who shall speak truest, both as
+regards the fact he has to relate or express (not concealing or
+exaggerating), and as regards the precision of the words he expresses
+it in, thus making truth (which, indeed, it is) the test of perfect
+language, and giving the intensity of a moral purpose to the study and
+art of words: then carrying this accuracy into all habits of thought
+and observation also, so as always to <i>think</i> of things as they truly
+are, and to see them as they truly are, as far as in us rests. And it
+does rest much in our power, for all false thoughts and seeings come
+mainly of our thinking of what we have no business with, and looking
+for things we want to see, instead of things that ought to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>99. "Do not talk but of what you know; do not think but
+of what you have materials to think justly upon; and do not
+look for things only that you like, when there are others to
+be seen"&mdash;this is the lesson to be taught to our youth, and
+inbred in them; and that mainly by our own example and
+continence. Never teach a child anything of which you are
+not yourself sure; and, above all, if you feel anxious to force
+anything into its mind in tender years, that the virtue of
+youth and early association may fasten it there, be sure it is
+no lie which you thus sanctify. There is always more to be
+taught of absolute, incontrovertible knowledge, open to its
+capacity, than any child can learn; there is no need to teach
+it anything doubtful. Better that it should be ignorant of
+a thousand truths, than have consecrated in its heart a single
+lie.</p>
+
+<p>100. And for this, as well as for many other reasons, the
+principal subjects of education, after history, ought to be
+natural science and mathematics; but with respect to these
+studies, your schools will require to be divided into three
+groups: one for children who will probably have to live in
+cities, one for those who will live in the country, and one
+for those who will live at sea; the schools for these last, of
+course, being always placed on the coast. And for children
+whose life is to be in cities, the subjects of study should be,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+as far as their disposition will allow of it, mathematics and
+the arts; for children who are to live in the country, natural
+history of birds, insects, and plants, together with agriculture
+taught practically; and for children who are to be seamen,
+physical geography, astronomy, and the natural history of
+sea-fish and sea-birds.</p>
+
+<p>101. This, then, being the general course and material of
+education for all children, observe farther, that in the preface
+to 'Unto this Last' I said that every child, besides passing
+through this course, was at school to learn "the calling by
+which it was to live." And it may perhaps appear to you
+that after, or even in the early stages of education such as
+this above described, there are many callings which, however
+much called to them, the children might not willingly determine
+to learn or live by. "Probably," you may say, "after
+they have learned to ride, and fence, and sing, and know
+birds and flowers, it will be little to their liking to make
+themselves into tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths,
+and the like." And I cannot but agree with you as to the
+exceeding probability of some such reluctance on their part,
+which will be a very awkward state of things indeed, (since
+we can by no means get on without tailoring and shoemaking,)
+and one to be meditated upon very seriously in next
+letter.</p>
+
+<p>102. P.S.&mdash;Thank you for sending me your friend's letter
+about Gustave Dor&eacute;; he is wrong, however, in thinking there
+is any good in those illustrations of 'Elaine.' I had intended
+to speak of them afterwards, for it is to my mind quite as
+significant&mdash;almost as awful&mdash;a sign of what is going on in
+the midst of us, that our great English poet should have
+suffered his work to be thus contaminated, as that the lower
+Evangelicals, never notable for sense in the arts, should have
+got their Bibles dishonored. Those 'Elaine' illustrations are
+just as impure as anything else that Dor&eacute; has done; but they
+are also vapid, and without any one merit whatever in point
+of art. The illustrations to the 'Contes Dr&ocirc;latiques' are
+full of power and invention; but those to 'Elaine' are merely
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
+and simply stupid; theatrical b&ecirc;tises, with the taint of the
+charnel-house on them besides.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_11" id="Footnote_A_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_11"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+"Mercy," in its full sense, means delight in perceiving nobleness,
+or in doing kindness. Compare &sect; 50.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_12" id="Footnote_A_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_12"><span class="label">[B]</span></a>
+By steady preaching against it, one may quench reverence, and
+bring insolence to its height; but the instinct cannot be wholly uprooted.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XVII" id="LETTER_XVII"></a>LETTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE RELATIONS OF EDUCATION TO POSITION IN LIFE.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 3, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>103. I am not quite sure that you will feel the awkwardness
+of the dilemma I got into at the end of last letter, as much as
+I do myself. You working men have been crowing and peacocking
+at such a rate lately; and setting yourselves forth so
+confidently for the cream of society, and the top of the world,
+that perhaps you will not anticipate any of the difficulties
+which suggest themselves to a thoroughbred Tory and Conservative,
+like me. Perhaps you will expect a youth properly
+educated&mdash;a good rider&mdash;musician&mdash;and well-grounded
+scholar in natural philosophy, to think it a step of promotion
+when he has to go and be made a tailor of, or a coalheaver?
+If you do, I should very willingly admit that you might be
+right, and go on to the farther development of my notions
+without pausing at this stumbling-block, were it not that,
+unluckily, all the wisest men whose sayings I ever heard or
+read, agree in expressing (one way or another) just such
+contempt for those useful occupations, as I dread on the part
+of my foolishly refined scholars. Shakespeare and Chaucer,&mdash;Dante
+and Virgil,&mdash;Horace and Pindar,&mdash;Homer, &AElig;schylus,
+and Plato,&mdash;all the men of any age or country who
+seem to have had Heaven's music on their lips, agree in their
+scorn of mechanic life. And I imagine that the feeling of
+prudent Englishmen, and sensible as well as sensitive Englishwomen,
+on reading my last letter, would mostly be&mdash;"Is
+the man mad, or laughing at us, to propose educating
+the working classes this way? He could not, if his wild
+scheme were possible, find a better method of making them
+acutely wretched."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+104. It may be so, my sensible and polite friends; and I am heartily
+willing, as well as curious, to hear you develop your own scheme of
+operative education, so only that it be universal, orderly, and
+careful. I do not say that I shall be prepared to advocate my
+athletics and philosophies instead. Only, observe what you admit, or
+imply, in bringing forward your possibly wiser system. You imply that
+a certain portion of mankind must be employed in degrading work; and
+that, to fit them for this work, it is necessary to limit their
+knowledge, their active powers, and their enjoyments, from childhood
+upwards, so that they may not be able to conceive of any state better
+than the one they were born in, nor possess any knowledge or
+acquirements inconsistent with the coarseness, or disturbing the
+monotony, of their vulgar occupation. And by their labor in this
+contracted state of mind, we superior beings are to be maintained; and
+always to be curtseyed to by the properly ignorant little girls, and
+capped by the properly ignorant little boys, whenever we pass by.</p>
+
+<p>105. Mind, I do not say that this is <i>not</i> the right state of
+things. Only, if it be, you need not be so over-particular about
+the slave-trade, it seems to me. What is the use of arguing so
+pertinaciously that a black's skull will hold as much as a white's,
+when you are declaring in the same breath that a white's skull must
+not hold as much as it can, or it will be the worse for him? It does
+not appear to me at all a profound state of slavery to be whipped into
+doing a piece of low work that I don't like; but it is a very profound
+state of slavery to be kept, myself, low in the forehead, that I may
+not dislike low work.</p>
+
+<p>106. You see, my friend, the dilemma is really an awkward
+one, whichever way you look at it. But, what is still
+worse, I am not puzzled only, at this part of my scheme, about
+the boys I shall have to make <i>workmen</i> of; I am just
+as much puzzled about the boys I shall have to make <i>nothing</i>
+of! Grant, that by hook or crook, by reason or rattan, I
+persuade a certain number of the roughest ones into some
+serviceable business, and get coats and shoes made for the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+rest,&mdash;what is the business of "the rest" to be? Naturally,
+according to the existing state of things, one supposes they are to
+belong to some of the gentlemanly professions; to be soldiers,
+lawyers, doctors, or clergymen. But alas, I shall not want any
+soldiers of special skill or pugnacity. <i>All</i> my boys will be
+soldiers. So far from wanting any lawyers, of the kind that live by
+talking, I shall have the strongest possible objection to their
+appearance in the country. For doctors, I shall always entertain a
+profound respect; but when I get my athletic education fairly
+established, of what help to them will my respect be? They will all
+starve! And for clergymen, it is true, I shall have a large number of
+episcopates&mdash;one over every hundred families&mdash;(and many
+positions of civil authority also, for civil officers, above them and
+below), but all these places will involve much hard work, and be
+anything but covetable; while, of clergymen's usual work, admonition,
+theological demonstration, and the like, I shall want very little done
+indeed, and that little done for nothing! for I will allow no man to
+admonish anybody, until he has previously earned his own dinner by
+more productive work than admonition.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I wish, my friend, you would write me a word or two in answer to
+this, telling me your own ideas as to the proper issue out of these
+difficulties. I should like to know what you think, and what you
+suppose others will think, before I tell you my own notions about the
+matter.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XVIII" id="LETTER_XVIII"></a>LETTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF SERVILE EMPLOYMENTS. THE POSSIBLE
+PRACTICE AND EXHIBITION OF SINCERE HUMILITY BY RELIGIOUS PERSONS.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 7, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>107. I have been waiting these three days to know what
+you would say to my last questions; and now you send me
+two pamphlets of Combe's to read! I never read anything
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+in spring-time (except the Ai, Ai, on the "sanguine flower inscribed
+with woe"); and, besides, if, as I gather from your letter, Combe
+thinks that among well-educated boys there would be a percentage
+constitutionally inclined to be cobblers, or looking forward with
+unction to establishment in the oil and tallow line, or fretting
+themselves for a flunkey's uniform, nothing that he could say would
+make me agree with him. I know, as well as he does, the unconquerable
+differences in the clay of the human creature: and I know that, in the
+outset, whatever system of education you adopted, a large number of
+children could be made nothing of, and would necessarily fall out of
+the ranks, and supply candidates enough for degradation to common
+mechanical business: but this enormous difference in bodily and mental
+capacity has been mainly brought about by difference in occupation,
+and by direct maltreatment; and in a few generations, if the poor were
+cared for, their marriages looked after, and sanitary law enforced, a
+beautiful type of face and form, and a high intelligence, would become
+all but universal, in a climate like this of England. Even as it is,
+the marvel is always to me, how the race resists, at least in its
+childhood, influences of ill-regulated birth, poisoned food, poisoned
+air, and soul neglect. I often see faces of children, as I walk
+through the black district of St. Giles's (lying, as it does, just
+between my own house and the British Museum), which, through all their
+pale and corrupt misery, recall the old "Non Angli," and recall it,
+not by their beauty, but by their sweetness of expression, even though
+signed already with trace and cloud of the coming life,&mdash;a life
+so bitter that it would make the curse of the 137th Psalm true upon
+our modern Babylon, though we were to read it thus, "Happy shall <i>thy
+children</i> be, if one taketh and dasheth them against the stones."</p>
+
+<p>108. Yes, very solemnly I repeat to you that in those
+worst treated children of the English race, I yet see the
+making of gentlemen and gentlewomen&mdash;not the making of
+dog-stealers and gin-drinkers, such as their parents were; and
+the child of the average English tradesman or peasant, even
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+at this day, well schooled, will show no innate disposition
+such as must fetter him forever to the clod or the counter.
+You say that many a boy runs away, or would run away if
+he could, from good positions to go to sea. Of course he
+does. I never said I should have any difficulty in finding
+sailors, but I shall in finding fishmongers. I am at no loss
+for gardeners either, but what am I to do for greengrocers?</p>
+
+<p>109. The fact is, a great number of quite necessary employments are,
+in the accuratest sense, "Servile;" that is, they sink a man to the
+condition of a serf, or unthinking worker, the proper state of an
+animal, but more or less unworthy of men; nay, unholy in some sense,
+so that a day is made "holy" by the fact of its being commanded, "Thou
+shalt do no <i>servile</i> work therein." And yet, if undertaken in a
+certain spirit, such work might be the holiest of all. If there were
+but a thread or two of sound fiber here and there left in our modern
+religion, so that the stuff of it would bear a real strain, one might
+address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists
+somewhat after this fashion:&mdash;"Good friends, these differences of
+opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity,
+and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning
+from you what, perhaps, we ought. But, as we read your Book, we, for
+our part, gather from it that you might, without danger to your own
+souls, set an undivided example to us, for the benefit of ours. You,
+both of you, as far as we understand, agree in the necessity of
+humility to the perfection of your character. We often hear you, of
+Calvinistic persuasion, speaking of yourselves as 'sinful dust and
+ashes,'&mdash;would it then be inconsistent with your feelings to make
+yourselves into 'serviceable' dust and ashes? We observe that of late
+many of our roads have been hardened and mended with cinders; now, if,
+in a higher sense, you could allow us to mend the roads of the world with
+<i>you</i> a little, it would be a great proof to us of your sincerity.
+Suppose, only for a little while, in the present difficulty and distress,
+you were to make it a test of conversion that a man should regularly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+give Zaccheus's portion, half his goods, to the poor, and at once
+adopt some disagreeable and despised, but thoroughly useful, trade?
+You cannot think that this would finally be to your disadvantage; you
+doubtless believe the texts, 'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to
+the Lord,' and 'He that would be chief among you, let him be your
+servant.' The more you parted with, and the lower you stooped, the
+greater would be your final reward, and final exaltation. You profess
+to despise human learning and worldly riches; leave both of these to
+<i>us</i>; undertake for us the illiterate and ill-paid employments which
+must deprive you of the privileges of society and the pleasures of
+luxury. You cannot possibly preach your faith so forcibly to the world
+by any quantity of the finest words, as by a few such simple and
+painful acts; and over your counters, in honest retail business, you
+might preach a gospel that would sound in more ears than any that was
+ever proclaimed over pulpit cushions or tabernacle rails. And,
+whatever may be your gifts of utterance, you cannot but feel (studying
+St. Paul's Epistles as carefully as you do) that you might more easily
+and modestly emulate the practical teaching of the silent Apostle of
+the Gentiles than the speech or writing of his companion. Amidst the
+present discomforts of your brethren you may surely, with greater
+prospect of good to them, seek the title of Sons of Consolation, than
+of Sons of Thunder, and be satisfied with Barnabas's confession of
+faith, (if you can reach no farther,) who, 'having land, sold it, and
+brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet.'</p>
+
+<p>110. "To you, on the other hand, gentlemen of the embroidered robe,
+who neither despise learning nor the arts, we know that sacrifices
+such as these would be truly painful, and might at first appear
+inexpedient. But the doctrine of self-mortification is not a new one
+to you; and we should be sorry to think&mdash;we would not, indeed,
+for a moment dishonor you by thinking&mdash;that these melodious
+chants, and prismatic brightnesses of vitreous pictures, and floral
+graces of deep-wrought stone, were in any wise intended for your own poor
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+pleasures, whatever profane attraction they may exercise on more
+fleshly-minded persons. And as you have certainly received no definite
+order for the painting, carving, or lighting up of churches, while the
+temple of the body of so many poor living Christians is so pale, so
+mis-shapen, and so ill-lighted; but have, on the contrary, received
+very definite orders for the feeding and clothing of such sad
+humanity, we may surely ask you, not unreasonably, to humiliate
+yourselves in the most complete way&mdash;not with a voluntary, but a
+sternly <i>in</i>voluntary humility&mdash;not with a show of wisdom in
+will-worship, but with practical wisdom, in all honor, to the
+satisfying of the flesh; and to associate yourselves in monasteries
+and convents for the better practice of useful and humble trades. Do
+not burn any more candles, but mould some; do not paint any more
+windows, but mend a few where the wind comes in, in winter time, with
+substantial clear glass and putty. Do not vault any more high roofs,
+but thatch some low ones; and embroider rather on backs which are
+turned to the cold, than only on those which are turned to
+congregations. And you will have your reward afterwards, and attain,
+with all your flocks thus tended, to a place where you may have as
+much gold, and painted glass, and singing, as you like."</p>
+
+<p>Thus much, it seems to me, one might say with some hope of acceptance,
+to any very earnest member of either of our two great religious
+parties, if, as I say, their faith could stand a strain. I have not,
+however, based any of my imaginary political arrangements on the
+probability of its doing so; and I trust only to such general good
+nature and willingness to help each other, as I presume may be found
+among men of the world; to whom I should have to make quite another
+sort of speech, which I will endeavor to set down the heads of, for
+you, in next letter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XIX" id="LETTER_XIX"></a>LETTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE GENERAL PRESSURE OF EXCESSIVE AND IMPROPER WORK,
+IN ENGLISH LIFE.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 10, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>111. I cannot go on to-day with the part of my subject I
+had proposed, for I was disturbed by receiving a letter last
+night, which I herewith enclose to you, and of which I wish
+you to print, here following, the parts I have not underlined&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p class="date">1, Phene Street, Chelsea, April 8, 1867.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Dear R</span>&mdash;&mdash;,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It is long since you have heard of me, and now I ask your patience
+with me for a little. I have but just returned from the funeral of my
+dear, dear friend &mdash;&mdash;, the first artist friend I made in London&mdash;a
+loved and prized one. For years past he had lived in the very humblest
+way, fighting his battle of life against mean appreciation of his
+talents, the wants of a rising family, and frequent attacks of illness,
+crippling him for months at a time, the wolf at the door meanwhile.</p>
+
+<p>But about two years since his prospects brightened * * * and he had
+but a few weeks since ventured on removal to a larger house. His
+eldest boy of seventeen years, a very intelligent youth, so strongly
+desired to be a civil engineer that Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, not being able to pay the
+large premium required for his apprenticeship, had been made very
+glad by the consent of Mr. Penn, of Millwall, to receive him without a
+premium after the boy should have spent some time at King's College
+in the study of mechanics. The rest is a sad story. About a fortnight
+ago Mr. &mdash;&mdash; was taken ill, and died last week, the doctors say, of
+sheer physical exhaustion, not thirty-nine years old, leaving eight
+young children, and his poor widow expecting her confinement, and
+so weak and ill as to be incapable of effort. This youth is the eldest,
+and the other children range downwards to a babe of eighteen
+months. There is not one who knew him, I believe, that will not give
+cheerfully, to their ability, for his widow and children; but such aid
+will go but a little way in this painful case; and it would be a real
+boon to this poor widow if some of her children could be got into an
+Orphan Asylum. * * *</p>
+
+<p>If you are able to do anything I would send particulars of the age
+and sex of the children.</p>
+
+<p class="regards">I remain, dear Sir, ever obediently yours,</p>
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Fred. J. Shields.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+P.S.&mdash;I ought to say that poor &mdash;&mdash; has been quite unable to save,
+with his large family; and that they would be utterly destitute now,
+but for the kindness of some with whom he was professionally connected.</p></div>
+
+<p>112. Now this case, of which you see the entire authenticity,
+is, out of the many of which I hear continually, a
+<i>notably</i> sad one only in so far as the artist in question has
+died of distress while he was catering for the public amusement.
+Hardly a week now passes without some such misery
+coming to my knowledge; and the quantity of pain, and
+anxiety of daily effort, through the best part of life, ending
+all at last in utter grief, which the lower middle classes
+in England are now suffering, is so great that I feel constantly
+as if I were living in one great churchyard, with
+people all round me clinging feebly to the edges of the open
+graves, and calling for help, as they fall back into them, out
+of sight.</p>
+
+<p>113. Now I want you to observe here, in a definite case,
+the working of your beautiful modern political economy of
+"supply and demand." Here is a man who could have
+"supplied" you with good and entertaining art,&mdash;say for
+fifty good years,&mdash;if you had paid him enough for his day's
+work to find him and his children peacefully in bread. But
+you like having your prints as cheap as possible&mdash;you triumph
+in the little that your laugh costs&mdash;you take all you can get
+from the man, give the least you can give to him,&mdash;and you
+accordingly kill him at thirty-nine; and thereafter have his
+children to take care of, or to kill also, whichever you
+choose; but, now, observe, you must take care of <i>them</i> for
+nothing, or not at all; and what you might have had good
+value for, if you had given it when it would have cheered
+the father's heart, you now can have no return for at all, to
+yourselves; and what you give to the orphans, if it does not
+degrade them, at least afflicts, coming, not through their
+father's hand, its honest earnings, but from strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Observe, farther, whatever help the orphans may receive,
+will not be from the public at all. It will not be from those
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+who profited by their father's labors; it will be chiefly from
+his fellow-laborers; or from persons whose money would have
+been beneficially spent in other directions, from whence it is
+drawn away to this need, which ought never to have occurred,&mdash;while
+those who waste their money without doing any service
+to the public will never contribute one farthing to this
+distress.</p>
+
+<p>114. Now it is this double fault in the help&mdash;that it comes
+too late, and that the burden of it falls wholly on those who
+ought least to be charged with it&mdash;which would be corrected
+by that institution of overseers of which I spoke to you in the
+twelfth of these letters, saying, you remember, that they were
+to have farther legal powers, which I did not then specify,
+but which would belong to them chiefly in the capacity of
+public almoners, or help-givers, aided by their deacons, the
+reception of such help, in time of true need, being not held
+disgraceful, but honorable; since the fact of its reception
+would be so entirely public that no impostor or idle person
+could ever obtain it surreptitiously.</p>
+
+<p>115. (11th April.) I was interrupted yesterday, and I am
+glad of it, for here happens just an instance of the way in
+which the unjust distribution of the burden of charity is
+reflected on general interests; I cannot help what taint of
+ungracefulness you or other readers of these letters may feel
+that I incur, in speaking, in this instance, of myself. If I
+could speak with the same accurate knowledge of any one
+else, most gladly I would; but I also think it right that,
+whether people accuse me of boasting or not, they should know
+that I practise what I preach. I had not intended to say
+what I now shall, but the coming of this letter last night just
+turns the balance of the decision with me. I enclose it with
+the other; you see it is one from my bookseller, Mr. Quaritch,
+offering me Fischer's work on the <i>Flora of Java</i>, and Latour's
+on <i>Indian Orchidace&aelig;</i>, bound together, for twenty guineas.
+Now, I am writing a book on botany just now, for young
+people, chiefly on wild flowers, and I want these two books
+very much; but I simply cannot afford to buy them, because
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+I sent my last spare twenty guineas to Mr. Shields yesterday
+for this widow. And though you may think it not the affair
+of the public that I have not this book on Indian flowers, it
+is their affair finally, that what I write for them should be
+founded on as broad knowledge as possible; whatever value
+my own book may or may not have, it will just be in a given
+degree worth <i>less</i> to them, because of my want of this knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>116. So again&mdash;for having begun to speak of myself I
+will do so yet more frankly&mdash;I suppose that when people see
+my name down for a hundred pounds to the Cruikshank
+Memorial, and for another hundred to the Eyre Defense
+Fund, they think only that I have more money than I know
+what to do with. Well, the giving of those subscriptions
+simply decides the question whether or no I shall be able to
+afford a journey to Switzerland this year, in the negative;
+and I wanted to go, not only for health's sake, but to examine
+the junctions of the molasse sandstones and nagelfluh with the
+Alpine limestone, in order to complete some notes I meant to
+publish next spring on the geology of the great northern
+Swiss valley; notes which must now lie by me at least for
+another year; and I believe this delay (though I say it) will
+be really something of a loss to the traveling public, for the
+little essay was intended to explain to them, in a familiar
+way, the real wonderfulness of their favorite mountain, the
+Righi; and to give them some amusement in trying to find out
+where the many-colored pebbles of it had come from. But it
+is more important that I should, with some stoutness, assert
+my respect for the genius and earnest patriotism of Cruikshank,
+and my much more than disrespect for the Jamaica
+Committee, than that I should see the Alps this year, or get
+my essay finished next spring; but I tell you the fact, because
+I want you to feel how, in thus leaving their men of worth
+to be assisted or defended only by those who deeply care for
+them, the public more or less cripple, to their own ultimate
+disadvantage, just the people who could serve them in other
+ways; while the speculators and money-seekers, who are only
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+making their profit out of the said public, of course take no
+part in the help of anybody. And even if the willing bearers
+could sustain the burden anywise adequately, none of us would
+complain; but I am certain there is no man, whatever his
+fortune, who is now engaged in any earnest offices of kindness
+to these sufferers, especially of the middle class, among his
+acquaintance, who will not bear me witness that for one we
+can relieve, we must leave three to perish. I have left three,
+myself, in the first three months of this year. One was the
+artist Paul Gray, for whom an appeal was made to me for
+funds to assist him in going abroad out of the bitter English
+winter. I had not the means by me, and he died a week
+afterwards. Another case was that of a widow whose husband
+had committed suicide, for whom application was made
+to me at the same time; and the third was a personal friend,
+to whom I refused a sum which he said would have saved
+him from bankruptcy. I believe six times as much would
+not have saved him; however, I refused, and he is ruined.</p>
+
+<p>117. And observe, also, it is not the mere crippling of my
+means that I regret. It is the crippling of my temper, and
+waste of my time. The knowledge of all this distress, even
+when I can assist it,&mdash;much more when I cannot,&mdash;and the
+various thoughts of what I can and cannot, or ought and
+ought not, to do, are a far greater burden to me than the
+mere loss of the money. It is peremptorily not my business&mdash;it
+is not my gift, bodily or mentally, to look after other
+people's sorrow. I have enough of my own; and even if I
+had not, the sight of pain is not good for me. I don't want
+to be a bishop. In a most literal and sincere sense, "<i>nolo
+episcopari</i>." I don't want to be an almoner, nor a counselor,
+nor a Member of Parliament, nor a voter for Members of
+Parliament. (What would Mr. Holyoake say to me if he
+knew that I have never voted for anybody in my life, and
+never mean to do so!) I am essentially a painter and a leaf
+dissector; and my powers of thought are all purely mathematical,
+seizing ultimate principles only&mdash;never accidents; a
+line is always, to me, length without breadth; it is not a cable
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+or a crowbar; and though I can almost infallibly reason out
+the final law of anything, if within reach of my industry, I
+neither care for, nor can trace, the minor exigencies of its
+daily appliance. So, in every way, I like a quiet life; and I
+don't like seeing people cry, or die; and should rejoice,
+more than I can tell you, in giving up the full half of my
+fortune for the poor, provided I knew that the public would
+make Lord Overstone also give the half of his, and other
+people who were independent give the half of theirs; and
+then set men who were really fit for such office to administer
+the fund, and answer to us for nobody's perishing innocently;
+and so leave us all to do what we chose with the rest, and
+with our days, in peace.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far of the public's fault in the matter. Next, I have
+a word or two to say of the sufferers' own fault&mdash;for much
+as I pity them, I conceive that none of them <i>do</i> perish
+altogether innocently. But this must be for next letter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XX" id="LETTER_XX"></a>LETTER XX.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF IMPROVIDENCE IN MARRIAGE IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES;
+AND OF THE ADVISABLE RESTRICTIONS OF IT.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 12, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>118. It is quite as well, whatever irregularity it may
+introduce in the arrangement of the general subject, that
+yonder sad letter warped me away from the broad inquiry,
+to this speciality, respecting the present distress of the middle
+classes. For the immediate cause of that distress, in their
+own imprudence, of which I have to speak to you to-day, is
+only to be finally vanquished by strict laws, which, though
+they have been many a year in my mind, I was glad to have
+a quiet hour of sunshine for the thinking over again, this
+morning. Sunshine which happily rose cloudless; and
+allowed me to meditate my tyrannies before breakfast, under
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+the just opened blossoms of my orchard, and assisted by much
+melodious advice from the birds; who (my gardener having
+positive orders never to trouble any of them in anything, or
+object to their eating even my best peas if they like their
+flavor) rather now get <i>into</i> my way, than out of it, when
+they see me about the walks; and take me into most of their
+counsels in nest-building.</p>
+
+<p>119. The letter from Mr. Shields, which interrupted us,
+reached me, as you see, on the evening of the 9th instant.
+On the morning of the 10th, I received another, which I herewith
+forward to you, for verification. It is&mdash;characteristically
+enough&mdash;dateless, so you must take the time of its arrival
+on my word. And substituting M. N. for the name of the
+boy referred to, and withholding only the address and name
+of the writer, you see that it may be printed word for word&mdash;as
+follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>May I beg for the favor of your presentation to Christ's Hospital
+for my youngest son, M. N.? I have nine children, and no means to
+educate them. I ventured to address you, believing that my husband's
+name is not unknown to you as an artist.</p>
+
+<p class="regards">Believe me to remain faithfully yours,</p>
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">* * *</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>120. Now this letter is only a typical example of the
+entire class of those which, being a governor of Christ's
+Hospital, I receive, in common with all the other governors,
+at the rate of about three a day, for a month or six weeks
+from the date of our names appearing in the printed list of
+the governors who have presentations for the current year.
+Having been a governor now some twenty-five years, I have
+documentary evidence enough to found some general statistics
+upon; from which there have resulted two impressions on my
+mind, which I wish here specially to note to you, and I do
+not doubt but that all the other governors, if you could ask
+them, would at once confirm what I say. My first impression
+is, a heavy and sorrowful sense of the general feebleness of
+intellect of that portion of the British public which stands in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+need of presentations to Christ's Hospital. This feebleness
+of intellect is mainly shown in the nearly total unconsciousness
+of the writers that anybody else may want a presentation,
+besides themselves. With the exception here and there of a
+soldier's or a sailor's widow, hardly one of them seems to have
+perceived the existence of any distress in the world but their
+own: none know what they are asking for, or imagine, unless
+as a remote contingency, the possibility of its having been
+promised at a prior date. The second most distinct impression
+on my mind, is that the portion of the British public
+which is in need of presentations to Christ's Hospital considers
+it a merit to have large families, with or without the
+means of supporting them!</p>
+
+<p>121. Now it happened also (and remember, all this is
+strictly true, nor in the slightest particular represented otherwise
+than as it chanced; though the said chance brought thus
+together exactly the evidence I wanted for my letter to you)&mdash;it
+happened, I say, that on this same morning of the 10th
+April, I became accidentally acquainted with a case of quite
+a different kind: that of a noble girl, who, engaged at sixteen,
+and having received several advantageous offers since, has
+remained for ten years faithful to her equally faithful lover;
+while, their circumstances rendering it, as they rightly considered,
+unjustifiable in them to think of marriage, each of
+them simply and happily, aided and cheered by the other's
+love, discharged the duties of their own separate positions
+in life.</p>
+
+<p>122. In the nature of things, instances of this kind of noble
+life remain more or less concealed, (while imprudence and
+error proclaim themselves by misfortune,) but they are assuredly
+not unfrequent in our English homes. Let us next
+observe the political and national result of these arrangements.
+You leave your marriages to be settled by "supply
+and demand," instead of wholesome law. And thus, among
+your youths and maidens, the improvident, incontinent, selfish,
+and foolish ones marry, whether you will or not; and
+beget families of children necessarily inheritors in a great
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+degree of these parental dispositions; and for whom, supposing
+they had the best dispositions in the world, you have thus
+provided, by way of educators, the foolishest fathers and
+mothers you could find; (the only rational sentence in their
+letters, usually, is the invariable one, in which they declare
+themselves "incapable of providing for their children's education").
+On the other hand, whosoever is wise, patient,
+unselfish, and pure among your youth, you keep maid or
+bachelor; wasting their best days of natural life in painful
+sacrifice, forbidding them their best help and best reward,
+and carefully excluding their prudence and tenderness from
+any offices of parental duty.</p>
+
+<p>Is not this a beatific and beautifully sagacious system for
+a Celestial Empire, such as that of these British Isles?</p>
+
+<p>123. I will not here enter into any statement of the
+physical laws which it is the province of our physicians to
+explain; and which are indeed at last so far beginning to be
+understood, that there is hope of the nation's giving some of
+the attention to the conditions affecting the race of man, which
+it has hitherto bestowed only on those which may better its
+races of cattle.</p>
+
+<p>It is enough, I think, to say here that the beginning of all
+sanitary and moral law is in the regulation of marriage, and
+that, ugly and fatal as is every form and agency of license,
+no licentiousness is so mortal as licentiousness in marriage.</p>
+
+<p>124. Briefly, then, and in main points, subject in minor
+ones to such modifications in detail as local circumstances and
+characters would render expedient, those following are laws
+such as a prudent nation would institute respecting its marriages.
+Permission to marry should be the reward held in
+sight of its youth during the entire latter part of the course
+of their education; and it should be granted as the national
+attestation that the first portion of their lives had been rightly
+fulfilled. It should not be attainable without earnest and
+consistent effort, though put within the reach of all who were
+willing to make such effort; and the granting of it should be
+a public testimony to the fact, that the youth or maid to whom
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+it was given had lived, within their proper sphere, a modest
+and virtuous life, and had attained such skill in their proper
+handicraft, and in arts of household economy, as might give
+well-founded expectations of their being able honorably to
+maintain and teach their children.</p>
+
+<p>125. No girl should receive her permission to marry before
+her seventeenth birthday, nor any youth before his twenty-first;
+and it should be a point of somewhat distinguished
+honor with both sexes to gain their permission of marriage
+in the eighteenth and twenty-second years; and a recognized
+disgrace not to have gained it at least before the close of their
+twenty-first and twenty-fourth. I do not mean that they
+should in any wise hasten actual marriage; but only that they
+should hold it a point of honor to have the right to marry.
+In every year there should be two festivals, one on the first
+of May, and one at the feast of harvest home in each district,
+at which festivals their permissions to marry should be given
+publicly to the maidens and youths who had won them in that
+half-year; and they should be crowned, the maids by the old
+French title of Rosi&egrave;res, and the youths, perhaps by some
+name rightly derived from one supposed signification of the
+word "bachelor," "laurel fruit," and so led in joyful procession,
+with music and singing, through the city street or
+village lane, and the day ended with feasting of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>126. And every bachelor and rosi&egrave;re should be entitled to
+claim, if they needed it, according to their position in life, a
+fixed income from the State, for seven years from the day of
+their marriage, for the setting up of their homes; and, however
+rich they might be by inheritance, their income should
+not be permitted to exceed a given sum, proportioned to their
+rank, for the seven years following that in which they had
+obtained their permission to marry, but should accumulate
+in the trust of the State until that seventh year, in which they
+should be put (on certain conditions) finally in possession of
+their property; and the men, thus necessarily not before
+their twenty-eighth, nor usually later than their thirty-first
+year, become eligible to offices of State. So that the rich and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+poor should not be sharply separated in the beginning of the
+war of life; but the one supported against the first stress of it
+long enough to enable them, by proper forethought and
+economy, to secure their footing; and the other trained somewhat
+in the use of moderate means, before they were permitted
+to have the command of abundant ones. And of the
+sources from which these State incomes for the married poor
+should be supplied, or of the treatment of those of our youth
+whose conduct rendered it advisable to refuse them permission
+to marry, I defer what I have to say till we come to the
+general subjects of taxation and criminal discipline; leaving
+the proposals made in this letter to bear, for the present, whatever
+aspect of mere romance and unrealizable vision they
+probably may, and to most readers, such as they assuredly
+will. Nor shall I make the slightest effort to redeem them
+from these imputations; for though there is nothing in all
+their purport which would not be approved, as in the deepest
+sense "practical"&mdash;by the Spirit of Paradise&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><p>
+"Which gives to all the self-same bent,<br />
+Whose lives are wise and innocent,"<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>and though I know that national justice in conduct, and
+peace in heart, could by no other laws be so swiftly secured,
+I confess with much <i>dis</i>peace of heart, that both justice and
+happiness have at this day become, in England, "romantic
+impossibilities."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XXI" id="LETTER_XXI"></a>LETTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF THE DIGNITY OF THE FOUR FINE ARTS; AND OF THE
+PROPER SYSTEM OF RETAIL TRADE.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 15, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>127. I return now to the part of the subject at which I
+was interrupted&mdash;the inquiry as to the proper means of finding
+persons willing to maintain themselves and others by
+degrading occupations.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+That, on the whole, simply manual occupations <i>are</i> degrading,
+I suppose I may assume you to admit; at all events, the fact is
+so, and I suppose few general readers will have any doubt of
+it.<a name="FNanchor_A_13" id="FNanchor_A_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_13" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>Granting this, it follows as a direct consequence that it is
+the duty of all persons in higher stations of life, by every
+means in their power to diminish their demand for work of
+such kind, <i>and to live with as little aid from the lower
+trades</i>, as they can possibly contrive.</p>
+
+<p>128. I suppose you see that this conclusion is not a little
+at variance with received notions on political economy? It
+is popularly supposed that it benefits a nation to invent a
+want. But the fact is, that the true benefit is in extinguishing
+a want&mdash;in living with as few wants as possible.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you the contempt I feel for the common writers
+on political economy, in their stupefied missing of this first
+principle of all human economy&mdash;individual or political&mdash;to
+live, namely, with as few wants as possible, and to waste
+nothing of what is given you to supply them.</p>
+
+<p>129. This ought to be the first lesson of every rich man's political
+code. "Sir," his tutor should early say to him, "you are so placed in
+society,&mdash;it may be for your misfortune, it <i>must</i> be for
+your trial&mdash;that you are likely to be maintained all your life
+by the labor of other men. You will have to make shoes for nobody,
+but some one will have to make a great many for you. You will have
+to dig ground for nobody, but some one will have to dig through
+every summer's hot day for you. You will build houses and make
+clothes for no one, but many a rough hand must knead clay,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+and many an elbow be crooked to the stitch, to keep that body of yours
+warm and fine. Now remember, whatever you and your work may be worth,
+the less your keep costs, the better. It does not cost money only. It
+costs degradation. You do not merely employ these people. You also
+tread upon them. It cannot be helped;&mdash;you have your place, and
+they have theirs; but see that you tread as lightly as possible, and
+on as few as possible. What food, and clothes, and lodging, you
+honestly need, for your health and peace, you may righteously take.
+See that you take the plainest you can serve yourself with&mdash;that
+you waste or wear nothing vainly&mdash;and that you employ no man in
+furnishing you with any useless luxury."</p>
+
+<p>130. That is the first lesson of Christian&mdash;or
+human&mdash;economy; and depend upon it, my friend, it is a sound one,
+and has every voice and vote of the spirits of Heaven and earth to
+back it, whatever views the Manchester men, or any other manner of
+men, may take respecting "demand and supply." Demand what you deserve,
+and you shall be supplied with it, for your good. Demand what you do
+<i>not</i> deserve, and you shall be supplied with something which you have
+not demanded, and which Nature perceives that you deserve, quite to
+the contrary of your good. That is the law of your existence, and if
+you do not make it the law of your resolved acts, so much, precisely,
+the worse for you and all connected with you.</p>
+
+<p>131. Yet observe, though it is out of its proper place said
+here, this law forbids no luxury which men are not degraded
+in providing. You may have Paul Veronese to paint your
+ceiling, if you like, or Benvenuto Cellini to make cups for
+you. But you must not employ a hundred divers to find
+beads to stitch over your sleeve. (Did you see the account
+of the sales of the Esterhazy jewels the other day?)</p>
+
+<p>And the degree in which you recognize the difference between these two
+kinds of services, is precisely what makes the difference between your being
+a civilized person or a barbarian. If you keep slaves to furnish forth your
+dress&mdash;to glut your stomach&mdash;sustain your indolence&mdash;or deck your
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+pride, you are a barbarian. If you keep servants, properly cared for, to
+furnish you with what you verily want, and no more than that&mdash;you
+are a "civil" person&mdash;a person capable of the qualities of
+citizenship.<a name="FNanchor_A_14" id="FNanchor_A_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_14" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p>
+
+<p>132. Now, farther, observe that in a truly civilized and
+disciplined state, no man would be allowed to meddle with
+any material who did not know how to make the best of it.
+In other words, the arts of working in wood, clay, stone, and
+metal, would all be <i>fine</i> arts (working in iron for machinery
+becoming an entirely distinct business). There would be no
+joiner's work, no smith's, no pottery nor stone-cutting, so
+debased in character as to be entirely unconnected with the
+finer branches of the same art; and to at least one of these
+finer branches (generally in metal-work) every painter and
+sculptor would be necessarily apprenticed during some years
+of his education. There would be room, in these four trades
+alone, for nearly every grade of practical intelligence and
+productive imagination.</p>
+
+<p>133. But it should not be artists alone who are exercised
+early in these crafts. It would be part of my scheme of
+physical education that every youth in the state&mdash;from the
+King's son downwards,&mdash;should learn to do something finely
+and thoroughly with his hand, so as to let him know what
+<i>touch</i> meant; and what stout craftsmanship meant; and to
+inform him of many things besides, which no man can learn
+but by some severely accurate discipline in doing. Let him
+once learn to take a straight shaving off a plank, or draw a
+fine curve without faltering, or lay a brick level in its mortar;
+and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no
+lips of man could ever teach him. He might choose his
+craft, but whatever it was, he should learn it to some sufficient
+degree of true dexterity: and the result would be, in after
+life, that among the middle classes a good deal of their house
+furniture would be made, and a good deal of rough work,
+more or less clumsily, but not ineffectively, got through, by
+the master himself and his sons, with much furtherance of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+their general health and peace of mind, and increase of innocent
+domestic pride and pleasure, and to the extinction of a
+great deal of vulgar upholstery and other mean handicraft.</p>
+
+<p>134. Farther. A great deal of the vulgarity, and nearly
+all the vice, of retail commerce, involving the degradation of
+persons occupied in it, depends simply on the fact that their
+minds are always occupied by the vital (or rather mortal)
+question of profits. I should at once put an end to this
+source of baseness by making all retail dealers merely salaried
+officers in the employ of the trade guilds; the stewards,
+that is to say, of the salable properties of those guilds, and
+purveyors of such and such articles to a given number of
+families. A perfectly well-educated person might, without
+the least degradation, hold such an office as this, however
+poorly paid; and it would be precisely the fact of his being
+well educated which would enable him to fulfil his duties to
+the public without the stimulus of direct profit. Of course
+the current objection to such a system would be that no man,
+for a regularly paid salary, would take pains to please his
+customers; and the answer to that objection is, that if you
+can train a man to so much unselfishness as to offer himself
+fearlessly to the chance of being shot, in the course of his
+daily duty, you can most assuredly, if you make it also a
+point of honor with him, train him to the amount of self-denial
+involved in looking you out with care such a piece
+of cheese or bacon as you have asked for.</p>
+
+<p>135. You see that I have already much diminished the
+number of employments involving degradation; and raised
+the character of many of those that are left. There remain
+to be considered the necessarily painful or mechanical works
+of mining, forging, and the like: the unclean, noisome, or
+paltry manufactures&mdash;the various kinds of transport&mdash;(by
+merchant shipping, etc.) and the conditions of menial service.</p>
+
+<p>It will facilitate the examination of these if we put them
+for the moment aside, and pass to the other division of our
+dilemma, the question, namely, what kind of lives our gentlemen
+and ladies are to live, for whom all this hard work is to
+be done.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_13" id="Footnote_A_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_13"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+Many of my working readers have disputed this statement eagerly,
+feeling the good effect of work in themselves; but observe, I only say,
+<i>simply</i> or <i>totally</i> manual work; and that, alone, <i>is</i> degrading, though
+often in measure, refreshing, wholesome, and necessary. So it is
+highly necessary and wholesome to eat sometimes; but degrading to
+eat all day, as to labor with the hands all day. But it is not degrading
+to think all day&mdash;if you can. A highly-bred court lady, rightly interested
+in politics and literature, is a much finer type of the human
+creature than a servant of all work, however clever and honest.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_14" id="Footnote_A_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_14"><span class="label">[B]</span></a>
+Compare 'The Crown of Wild Olive,' &sect;&sect; 79, 118, and 122.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XXII" id="LETTER_XXII"></a>LETTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF THE NORMAL POSITION AND DUTIES OF THE UPPER CLASSES.
+GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE LAND QUESTION.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 17, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>136. In passing now to the statement of conditions affecting
+the interests of the upper classes, I would rather have addressed
+these closing letters to one of themselves than to you,
+for it is with their own faults and needs that each class is
+primarily concerned. As, however, unless I kept the letters
+private, this change of their address would be but a matter
+of courtesy and form, not of any true prudential use; and as
+besides I am now no more inclined to reticence&mdash;prudent or
+otherwise; but desire only to state the facts of our national
+economy as clearly and completely as may be, I pursue the
+subject without respect of persons.</p>
+
+<p>137. Before examining what the occupation and estate of
+the upper classes ought, as far as may reasonably be conjectured,
+finally to become, it will be well to set down in brief
+terms what they actually have been in past ages: for this, in
+many respects, they must also always be. The upper classes,
+broadly speaking, are originally composed of the best-bred
+(in the mere animal sense of the term), the most energetic,
+and most thoughtful, of the population, who either by strength
+of arm seize the land from the rest, and make slaves of them,
+or bring desert land into cultivation, over which they have
+therefore, within certain limits, true personal right; or, by
+industry, accumulate other property, or by choice devote
+themselves to intellectual pursuits, and, though poor, obtain
+an acknowledged superiority of position, shown by benefits
+conferred in discovery, or in teaching, or in gifts of art.
+This is all in the simple course of the law of nature; and the
+proper offices of the upper classes, thus distinguished from
+the rest, become, therefore, in the main threefold:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>138. (A) Those who are strongest of arm have for their
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+proper function the restraint and punishment of vice, and the
+general maintenance of law and order; releasing only from its
+original subjection to their power that which truly deserves
+to be emancipated.</p>
+
+<p>(B) Those who are superior by forethought and industry,
+have for their function to be the providences of the foolish,
+the weak, and the idle; and to establish such systems of trade
+and distribution of goods as shall preserve the lower orders
+from perishing by famine, or any other consequence of their
+carelessness or folly, and to bring them all, according to each
+man's capacity, at last into some harmonious industry.</p>
+
+<p>(C) The third class, of scholars and artists, of course, have
+for function the teaching and delighting of the inferior multitude.</p>
+
+<p>The office of the upper classes, then, as a body, is to keep
+order among their inferiors, and raise them always to the
+nearest level with themselves of which those inferiors are
+capable. So far as they are thus occupied, they are invariably
+loved and reverenced intensely by all beneath them, and
+reach, themselves, the highest types of human power and
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>139. This, then, being the natural ordinance and function
+of aristocracy, its corruption, like that of all other beautiful
+things under the Devil's touch, is a very fearful one. Its
+corruption is, that those who ought to be the rulers and guides
+of the people, forsake their task of painful honorableness;
+seek their own pleasure and pre-eminence only; and use their
+power, subtlety, conceded influence, prestige of ancestry, and
+mechanical instrumentality of martial power, to make the
+lower orders toil for them, and feed and clothe them for
+nothing, and become in various ways their living property,
+goods, and chattels, even to the point of utter regardlessness
+of whatever misery these serfs may suffer through such insolent
+domination, or they themselves, their masters, commit
+of crime to enforce it.</p>
+
+<p>140. And this is especially likely to be the case when
+means of various and tempting pleasures are put within the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+reach of the upper classes by advanced conditions of national
+commerce and knowledge: and it is <i>certain</i> to be the case
+as soon as position among those upper classes becomes
+any way purchasable with money, instead of being the assured
+measure of some kind of worth, (either strength of
+hand, or true wisdom of conduct, or imaginative gift). It
+has been becoming more and more the condition of the aristocracy
+of Europe, ever since the fifteenth century; and is
+gradually bringing about its ruin, and in that ruin, checked
+only by the power which here and there a good soldier or
+true statesman achieves over the putrid chaos of its vain
+policy, the ruin of all beneath it; which can be arrested only,
+either by the repentance of that old aristocracy, (hardly to
+be hoped,) or by the stern substitution of other aristocracy
+worthier than it.</p>
+
+<p>141. Corrupt as it may be, it and its laws together, I would
+at this moment, if I could, fasten every one of its institutions
+down with bands of iron, and trust for all progress and help
+against its tyranny simply to the patience and strength of
+private conduct. And if I had to choose, I would tenfold
+rather see the tyranny of old Austria triumphant in the old
+and new worlds, and trust to the chance (or rather the distant
+certainty) of some day seeing a true Emperor born to its
+throne, than, with every privilege of thought and act, run the
+most distant risk of seeing the thoughts of the people of Germany
+and England become like the thoughts of the people
+of America.</p>
+
+<p>My American friends, of whom one, Charles Eliot Norton,
+of Cambridge, is the dearest I have in the world, tell me I
+know nothing about America. It may be so, and they must
+do me the justice to observe that I, therefore, usually <i>say</i>
+nothing about America. But this much I have said, because
+the Americans, as a nation, set their trust in liberty and in
+equality, of which I detest the one, and deny the possibility
+of the other; and because, also, as a nation, they are wholly
+undesirous of Rest, and incapable of it; irreverent of themselves,
+both in the present and in the future; discontented
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+with what they are, yet having no ideal of anything which they desire to
+become.<a name="FNanchor_A_15" id="FNanchor_A_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_15" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<p>142. But, however corrupted, the aristocracy of any nation may thus be
+always divided into three great classes. First, the landed proprietors
+and soldiers, essentially one political body (for the possession of
+land can only be maintained by military power); secondly, the moneyed
+men and leaders of commerce; thirdly, the professional men and masters
+in science, art, and literature.</p>
+
+<p>And we were to consider the proper duties of all these, and the laws
+probably expedient respecting them. Whereupon, in the outset, we are
+at once brought face to face with the great land question.</p>
+
+<p>143. Great as it may be, it is wholly subordinate to those we have
+hitherto been considering. The laws you make regarding methods of
+labor, or to secure the genuineness of the things produced by it,
+affect the entire moral state of the nation, and all possibility of
+human happiness for them. The mode of distribution of the land only
+affects their numbers. By this or that law respecting land you
+decide whether the nation shall consist of fifty or of a hundred
+millions. But by this or that law respecting work, you decide
+whether the given number of millions shall be rogues, or honest
+men;&mdash;shall be wretches, or happy men. And the question of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+numbers is wholly immaterial, compared with that of character;
+or rather, its own materialness depends on the prior
+determination of character. Make your nation consist of
+knaves, and, as Emerson said long ago, it is but the case of
+any other vermin&mdash;"the more, the worse." Or, to put the
+matter in narrower limits, it is a matter of no final concern
+to any parent whether he shall have two children, or four;
+but matter of quite final concern whether those he has shall,
+or shall not, deserve to be hanged. The great difficulty in
+dealing with the land question at all arises from the false,
+though very natural, notion on the part of many reformers,
+and of large bodies of the poor, that the division of the land
+among the said poor would be an immediate and everlasting
+relief to them. An <i>immediate</i> relief it would be to the extent
+of a small annual sum (you may easily calculate how little,
+if you choose) to each of them; on the strength of which
+accession to their finances, they would multiply into as much
+extra personality as the extra pence would sustain, and at
+that point be checked by starvation, exactly as they are now.</p>
+
+<p>144. Any other form of pillage would benefit them only
+in like manner; and, in reality, the difficult part of the question
+respecting numbers, is, not where they shall be arrested,
+but what shall be the method of their arrest.</p>
+
+<p>An island of a certain size has standing room only for so
+many people; feeding ground for a great many fewer than
+could stand on it. Reach the limits of your feeding ground,
+and you must cease to multiply, must emigrate or starve.
+The modes in which the pressure is gradually brought to bear
+on the population depend on the justice of your laws; but the
+pressure itself must come at last, whatever the distribution of
+the land. And arithmeticians seem to me a little slow to remark
+the importance of the old child's puzzle about the nails
+in the horseshoe&mdash;when it is populations that are doubling
+themselves, instead of farthings.</p>
+
+<p>145. The essential land question, then, is to be treated quite
+separately from that of the methods of restriction of population.
+The land question is&mdash;At what point will you resolve
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+to stop? It is separate matter of discussion how you are to
+stop at it.</p>
+
+<p>And this essential land question&mdash;"At what point will you
+stop?"&mdash;is itself two-fold. You have to consider first, by
+what methods of land distribution you can maintain the greatest
+number of healthy persons; and secondly, whether, if, by
+any other mode of distribution and relative ethical laws, you
+can raise their character, while you diminish their numbers,
+such sacrifice should be made, and to what extent? I think it
+will be better, for clearness' sake, to end this letter with the
+putting of these two queries in their decisive form, and to reserve
+suggestions of answer for my next.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_15" id="Footnote_A_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_15"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+Some following passages in this letter, containing personal references
+which might, in permanence, have given pain or offense, are now
+omitted&mdash;the substance of them being also irrelevant to my main
+purpose. These few words about the American war, with which they
+concluded, are, I think, worth retaining:&mdash;"All methods of right
+government are to be communicated to foreign nations by perfectness of
+example and gentleness of patiently expanded power, not suddenly, nor
+at the bayonet's point. And though it is the duty of every nation to
+interfere, at bayonet point, if they have the strength to do so, to
+save any oppressed multitude, or even individual, from manifest
+violence, it is wholly unlawful to interfere in such matter, except
+with sacredly pledged limitation of the objects to be accomplished in
+the oppressed person's favor, and with absolute refusal of all selfish
+advantage and <i>increase of territory or of political power</i> which
+might otherwise accrue from the victory."</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XXIII" id="LETTER_XXIII"></a>LETTER XXIII.</h2>
+<p class="subhead">OF THE JUST TENURE OF LANDS: AND THE PROPER FUNCTIONS
+OF HIGH PUBLIC OFFICERS.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>20th April, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>146. I must repeat to you, once more, before I proceed,
+that I only enter on this part of our inquiry to complete the
+sequence of its system, and explain fully the bearing of
+former conclusions, and not for any immediately practicable
+good to be got out of the investigation. Whatever I have
+hitherto urged upon you, it is in the power of all men quietly
+to promote, and finally to secure, by the patient resolution
+of personal conduct; but no action could be taken in re-distribution
+of land or in limitation of the incomes of the upper
+classes, without grave and prolonged civil disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>Such disturbance, however, is only too likely to take place,
+if the existing theories of political economy are allowed
+credence much longer. In the writings of the vulgar economists,
+nothing more excites my indignation than the subterfuges
+by which they endeavor to accommodate their pseudoscience
+to the existing abuses of wealth, by disguising the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+true nature of rent. I will not waste time in exposing their
+fallacies, but will put the truth for you into as clear a shape
+as I can.</p>
+
+<p>147. Rent, of whatever kind, is, briefly, the price continuously
+paid for the loan of the property of another person. It
+may be too little, or it may be just or exorbitant or altogether
+unjustifiable, according to circumstances. Exorbitant
+rents can only be exacted from ignorant or necessitous rent-payers:
+and it is one of the most necessary conditions of state
+economy that there should be clear laws to prevent such exaction.</p>
+
+<p>148. I may interrupt myself for a moment to give you an
+instance of what I mean. The most wretched houses of the
+poor in London often pay ten or fifteen per cent. to the landlord;
+and I have known an instance of sanitary legislation
+being hindered, to the loss of many hundreds of lives, in order
+that the rents of a nobleman, derived from the necessities of
+the poor, might not be diminished. And it is a curious thing
+to me to see Mr. J. S. Mill foaming at the mouth, and really
+afflicted conscientiously, because he supposes one man to have
+been unjustly hanged, while by his own failure, (I believe,
+<i>wilful</i> failure)<a name="FNanchor_A_16" id="FNanchor_A_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_16" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+in stating clearly to the public one of the first elementary truths of
+the science he professes, he is aiding and abetting the commission of
+the cruelest possible form of murder on many thousands of persons
+yearly, for the sake simply of putting money into the pockets of the
+landlords. I felt this evil so strongly that I bought, in the worst
+part of London, one freehold and one leasehold property, consisting of
+houses inhabited by the lowest poor; in order to try what change in
+their comfort and habits I could effect by taking only a just rent,
+but that firmly. The houses of the leasehold pay me five per cent.;
+the families that used to have one room in them have now two; and are
+more orderly and hopeful besides; and there is a surplus still on the
+rents they pay after I have taken my five per cent., with which, if all
+goes well, they will eventually be able to buy twelve years of the lease
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+from me. The freehold pays three per cent., with similar results
+in the comfort of the tenant. This is merely an example of what might
+be done by firm State action in such matters.</p>
+
+<p>149. Next, of wholly unjustifiable rents. These are for
+things which are not, and which it is criminal to consider
+as, personal or exchangeable property. Bodies of men, land,
+water, and air, are the principal of these things.</p>
+
+<p>Parenthetically, may I ask you to observe, that though a fearless
+defender of some forms of slavery, I am no defender of the slave
+<i>trade</i>. It is by a blundering confusion of ideas between
+<i>governing</i> men, and <i>trading in</i> men, and by consequent
+interference with the restraint, instead of only with the
+sale, that most of the great errors in action have been caused
+among the emancipation men. I am prepared, if the need be
+clear to my own mind, and if the power is in my hands, to
+throw men into prison, or any other captivity&mdash;to bind them or
+to beat them&mdash;and force them, for such periods as I may judge
+necessary, to any kind of irksome labor: and on occasion of
+desperate resistance, to hang or shoot them. But I will not
+<i>sell</i> them.</p>
+
+<p>150. Bodies of men, or women, then (and much more, as
+I said before, their souls), must not be bought or sold.
+Neither must land, nor water, nor air, these being the necessary
+sustenance of men's bodies and souls.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all these may, on certain terms, be bound, or secured
+in possession, to particular persons under certain conditions.
+For instance, it may be proper, at a certain time, to give a
+man permission to possess land, as you give him permission
+to marry; and farther, if he wishes it and works for it, to
+secure to him the land needful for his life; as you secure his
+wife to him; and make both utterly his own, without in the
+least admitting his right to buy other people's wives, or fields,
+or to sell his own.</p>
+
+<p>151. And the right action of a State respecting its land is,
+indeed, to secure it in various portions to those of its citizens
+who deserve to be trusted with it, according to their respective
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+desires and proved capacities; and after having so secured
+it to each, to exercise only such vigilance over his treatment
+of it as the State must give also to his treatment of his
+wife and servants; for the most part leaving him free, but
+interfering in cases of gross mismanagement or abuse of
+power. And in the case of great old families, which always
+ought to be, and in some measure, however decadent, still
+truly are, the noblest monumental architecture of the kingdom,
+living temples of sacred tradition and hero's religion,
+so much land ought to be granted to them in perpetuity as
+may enable them to live thereon with all circumstances of
+state and outward nobleness; <i>but their income must in no
+wise be derived from the rents of it</i>, nor must they be occupied
+(even in the most distant or subordinately administered
+methods), in the exaction of rents. That is not noblemen's
+work. Their income must be fixed, and paid them by the
+State, as the King's is.</p>
+
+<p>152. So far from their land being to them a source of income, it
+should be, on the whole, costly to them, great part of it being kept
+in conditions of natural grace, which return no rent but their
+loveliness; and the rest made, at whatever cost, exemplary in
+perfection of such agriculture as develops the happiest peasant
+life;<a name="FNanchor_A_17" id="FNanchor_A_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_17" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>
+agriculture which, as I will show you hereafter, must reject the aid
+of all mechanism except that of instruments guided solely by the human
+hand, or by animal, or directly natural forces; and which, therefore,
+cannot compete for profitableness with agriculture carried on by aid
+of machinery.</p>
+
+<p>And now for the occupation of this body of men, maintained at fixed
+perennial cost of the State.</p>
+
+<p>153. You know I said I should want no soldiers of special skill or
+pugnacity, for all my boys would be soldiers. But I assuredly want <i>captains</i>
+of soldiers, of special skill and pugnacity. And also, I said I should
+strongly object to the appearance of any lawyers in my territory; meaning,
+however, by lawyers, people who live by arguing about law,&mdash;not people
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+appointed to administer law; and people who live by eloquently
+misrepresenting facts&mdash;not people appointed to discover
+and plainly represent them.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, the youth of this landed aristocracy would be
+trained, in my schools, to these two great callings, not <i>by</i>
+which, but <i>in</i> which, they are to live.</p>
+
+<p>They would be trained, all of them, in perfect science of
+war, and in perfect science of essential law. And from their
+body should be chosen the captains and the judges of England,
+its advocates, and generally its State officers, all such
+functions being held for fixed pay (as already our officers of
+the Church and army are paid), and no function connected
+with the administration of law ever paid by casual fee. And
+the head of such family should, in his own right, having
+passed due (and high) examination in the science of law, and
+not otherwise, be a judge, law-ward or Lord, having jurisdiction
+both in civil and criminal cases, such as our present
+judges have, after such case shall have been fully represented
+before, and received verdict from, a jury, composed exclusively
+of the middle or lower orders, and in which no
+member of the aristocracy should sit. But from the decision
+of these juries, or from the Lord's sentence, there should be
+a final appeal to a tribunal, the highest in the land, held
+solely in the King's name, and over which, in the capital, the
+King himself should preside, and therein give judgment on a
+fixed number of days in each year;&mdash;and, in other places and
+at other times, judges appointed by election (under certain
+conditions) out of any order of men in the State (the election
+being national, not provincial): and all causes brought before
+these judges should be decided, without appeal, by their own
+authority; not by juries. This, then, recasting it for you
+into brief view, would be the entire scheme of state authorities:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>154. (1) The King: exercising, as part both of his prerogative
+and his duty, the office of a supreme judge at stated
+times in the central court of appeal of his kingdom.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+(2) Supreme judges appointed by national election; exercising
+sole authority in courts of final appeal.</p>
+
+<p>(3) Ordinary judges, holding the office hereditarily under
+conditions; and with power to add to their number (and
+liable to have it increased if necessary by the King's appointment);
+the office of such judges being to administer the national
+laws under the decision of juries.</p>
+
+<p>(4) State officers charged with the direction of public
+agency in matters of public utility.</p>
+
+<p>(5) Bishops, charged with offices of supervision and aid,
+to family by family, and person by person.</p>
+
+<p>(6) The officers of war, of various ranks.</p>
+
+<p>(7) The officers of public instruction, of various ranks.</p>
+
+<p>I have sketched out this scheme for you somewhat prematurely,
+for I would rather have conducted you to it step by
+step, and as I brought forward the reasons for the several parts
+of it; but it is, on other grounds, desirable that you should
+have it to refer to, as I go on.</p>
+
+<p>155. Without depending anywise upon nomenclature, yet
+holding it important as a sign and record of the meanings of
+things, I may tell you further that I should call the elected
+supreme judges, "Princes"; the hereditary judges,
+"Lords"; and the officers of public guidance, "Dukes"; and
+that the social rank of these persons would be very closely
+correspondent to that implied by such titles under our present
+constitution; only much more real and useful. And in conclusion
+of this letter, I will but add, that if you, or other
+readers, think it idle of me to write or dream of such things;
+as if any of them were in our power, or within possibility
+of any near realization, and above all, vain to write of them
+to a workman at Sunderland: you are to remember what I
+told you at the beginning, that I go on with this part of my
+subject in some fulfilment of my long-conceived plan, too
+large to receive at present any deliberate execution from my
+failing strength; (being the body of the work to which
+'Munera Pulveris' was intended merely as an introduction;)
+and that I address it to you because I know that the working
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+men of England must, for some time, be the only body to
+which we can look for resistance to the deadly influence of
+moneyed power.</p>
+
+<p>I intend, however, to write to you at this moment one more
+letter, partly explanatory of minor details necessarily omitted
+in this, and chiefly of the proper office of the soldier; and
+then I must delay the completion of even this poor task until
+after the days have turned, for I have quite other work to
+do in the brightness of the full-opened spring.</p>
+
+<p>156. P.S.&mdash;As I have used somewhat strong language,
+both here and elsewhere, of the equivocations of the economists
+on the subject of rent, I had better refer you to one
+characteristic example. You will find in paragraph 5th and
+6th of Book II., chap. 2, of Mr. Mill's 'Principles,' that the
+right to tenure of land is based, by his admission, only on the
+proprietor's being its improver.</p>
+
+<p>Without pausing to dwell on the objection that land cannot
+be improved beyond a certain point, and that, at the reaching
+of that point, farther claim to tenure would cease, on Mr.
+Mill's principle&mdash;take even this admission, with its proper
+subsequent conclusion, that "in no sound theory of private
+property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land
+should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it." Now, had that
+conclusion been farther followed, it would have compelled the
+admission that all rent was unjustifiable which normally
+maintained any person in idleness; which is indeed the whole
+truth of the matter. But Mr. Mill instantly retreats from
+this perilous admission; and after three or four pages of
+discussion (quite accurate for <i>its</i> part) of the limits of power
+in management of the land itself (which apply just as strictly
+to the peasant proprietor as to the cottier's landlord), he begs
+the whole question at issue in one brief sentence, slipped cunningly
+into the middle of a long one which appears to be telling
+all the other way, and in which the fatal assertion (of the
+right to rent) nestles itself, as if it had been already proved,&mdash;thus&mdash;I
+italicize the unproved assertion in which the venom
+of the entire falsehood is concentrated.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+"Even in the case of cultivated land, a man whom, though
+only one among millions, the law permits to hold thousands
+of acres as his single share, is not entitled to think that all is
+given to him to use and abuse, and deal with it as if it concerned
+nobody but himself. <i>The rents or profits which he
+can obtain from it are his, and his only</i>; but with regard to
+the land, in everything which he abstains from doing, he is
+morally bound, and should, whenever the case admits, be
+legally compelled to make his interest and pleasure consistent
+with the public good."</p>
+
+<p>157. I say, this sentence in italics is slipped <i>cunningly</i> into the
+long sentence, as if it were of no great consequence; and above I have
+expressed my belief that Mr. Mill's equivocations on this subject are
+wilful. It is a grave accusation; but I cannot, by any stretch of
+charity, attribute these misrepresentations to absolute dulness and
+bluntness of brain, either in Mr. Mill or his follower, Mr. Fawcett.
+Mr. Mill is capable of immense involuntary error; but his involuntary
+errors are usually owing to his seeing only one or two of the many
+sides of a thing; not to obscure sight of the side he <i>does</i> see. Thus
+his 'Essay on Liberty' only takes cognizance of facts that make for
+liberty, and of none that make for restraint. But in its statement of
+all that can be said for liberty, it is so clear and keen, that I have
+myself quoted it before now as the best authority on that side. And,
+if arguing in favor of Rent, absolutely, and with clear explanation of
+what it was, he had then defended it with all his might, I should have
+attributed to him only the honest shortsightedness of partisanship;
+but when I find his defining sentences full of subtle entanglement and
+reserve&mdash;and that reserve held throughout his treatment of this
+particular subject,&mdash;I cannot, whether I utter the suspicion or
+not, keep the sense of wilfulness in the misrepresentation from
+remaining in my mind. And if there be indeed ground for this
+blame, and Mr. Mill, for fear of fostering political
+agitation,<a name="FNanchor_A_18" id="FNanchor_A_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_18" class="fnanchor">[C]</a>
+<i>has</i> disguised <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+what he knows to be the facts about rent, I would ask
+him as one of the leading members of the Jamaica Committee, which is
+the greater crime, boldly to sign warrant for the sudden death of one
+man, known to be an agitator, in the immediate outbreak of such
+agitation, or, by equivocation in a scientific work, to sign warrants
+for the deaths of thousands of men in slow misery, for <i>fear</i> of an
+agitation which has not begun; and if begun, would be carried on by
+debate, not by the sword?</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_16" id="Footnote_A_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_16"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+See &sect; 156.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_17" id="Footnote_A_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_17"><span class="label">[B]</span></a>
+Compare 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXI., page 22.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_18" id="Footnote_A_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_18"><span class="label">[C]</span></a>
+With at last the natural consequences of cowardice,&mdash;nitro-glycerine
+and fire-balls! Let the upper classes speak the truth about themselves
+boldly, and they will know how to defend themselves fearlessly.
+It is equivocation in principle, and dereliction from duty, which melt
+at last into tears in a mob's presence.&mdash;(Dec. 16th, 1867.)</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XXIV" id="LETTER_XXIV"></a>LETTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">THE OFFICE OF THE SOLDIER.</p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 22, 1867.</i></p>
+
+<p>158. I must once more deprecate your probable supposition
+that I bring forward this ideal plan of State government,
+either with any idea of its appearing, to our present public
+mind, practicable even at a remote period, or with any positive
+and obstinate adherence to the particular form suggested.
+There are no wiser words among the many wise ones of the
+most rational and keen-sighted of old English men of the
+world, than these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><p>
+"For forms of government let fools contest;<br />
+That which is best administered is best."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>For, indeed, no form of government is of any use among bad
+men; and any form will work in the hands of the good; but
+the essence of all government among good men is this, that it
+is mainly occupied in the <i>production and recognition of human
+worth</i>, and in the detection and extinction of human unworthiness;
+and every Government which produces and recognizes
+worth, will also inevitably use the worth it has found
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+to govern with; and therefore fall into some approximation to
+such a system as I have described. And, as I told you, I do
+not contend for names, nor particular powers&mdash;though I state
+those which seem to me most advisable; on the contrary, I
+know that the precise extent of authorities must be different
+in every nation at different times, and ought to be so, according
+to their circumstances and character; and all that I assert
+with confidence is the necessity, within afterwards definable
+limits, of <i>some such</i> authorities as these; that is to say,</p>
+
+<p>159. I. An <i>observant</i> one:&mdash;by which all men shall be
+looked after and taken note of.</p>
+
+<p>II. A <i>helpful</i> one, from which those who need help may
+get it.</p>
+
+<p>III. A <i>prudential</i> one, which shall not let people dig in
+wrong places for coal, nor make railroads where they are
+not wanted; and which shall also, with true providence, insist
+on their digging in right places for coal, in a safe manner,
+and making railroads where they <i>are</i> wanted.</p>
+
+<p>IV. A <i>martial</i> one, which will punish knaves and make
+idle persons work.</p>
+
+<p>V. An <i>instructive</i> one, which shall tell everybody what it
+is their duty to know, and be ready pleasantly to answer questions
+if anybody asks them.</p>
+
+<p>VI. A <i>deliberate</i> and <i>decisive</i> one, which shall judge by
+law, and amend or make law;</p>
+
+<p>VII. An <i>exemplary</i> one, which shall show what is loveliest
+in the art of life.</p>
+
+<p>You may divide or name those several offices as you will,
+or they may be divided in practice as expediency may recommend;
+the plan I have stated merely puts them all into
+the simplest forms and relations.</p>
+
+<p>160. You see I have just defined the martial power as that
+"which punishes knaves and makes idle persons work." For
+that is indeed the ultimate and perennial soldiership; that is
+the essential warrior's office to the end of time. "There
+is no discharge in that war." To the compelling of sloth,
+and the scourging of sin, the strong hand will have to address
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+itself as long as this wretched little dusty and volcanic world
+breeds nettles, and spits fire. The soldier's office at present
+is indeed supposed to be the defense of his country against
+other countries; but that is an office which&mdash;Utopian as you
+may think the saying&mdash;will soon now be extinct. I say so
+fearlessly, though I say it with wide war threatened, at this
+moment, in the East and West. For observe what the standing
+of nations on their defense really means. It means that,
+but for such armed attitude, each of them would go and rob
+the other; that is to say, that the majority of active persons in
+every nation are at present&mdash;thieves. I am very sorry that
+this should still be so; but it will not be so long. National
+exhibitions, indeed, will not bring peace; but national education
+will, and that is soon coming. I can judge of this by
+my own mind, for I am myself naturally as covetous a person
+as lives in this world, and am as eagerly-minded to go and
+steal some things the French have got, as any housebreaker
+could be, having clue to attractive spoons. If I could by military
+incursion carry off Paul Veronese's "Marriage in Cana,"
+and the "Venus Victrix," and the "Hours of St. Louis," it
+would give me the profoundest satisfaction to accomplish the
+foray successfully; nevertheless, being a comparatively educated
+person, I should most assuredly not give myself that
+satisfaction, though there were not an ounce of gunpowder,
+nor a bayonet, in all France. I have not the least mind to
+rob anybody, however much I may covet what they have got;
+and I know that the French and British public may and will,
+with many other publics, be at last brought to be of this
+mind also; and to see farther that a nation's real strength and
+happiness do not depend on properties and territories, nor on
+machinery for their defense; but on their getting such territory
+as they <i>have</i>, well filled with none but respectable persons.
+Which is a way of <i>infinitely</i> enlarging one's territory, feasible
+to every potentate; and dependent no wise on getting Trent
+turned, or Rhine-edge reached.</p>
+
+<p>161. Not but that, in the present state of things, it may
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+often be soldiers' duty to seize territory, and hold it strongly;
+but only from banditti, or savage and idle persons.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, both Calabria and Greece ought to have been irresistibly
+occupied long ago. Instead of quarreling with Austria
+about Venice, the Italians ought to have made a truce
+with her for ten years, on condition only of her destroying no
+monuments, and not taxing Italians more than Germans; and
+then thrown the whole force of their army on Calabria, shot
+down every bandit in it in a week, and forced the peasantry
+of it into honest work on every hill-side, with stout and immediate
+help from the soldiers in embanking streams, building
+walls, and the like; and Italian finance would have been
+a much pleasanter matter for the King to take account of by
+this time; and a fleet might have been floating under Garganus
+strong enough to sweep every hostile sail out of the Adriatic,
+instead of a disgraced and useless remnant of one, about to
+be put up to auction.</p>
+
+<p>And similarly, <i>we</i> ought to have occupied Greece instantly,
+when they asked us, whether Russia liked it or not; given
+them an English king, made good roads for them, and stout
+laws; and kept them, and their hills and seas, with righteous
+shepherding of Arcadian fields, and righteous ruling of Salaminian
+wave, until they could have given themselves a Greek
+king of men again; and obeyed him, like men.</p>
+
+<p class="date"><i>April 24.</i></p>
+
+<p>162. It is strange that just before I finish work for this
+time, there comes the first real and notable sign of the victory
+of the principles I have been fighting for, these seven years.
+It is only a newspaper paragraph, but it means much. Look
+at the second column of the 11th page of yesterday's 'Pall
+Mall Gazette,' The paper has taken a wonderful fit of misprinting
+lately (unless my friend John Simon has been
+knighted on his way to Weimar, which would be much too
+right and good a thing to be a likely one); but its straws of
+talk mark which way the wind blows perhaps more early than
+those of any other journal&mdash;and look at the question it puts
+in that page, "Whether political economy be the sordid and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+materialistic science some account it, or almost the noblest on
+which thought can be employed?" Might not you as well
+have determined that question a little while ago, friend Public?
+and known what political economy <i>was</i>, before you talked
+so much about it?</p>
+
+<p>But, hark, again&mdash;"Ostentation, parental pride and a host
+of moral" (immoral?) "qualities must be recognized as
+among the springs of industry; political economy should not
+ignore these, but, to discuss them, <i>it must abandon its pretensions
+to the precision of a pure science</i>."</p>
+
+<p>163. Well done the 'Pall Mall'! Had it written "Prudence
+and parental affection," instead of "Ostentation and
+parental pride," "must be recognized among the springs of
+industry," it would have been still better; and it would then
+have achieved the expression of a part of the truth, which
+I put into clear terms in the first sentence of 'Unto this Last,'
+in the year 1862&mdash;which it has thus taken five years to get
+half way into the public's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed
+themselves of the minds of large masses of the human
+race, perhaps the most curious&mdash;certainly the least creditable&mdash;is
+the modern <i>soi-disant</i> science of political economy, based
+on the idea that an advantageous code of social action may be
+determined, irrespectively of the influence of social affection."</p>
+
+<p>Look also at the definition of skill, p. 87.</p>
+
+<p>"Under the term 'skill' I mean to include the united
+force of experience, intellect, and passion, in their operation
+on manual labor, and under the term 'passion' to include
+the entire range of the moral feelings."</p>
+
+<p>164. I say half way into the public's head, because you
+see, a few lines further on, the 'Pall Mall' hopes for a pause
+"half way between the rigidity of Ricardo and the sentimentality
+of Ruskin."</p>
+
+<p>With one hand on their pocket, and the other on their
+heart! Be it so for the present; we shall see how long this
+statuesque attitude can be maintained; meantime, it chances
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+strangely&mdash;as several other things have chanced while I was
+writing these notes to you&mdash;that they should have put in that
+sneer (two lines before) at my note on the meaning of the
+Homeric and Platonic Sirens, at the very moment when I was
+doubting whether I would or would not tell you the significance
+of the last song of Ariel in 'The Tempest.'</p>
+
+<p>I had half determined not, but now I shall. And this was
+what brought me to think of it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>165. Yesterday afternoon I called on Mr. H. C. Sorby,
+to see some of the results of an inquiry he has been following
+all last year, into the nature of the coloring matter of leaves
+and flowers.</p>
+
+<p>You most probably have heard (at all events, may with
+little trouble hear) of the marvelous power which chemical
+analysis has received in recent discoveries respecting the laws
+of light.</p>
+
+<p>My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the
+rainbow of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and
+the rainbow of forest leaves being born, and the rainbow of
+forest leaves dying.</p>
+
+<p>And, last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was
+but the three-hundredth part of a grain, dissolved in a drop
+of water; and it cast its measured bars, for ever recognizable
+now to human sight, on the chord of the seven colors. And no
+drop of that red rain can now be shed, so small as that the
+stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it heard out of
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>166. But the seeing these flower colors, and the iris of blood
+together with them, just while I was trying to gather into
+brief space the right laws of war, brought vividly back to me
+my dreaming fancy of long ago, that even the trees of the
+earth were "capable of a kind of sorrow, as they opened their
+innocent leaves in vain for men; and along the dells of England
+her beeches cast their dappled shades only where the
+outlaw drew his bow, and the king rode his careless chase;
+amidst the fair defiles of the Apennines, the twisted olive-trunks
+hid the ambushes of treachery, and on their meadows,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+day by day, the lilies, which were white at the dawn, were
+washed with crimson at sunset."</p>
+
+<p>And so also now this chance word of the daily journal,
+about the Sirens, brought to my mind the divine passage in
+the Cratylus of Plato, about the place of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>"And none of those who dwell there desire to depart
+thence,&mdash;no, not even the Sirens; but even they, the seducers,
+are there themselves beguiled, and they who lulled all men,
+themselves laid to rest&mdash;they, and all others&mdash;such sweet
+songs doth death know how to sing to them."</p>
+
+<p>So also the Hebrew.</p>
+
+<p>"And desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long
+home." For you know I told you the Sirens were not pleasures,
+but desires; being always represented in old Greek art
+as having human faces, with birds' wings and feet; and
+sometimes with eyes upon their wings; and there are not two
+more important passages in all literature, respecting the laws
+of labor and of life, than those two great descriptions of
+the Sirens in Homer and Plato,&mdash;the Sirens of death, and
+Sirens of eternal life, representing severally the earthly and
+heavenly desires of men; the heavenly desires singing to the
+motion of circles of the spheres, and the earthly on the rocks
+of fatalest shipwreck. A fact which may indeed be regarded
+"sentimentally," but it is also a profoundly important politico-economical
+one.</p>
+
+<p>And now for Shakespeare's song.</p>
+
+<p>167. You will find, if you look back to the analysis of it,
+given in 'Munera Pulveris,' &sect; 134, that the whole play of
+'The Tempest' is an allegorical representation of the powers
+of true, and therefore spiritual, Liberty, as opposed to true,
+and therefore carnal and brutal Slavery. There is not a sentence
+nor a rhyme, sung or uttered by Ariel or Caliban,
+throughout the play, which has not this under-meaning.</p>
+
+<p>168. Now the fulfilment of all human liberty is in the
+peaceful inheritance of the earth, with its "herb yielding
+seed, and fruit tree yielding fruit" after his kind; the
+pasture, or arable, land, and the blossoming, or wooded and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+fruited, land uniting the final elements of life and peace,
+for body and soul. Therefore, we have the two great Hebrew
+forms of benediction, "His eyes shall be red with wine,
+and his teeth white with milk," and again, "Butter and honey
+shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose
+the good." And as the work of war and sin has always been
+the devastation of this blossoming earth, whether by spoil
+or idleness, so the work of peace and virtue is also that of the
+first day of Paradise, to "Dress it and to keep it." And that
+will always be the song of perfectly accomplished Liberty,
+in her industry, and rest, and shelter from troubled thoughts
+in the calm of the fields, and gaining, by migration, the long
+summer's day from the shortening twilight:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><p>
+"Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;<br />
+In a cowslip's bell I lie;<br />
+There I couch when owls do cry.<br />
+On the bat's back I do fly<br />
+After summer merrily:<br />
+Merrily, merrily, shall I live now<br />
+Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>And the security of this treasure to all the poor, and not the
+ravage of it down the valleys of the Shenandoah, is indeed the
+true warrior's work. But, that they may be able to restrain
+vice rightly, soldiers must themselves be first in virtue; and
+that they may be able to compel labor sternly, they must themselves
+be first in toil, and their spears, like Jonathan's at
+Bethaven, enlighteners of the eyes.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LETTER_XXV" id="LETTER_XXV"></a>LETTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<p class="subhead">OF INEVITABLE DISTINCTION OF RANK, AND NECESSARY SUBMISSION
+TO AUTHORITY. THE MEANING OF PURE-HEARTEDNESS. CONCLUSION.</p>
+
+
+<p>169. I was interrupted yesterday, just as I was going to
+set my soldiers to work; and to-day, here comes the pamphlet
+you promised me, containing the Debates about Church-going,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+in which I find so interesting a text for my concluding letter
+that I must still let my soldiers stand at ease for a little while.
+Look at its twenty-fifth page, and you will find, in the speech
+of Mr. Thomas, (carpenter,) this beautiful explanation of
+the admitted change in the general public mind, of which Mr.
+Thomas, for his part, highly approves, (the getting out of
+the unreasonable habit of paying respect to anybody.) There
+were many reasons to Mr. Thomas's mind why the working
+classes did not attend places of worship: one was, that "the
+parson was regarded as an object of reverence. In the little
+town he came from, if a poor man did not make a bow to the
+parson he was a marked man. This was no doubt wearing
+away to a great extent" (the base habit of making bows),
+"because, the poor man was beginning to get education, and
+to think for himself. It was only while the priest kept the
+press from him that he was kept ignorant, and was compelled
+to bow, as it were, to the parson.... It was the case all over
+England. The clergyman seemed to think himself something
+superior. Now he (Mr. Thomas) did not admit there was
+any inferiority" (laughter, audience throughout course of
+meeting mainly in the right), "except, perhaps, on the score
+of his having received a classical education, which the poor
+man could not get."</p>
+
+<p>Now, my dear friend, here is the element which is the veriest devil
+of all that have got into modern flesh; this infidelity of the nineteenth
+century St. Thomas in there being anything better than himself
+alive;<a name="FNanchor_A_19" id="FNanchor_A_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_19" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+coupled, as it always is, with the farther resolution&mdash;if unwillingly
+convinced of the fact,&mdash;to seal the Better living thing down again
+out of his way, under the first stone handy. I had not intended, till
+we entered on the second section of our inquiry, namely, into the
+influence of gentleness (having hitherto, you see, been wholly concerned
+with that of justice), to give you the clue out of our dilemma about
+equalities produced by education; but by the speech of our superior
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+carpenter, I am driven into it at once, and it is perhaps as well.</p>
+
+<p>170. The speech is not, observe, without its own root of
+truth at the bottom of it, nor at all, as I think, ill intended
+by the speaker; but you have in it a clear instance of what I
+was saying in the sixteenth of these letters,&mdash;that education
+<i>was desired by the lower orders because they thought it would
+make them upper orders</i>, and be a leveler and effacer of
+distinctions. They will be mightily astonished, when they
+really get it, to find that it is, on the contrary, the fatalest
+of all discerners and enforcers of distinctions; piercing, even
+to the division of the joints and marrow, to find out wherein
+your body and soul are less, or greater, than other bodies
+and souls, and to sign deed of separation with unequivocal
+seal.</p>
+
+<p>171. Education is, indeed, of all differences not divinely
+appointed, an instant effacer and reconciler. Whatever is
+undivinely poor, it will make rich; whatever is undivinely
+maimed, and halt, and blind, it will make whole, and equal,
+and seeing. The blind and the lame are to it as to David
+at the siege of the Tower of the Kings, "hated of David's
+soul." But there are other divinely-appointed differences,
+eternal as the ranks of the everlasting hills, and as the
+strength of their ceaseless waters. And these, education
+does <i>not</i> do away with; but measures, manifests, and employs.</p>
+
+<p>In the handful of shingle which you gather from the sea-beach,
+which the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal
+foam, has only educated to be, every one, round, you will
+see little difference between the noble and mean stones. But
+the jeweler's trenchant education of them will tell you
+another story. Even the meanest will be better for it, but
+the noblest so much better that you can class the two together
+no more. The fair veins and colors are all clear now, and
+so stern is nature's intent regarding this, that not only will
+the polish show which is best, but the best will take most
+polish. You shall not merely see they have more virtue
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+than the others, but see that more of virtue more clearly;
+and the less virtue there is, the more dimly you shall see
+what there is of it.</p>
+
+<p>172. And the law about education, which is sorrowfulest
+to vulgar pride, is this&mdash;that all its gains are at compound
+interest; so that, as our work proceeds, every hour throws
+us farther behind the greater men with whom we began on
+equal terms. Two children go to school hand in hand, and
+spell for half an hour over the same page. Through all
+their lives, never shall they spell from the same page more.
+One is presently a page ahead,&mdash;two pages, ten pages,&mdash;and
+evermore, though each toils equally, the interval enlarges&mdash;at
+birth nothing, at death, infinite.</p>
+
+<p>173. And by this you may recognize true education from
+false. False education is a delightful thing, and warms
+you, and makes you every day think more of yourself. And
+true education is a deadly cold thing with a Gorgon's head
+on her shield, and makes you every day think worse of
+yourself.</p>
+
+<p>Worse in two ways, also, more's the pity. It is perpetually
+increasing the personal sense of ignorance and the
+personal sense of fault. And this last is the truth which is
+at the bottom of the common evangelical notion about conversion,
+and which the Devil has got hold of, and hidden,
+until, instead of seeing and confessing personal ignorance
+and fault, as compared with the sense and virtue of others,
+people see nothing but corruption in human nature, and
+shelter their own sins under accusation of their race (the
+worst of all assertions of equality and fraternity). And so
+they avoid the blessed and strengthening pain of finding out
+wherein they are fools, as compared with other men, by
+calling everybody else a fool too; and avoid the pain of discerning
+their own faults, by vociferously claiming their share
+in the great capital of original sin.</p>
+
+<p>I must also, therefore, tell you here what properly ought
+to have begun the next following section of our subject&mdash;the
+point usually unnoticed in the parable of the Prodigal Son.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+174. First, have you ever observed that all Christ's main
+teachings, by direct order, by earnest parable, and by His
+own permanent emotion, regard the use and misuse of <i>money</i>?
+We might have thought, if we had been asked what a divine
+teacher was most likely to teach, that he would have left
+inferior persons to give directions about money; and himself
+spoken only concerning faith and love, and the discipline of
+the passions, and the guilt of the crimes of soul against soul.
+But not so. He speaks in general terms of these. But He
+does not speak parables about them for all men's memory,
+nor permit Himself fierce indignation against them, in all
+men's sight. The Pharisees bring Him an adulteress. He
+writes her forgiveness on the dust of which He had formed
+her. Another, despised of all for known sin, He recognized
+as a giver of unknown love. But He acknowledges no love
+in buyers and sellers in His house. One should have thought
+there were people in that house twenty times worse than
+they;&mdash;Caiaphas and his like&mdash;false priests, false prayer-makers,
+false leaders of the people&mdash;who needed putting to
+silence, or to flight, with darkest wrath. But the scourge is
+only against the <i>traffickers and thieves</i>. The two most intense
+of all the parables: the two which lead the rest in love
+and terror (this of the Prodigal, and of Dives), relate, both
+of them, to management of riches. The practical order given
+to the only seeker of advice, of whom it is recorded that
+Christ "loved him," is briefly about his property. "Sell
+that thou hast."</p>
+
+<p>And the arbitrament of the day of the Last Judgment is
+made to rest wholly, neither on belief in God, nor in any
+spiritual virtue in man, nor on freedom from stress of
+stormy crime, but on this only, "I was an hungered and ye
+gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and ye came
+unto me."</p>
+
+<p>175. Well, then, the first thing I want you to notice in
+the parable of the Prodigal Son (and the last thing which
+people usually <i>do</i> notice in it), is&mdash;that it is about a Prodigal!
+He begins by asking for his share of his father's goods;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+he gets it, carries it off, and wastes it. It is true that he
+wastes it in riotous living, but you are not asked to notice in
+what kind of riot; he spends it with harlots&mdash;but it is not
+the harlotry which his elder brother accuses him of mainly,
+but of having devoured his father's living. Nay, it is not
+the sensual life which he accuses himself of&mdash;or which the
+manner of his punishment accuses him of. But the <i>wasteful</i>
+life. It is not said that he had become debauched in soul, or
+diseased in body, by his vice; but that at last he would fain
+have filled his belly with husks, and could not. It is not said
+that he was struck with remorse for the consequences of his
+evil passions, but only that he remembered there was bread
+enough and to spare, even for the servants, at home.</p>
+
+<p>Now, my friend, do not think I want to extenuate sins of
+passion (though, in very truth, the sin of Magdalene is a
+light one compared to that of Judas); but observe, sins of
+passion, if of <i>real</i> passion, are often the errors and backfalls
+of noble souls; but prodigality is mere and pure selfishness,
+and essentially the sin of an ignoble or undeveloped creature;
+and I would rather, ten times rather, hear of a youth that
+(certain degrees of temptation and conditions of resistance
+being understood) he had fallen into any sin you chose to
+name, of all the mortal ones, than that he was in the habit
+of running bills which he could not pay.</p>
+
+<p>Farther, though I hold that the two crowning and most
+accursed sins of the society of this present day are the carelessness
+with which it regards the betrayal of women, and
+the brutality with which it suffers the neglect of children,
+both these head and chief crimes, and all others, are rooted
+first in abuse of the laws, and neglect of the duties concerning
+wealth. And thus the love of money, with the parallel
+(and, observe, <i>mathematically commensurate</i> looseness in
+management of it), the "mal tener," followed necessarily by
+the "mal dare," is, indeed, the root of all evil.</p>
+
+<p>176. Then, secondly, I want you to note that when the
+prodigal comes to his senses, he complains of nobody but
+himself, and speaks of no unworthiness but his own. He
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+says nothing against any of the women who tempted him&mdash;nothing
+against the citizen who left him to feed on husks&mdash;nothing
+of the false friends of whom "no man gave unto
+him"&mdash;above all, nothing of the "corruption of human
+nature," or the corruption of things in general. He says
+that <i>he himself</i> is unworthy, as distinguished from honorable
+persons, and that <i>he himself</i> has sinned, as distinguished
+from righteous persons. And <i>that</i> is the hard lesson to learn,
+and the beginning of faithful lessons. All right and fruitful
+humility, and purging of heart, and seeing of God, is in that.
+It is easy to call yourself the chief of sinners, expecting every
+sinner round you to decline&mdash;or return&mdash;the compliment;
+but learn to measure the real degrees of your own relative
+baseness, and to be ashamed, not in heaven's sight, but in
+man's sight; and redemption is indeed begun. Observe the
+phrase, I have sinned "<i>against</i> heaven," against the great
+law of that, and <i>before</i> thee, visibly degraded before my
+human sire and guide, unworthy any more of being esteemed
+of his blood, and desirous only of taking the place I deserve
+among his servants.</p>
+
+<p>177. Now, I do not doubt but that I shall set many a
+reader's teeth on edge by what he will think my carnal and
+material rendering of this "beautiful" parable. But I am
+just as ready to spiritualize it as he is, provided I am sure
+first that we understand it. If we want to understand the
+parable of the sower, we must first think of it as of literal
+husbandry; if we want to understand the parable of the
+prodigal, we must first understand it as of literal prodigality.
+And the story has also for us a precious lesson in this
+literal sense of it, namely this, which I have been urging
+upon you throughout these letters, that all redemption must
+begin in subjection and in the recovery of the sense of
+Fatherhood and authority, as all ruin and desolation begin
+in the loss of that sense. The lost son began by claiming his
+rights. He is found when he resigns them. He is lost by
+flying from his father, when his father's authority was only
+paternal. He is found by returning to his father, and desiring
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+that his authority may be absolute, as over a hired
+stranger.</p>
+
+<p>And this is the practical lesson I want to leave with you,
+and all other working men.</p>
+
+<p>178. You are on the eve of a great political crisis; and
+every rascal with a tongue in his head will try to make his
+own stock out of you. Now this is the test you must try
+them with. Those that say to you, "Stand up for your
+rights&mdash;get your division of living&mdash;be sure that you are as
+well off as others, and have what they have!&mdash;don't let any
+man dictate to you&mdash;have not you all a right to your opinion?&mdash;are
+you not all as good as everybody else?&mdash;let us have no
+governors, or fathers&mdash;let us all be free and alike." Those,
+I say, who speak thus to you, take Nelson's rough order for&mdash;and
+hate them as you do the Devil, for they <i>are</i> his ambassadors.
+But those, the few, who have the courage to say to
+you, "My friends, you and I, and all of us, have somehow
+got very wrong; we've been hardly treated, certainly; but
+here we are in a piggery, mainly by our own fault, hungry
+enough, and for ourselves, anything but respectable: we <i>must</i>
+get out of this; there are certainly laws we may learn to live
+by, and there are wiser people than we are in the world, and
+kindly ones, if we can find our way to them; and an infinitely
+wise and kind Father, above all of them and us, if we can
+but find our way to <i>Him</i>, and ask Him to take us for servants,
+and put us to any work He will, so that we may never
+leave Him more." The people who will say that to you, and
+(for by <i>no</i> saying, but by their fruits, only, you shall finally
+know them) who are themselves orderly and kindly, and do
+their own business well,&mdash;take <i>those</i> for your guides, and
+trust them; on ice and rock alike, tie yourselves well together
+with them, and with much scrutiny, and cautious walking
+(perhaps nearly as much back as forward, at first), you will
+verily get off the glacier, and into meadow land, in God's
+time.</p>
+
+<p>179. I meant to have written much to you respecting the
+meaning of that word "hired servants," and to have gone on
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+to the duties of soldiers, for you know "Soldier" means a
+person who is paid to fight with regular pay&mdash;literally with
+"soldi" or "sous"&mdash;the "penny a day" of the vineyard
+laborers; but I can't now: only just this much, that our
+whole system of work must be based on the nobleness of
+soldiership&mdash;so that we shall all be soldiers of either plowshare
+or sword; and literally all our actual and professed
+soldiers, whether professed for a time only, or for life, must
+be kept to hard work of hand, when not in actual war; their
+honor consisting in being set to service of more pain and
+danger than others; to life-boat service; to redeeming of
+ground from furious rivers or sea&mdash;or mountain ruin; to
+subduing wild and unhealthy land, and extending the confines
+of colonies in the front of miasm and famine, and savage
+races.</p>
+
+<p>And much of our harder home work must be done in a
+kind of soldiership, by bands of trained workers sent from
+place to place and town to town; doing, with strong and
+sudden hand, what is needed for help, and setting all things
+in more prosperous courses for the future.</p>
+
+<p>Of all which I hope to speak in its proper place after we
+know what offices the higher arts of gentleness have among
+the lower ones of force, and how their prevalence may gradually
+change spear to pruning-hook, over the face of all the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>180. And now&mdash;but one word more&mdash;either for you, or
+any other readers who may be startled at what I have been
+saying, as to the peculiar stress laid by the Founder of our
+religion on right dealing with wealth. Let them be assured
+that it is with no fortuitous choice among the attributes or
+powers of evil, that "Mammon" is assigned for the direct
+adversary of the Master whom they are bound to serve. You
+cannot, by any artifice of reconciliation, be God's soldier, and
+his. Nor while the desire of gain is within your heart, can
+any true knowledge of the Kingdom of God come there. No
+one shall enter its stronghold,&mdash;no one receive its blessing,
+except, "he that hath clean hands and a pure heart;" clean
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+hands that have done no cruel deed,&mdash;pure heart, that knows
+no base desire. And, therefore, in the highest spiritual sense
+that can be given to words, be assured, not respecting the
+literal temple of stone and gold, but of the living temple of
+your body and soul, that no redemption, nor teaching, nor
+hallowing, will be anywise possible for it, until these two
+verses have been, for it also, fulfilled:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And He went into the temple, and began to cast out them
+that sold therein, and them that bought. And He taught
+daily in the temple."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_19" id="Footnote_A_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_19"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+Compare 'Crown of Wild Olive,' &sect; 136.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+<h2>APPENDICES.</h2>
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_I" id="APPENDIX_I"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1">APPENDIX I.</a></h2>
+
+<h5>Page 21.&mdash;<i>Expenditure on Science and Art.</i></h5>
+
+
+<p>The following is the passage referred to. The fact it relates
+is so curious, and so illustrative of our national interest
+in science, that I do not apologize for the repetition:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Two years ago there was a collection of the fossils of Solenhofen to
+be sold in Bavaria; the best in existence, containing many specimens
+unique for perfectness, and one, unique as an example of a species (a
+whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being announced by that
+fossil). This collection, of which the mere market worth, among
+private buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve
+hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred:
+but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have
+been in the Munich museum at this moment, if Professor
+Owen<a name="FNanchor_A_20" id="FNanchor_A_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_20" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+had not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the
+British public in the person of its representatives, got leave to give
+four hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the
+other three!&mdash;which the said public will doubtless pay him
+eventually, but sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the
+while; only always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it.
+Consider, I beg of you, arithmetically, what this fact
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+means. Your annual expenditure for public purposes (a
+third of it for military apparatus) is at least fifty millions.
+Now seven hundred pounds is to fifty million pounds,
+roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose,
+then, a gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was
+to be conjectured from the fact that he spent two thousand
+a year on his park walls and footmen only, professes himself
+fond of science; and that one of his servants comes eagerly
+to tell him that an unique collection of fossils, giving clue to
+a new era of creation, is to be had for the sum of sevenpence
+sterling; and that the gentleman who is fond of science, and
+spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping
+his servant waiting several months, 'Well, I'll give you
+fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra
+threepence yourself till next year.'"</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_20" id="Footnote_A_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_20"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+I originally stated this fact without Professor Owen's permission;
+which, of course, he could not with propriety have granted, had I
+asked it; but I considered it so important that the public should be
+aware of the fact, that I did what seemed to me right, though rude.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_II" id="APPENDIX_II"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_3">APPENDIX II.</a></h2>
+
+<h5>Page 33.&mdash;<i>Legislation of Frederick the Great.</i></h5>
+
+
+<p>The following are the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters referred
+to:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am now busy with Frederick the Great; I am
+not now astonished that Carlyle calls him Great, neither that
+this work of his should have had such a sad effect upon him
+in producing it, when I see the number of volumes he must
+have had to wade through to produce such a clear terse set
+of utterances; and yet I do not feel the work as a book likely
+to do a reader of it the good that some of his other books
+will do. It is truly awful to read these battles after battles,
+lies after lies, called Diplomacy; it's fearful to read all this,
+and one wonders how he that set himself to this&mdash;He, of all
+men&mdash;could have the rare patience to produce such a labored,
+heart-rending piece of work. Again, when one reads of the
+stupidity, the shameful waste of our moneys by our forefathers,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+to see our National Debt (the curse to our labor now,
+the millstone to our commerce, to our fair chance of competition
+in our day) thus created, and for what? Even Carlyle
+cannot tell; then how are we to tell? Now, who will deliver
+us? that is the question; who will help us in these days of
+<i>idle or no work</i>, while our foreign neighbors have plenty and
+are actually selling their produce to our men of capital
+cheaper than we can make it? House-rent getting dearer,
+taxes getting dearer, rates, clothing, food, etc. Sad times,
+my master, do seem to have fallen upon us. And the cause
+of nearly all this lies embedded in that Frederick; and yet,
+so far as I know of it, no critic has yet given an exposition of
+such laying there. For our behoof, is there no one that will
+take this, that there lies so woven in with much other stuff
+so sad to read, to any man that does not believe man was
+made to fight alone, to be a butcher of his fellow-man? Who
+will do this work, or piece of work, so that all who care may
+know how it is that our debt grew so large, and a great deal
+more that we ought to know?&mdash;that clearly is one great
+reason why the book was written and was printed. Well, I
+hope some day all this will be clear to our people, and some
+man or men will arise and sweep us clear of these hindrances,
+these sad drawbacks to the vitality of our work in this world."<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="date"><small>"57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 7, 1867.</small></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of two letters as
+additions to your books, which I have read with deep interest,
+and shall take care of them, and read them over again, so
+that I may thoroughly comprehend them, and be able to think
+of them for future use. I myself am not fully satisfied with
+our co-operation, and never have been; it is too much tinged
+with the very elements that they complain of in our present
+systems of trade&mdash;selfishness. I have for years been trying to
+direct the attention of the editor of the <i>Co-operator</i> to such
+evils that I see in it. Now further, I may state that I find
+you and Carlyle seem to agree quite on the idea of the <i>Masterhood</i>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+qualification. There again I find you both feel and
+write as all working men consider just. I can assure you
+there is not an honest, noble working man that would not by
+far serve under such <i>master</i>-hood, than be the employ&eacute; or
+workman of a co-operative store. Working men do not as
+a rule make good masters; neither do they treat each other
+with that courtesy as a noble master treats his working man.
+George Fox shadows forth some such treatment that Friends
+ought to make law and guidance for their working men and
+slaves, such as you speak of in your letters. I will look the
+passage up, as it is quite to the point, so far as I now remember
+it. In Vol. VI. of <i>Frederick the Great</i>, I find a great
+deal there that I feel quite certain, if our Queen or Government
+could make law, thousands of English working men
+would hail it with such a shout of joy and gladness as would
+astonish the Continental world. These changes suggested by
+Carlyle and placed before the thinkers of England, are the
+noblest, the truest utterances on real kinghood, that I have
+ever read; the more I think over them, the more I feel the
+truth, the justness, and also the fitness of them, to our nation's
+present dire necessities; yet this is the man, and these are
+the thoughts of his, that our critics seem never to see, or if
+seen, don't think worth printing or in any way wisely directing
+the attention of the public thereto, alas! All this and
+much more fills me with such sadness that I am driven almost
+to despair. I see from the newspapers, Yorkshire, Lancashire,
+and other places are sternly endeavoring to carry
+out the short time movement until such times as trade revives,
+and I find the masters and men seem to adopt it with a good
+grace and friendly spirit. I also beg to inform you I
+see a Mr. Morley, a large manufacturer at Nottingham, has
+been giving pensions to all his old workmen. I hope such
+a noble example will be followed by other wealthy masters.
+It would do more to make a master loved, honored, and cared
+for, than thousands of pounds expended in other ways. The
+Government Savings Banks is one of the wisest acts of late
+years done by our Government. I, myself, often wish the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+Government held all our banks instead of private men; that
+would put an end to false speculations, such as we too often
+in the provinces suffer so severely by, so I hail with pleasure
+and delight the shadowing forth by you of these noble plans
+for the future: I feel glad and uplifted to think of the good
+that such teaching will do for us all.</p>
+
+<p class="regards">"Yours truly,</p>
+<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">Thomas Dixon.</span>"<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="date"><small>"57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 24, 1867.</small></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I now give you the references to <i>Frederick the
+Great</i>. Vol. VI.: Land Question, 365 page, where he increases
+the number of small farmers to 4,000 (202, 204).
+English soldiers and T. C.'s remarks on our system of purchase,
+etc. His law, (620, 623, 624). State of Poland
+and how he repaired it, (487, 488, 489, 490). I especially
+value the way he introduced all kinds of industries therein,
+and so soon changed the chaos into order. Again, the school-masters
+also are given (not yet in England, says T. C.).
+Again the use he made of 15,000<i>l.</i> surplus in Brandenburg;
+how it was applied to better his staff of masters. To me,
+the Vol. VI. is one of the wisest pieces of modern thought
+in our language. I only wish I had either your power, C.
+Kingsley, Maurice, or some such able pen-generalship,
+to illustrate and show forth all the wise teaching on law,
+government, and social life I see in it, and shining like a
+star through all its pages.<a name="FNanchor_A_21" id="FNanchor_A_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_21" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+I feel also the truth of all you have written, and will do all I can
+to make such men or women that care for such thoughts, see it, or read
+it. I am copying the letters as fast and as well as I can, and will
+use my utmost endeavor to have them done that justice to they merit.</p>
+
+<p class="regards">"Yours truly,</p>
+<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">Thomas Dixon.</span>"</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_21" id="Footnote_A_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_21"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+I have endeavored to arrange some of the passages to which Mr.
+Dixon here refers, in a form enabling the reader to see their bearing on
+each other more distinctly, as a sequel to the essay on War in the
+'Crown of Wild Olive.'</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_III" id="APPENDIX_III"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_4">APPENDIX III.</a></h2>
+
+<h5>Page 33.&mdash;<i>Effect of Modern Entertainments on the Mind of Youth.</i></h5>
+
+
+<p>The letter of the <i>Times'</i> correspondent referred to contained
+an account of one of the most singular cases of
+depravity ever brought before a criminal court; but it is
+unnecessary to bring any of its details under the reader's
+attention, for nearly every other number of our journals has
+of late contained some instances of atrocities before unthought
+of, and, it might have seemed, impossible to humanity.
+The connection of these with the modern love of excitement
+in the sensational novel and drama may not be generally
+understood, but it is direct and constant; all furious
+pursuit of pleasure ending in actual desire of horror and
+delight in death. I entered into some fuller particulars on
+this subject in a lecture given in the spring at the Royal
+Institution.</p>
+
+<p>[Any part of the Lecture referred to likely to be of permanent
+interest will be printed, somewhere, in this series.]</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_IV" id="APPENDIX_IV"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_7">APPENDIX IV.</a></h2>
+
+<h5>Page 76.&mdash;<i>Drunkenness as the Cause of Crime.</i></h5>
+
+
+<p>The following portions of Mr. Dixon's letter referred to,
+will be found interesting:&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir,</span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your last letter, I think, will arouse the attention of
+thinkers more than any of the series, it being on topics they
+in general feel more interested in than the others, especially
+as in these you do not assail their pockets so much as in the
+former ones. Since you seem interested with the notes or
+rough sketches on gin, G * * * of Dublin was the man I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+alluded to as making his money by drink, and then giving the
+results of such traffic to repair the Cathedral of Dublin. It
+was thousands of pounds. I call such charity robbing Peter to
+pay Paul! Immense fortunes are made in the <i>Liquor Traffic</i>,
+and I will tell you why; it is all paid for in cash, at least such
+as the poor people buy; they get credit for clothes, butchers'
+meat, groceries, etc., while they give the gin-palace keeper
+<i>cash</i>; they never begrudge the price of a glass of gin or beer,
+they never haggle over <i>its</i> price, never once think of doing
+that; but in the purchase of almost every other article they
+haggle and begrudge its price. To give you an idea of its profits&mdash;there
+are houses here whose average weekly takings in
+cash at their bars is 50<i>l.</i>, 60<i>l.</i>, 70<i>l.</i>,
+80<i>l.</i>, 90l<i>.</i>, to 150<i>l.</i>, per
+week. Nearly all the men of intelligence in it, say it is
+the curse of the working classes. Men whose earnings
+are, say 20<i>s.</i> to 30<i>s.</i> per week, spend on the average
+3<i>s.</i> to 6<i>s.</i> per week (some even 10<i>s.</i>). It's my
+mode of living to supply these houses with corks that
+makes me see so much of the drunkenness; and that is
+the cause why I never really cared for <i>my trade</i>, seeing the
+misery that was entailed on my fellow men and women by the
+use of this stuff. Again, a house with a license to sell spirits,
+wine, and ale, to be consumed on the premises, is worth two
+to three times more money than any other class of property.
+One house here worth nominally 140<i>l.</i> sold the other day for
+520<i>l.</i>; another one worth 200<i>l.</i> sold for 800<i>l.</i> I know premises
+with a license that were sold for 1,300<i>l.</i>, and then sold
+again two years after for 1,800<i>l.</i>; another place was rented
+for 50<i>l.</i>, now rents at 100<i>l.</i>&mdash;this last is a house used by
+working men and laborers chiefly! No, I honor men like <i>Sir
+W. Trevelyan</i>, that are teetotalers, or total abstainers, as an
+example to poor men, and, to prevent his work-people being
+tempted, will not allow any public-house on his estate. If
+our land had a few such men it would help the cause. We
+possess one such a man here, a banker. I feel sorry to say
+the progress of temperance is not so great as I would like to
+see it. The only religious body that approaches to your ideas
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+of political economy is Quakerism as taught by George Fox.
+Carlyle seems deeply tinged with their teachings. <i>Silence</i>
+to them is as valuable to him. Again, why should people
+howl and shriek over the law that the Alliance is now trying
+to carry out in our land called the Permissive Bill? If we had
+just laws we then would not be so miserable or so much annoyed
+now and then with cries of Reform and cries of Distress.
+I send you two pamphlets;&mdash;one gives the working
+man's reasons why he don't go to church; in it you will see
+a few opinions expressed very much akin to those you have
+written to me. The other gives an account how it is the
+poor Indians have died of <i>Famine</i>, simply because they have
+destroyed the very system of Political Economy, or one having
+some approach to it, that you are now endeavoring to direct
+the attention of thinkers to in our country. The <i>Sesame and
+Lilies</i> I have read as you requested. I feel now fully the aim
+and object you have in view in the Letters, but I cannot
+help directing your attention to that portion where you mention
+or rather exclaim against the Florentines pulling down
+their <i>Ancient Walls</i> to build a <i>Boulevard</i>. That passage is
+one that would gladden the hearts of all true <i>Italians</i>,
+especially men that love <i>Italy and Dante</i>!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_V" id="APPENDIX_V"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_8">APPENDIX V.</a></h2>
+
+<h5>Page 78.&mdash;<i>Abuse of Food.</i></h5>
+
+
+<p>Paragraphs cut from 'Manchester Examiner' of March 16, 1867:&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">A Parisian Character.</span>&mdash;A celebrated character has
+disappeared from the Palais Royal. Ren&eacute; Lartique was a
+Swiss, and a man of about sixty. He actually spent the last
+fifteen years in the Palais Royal&mdash;that is to say, he spent the
+third of his life at dinner. Every morning at ten o'clock he
+was to be seen going into a restaurant (usually Tissat's),
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+and in a few moments was installed in a corner, which he
+only quitted about three o'clock in the afternoon, after having
+drunk at least six or seven bottles of different kinds of wine.
+He then walked up and down the garden till the clock struck
+five, when he made his appearance again at the same restaurant,
+and always at the same place. His second meal, at
+which he drank quite as much as at the first, invariably
+lasted till half-past nine. Therefore, he devoted nine hours
+a day to eating and drinking. His dress was most wretched&mdash;his
+shoes broken, his trousers torn, his palet&ocirc;t without any
+lining and patched, his waistcoat without buttons, his hat a
+rusty red from old age, and the whole surmounted by a dirty
+white beard. One day he went up to the <i>comptoir</i>, and
+asked the presiding divinity there to allow him to run in
+debt for one day's dinner. He perceived some hesitation in
+complying with the request, and immediately called one of
+the waiters, and desired him to follow him. He went into
+the office, unbuttoned a certain indispensable garment, and,
+taking off a broad leather belt, somewhat startled the waiter
+by displaying two hundred gold pieces, each worth one hundred
+francs. Taking up one of them, he tossed it to the
+waiter, and desired him to pay whatever he owed. He never
+again appeared at that restaurant, and died a few days ago
+of indigestion."<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Revenge in a Ball-Room.</span>&mdash;A distressing event lately
+took place at Castellaz, a little commune of the Alpes-Maritimes,
+near Mentone. All the young people of the place
+being assembled in a dancing-room, one of the young men
+was seen to fall suddenly to the ground, whilst a young
+woman, his partner, brandished a poniard, and was preparing
+to inflict a second blow on him, having already desperately
+wounded him in the stomach. The author of the crime was
+at once arrested. She declared her name to be Marie P&mdash;&mdash;,
+twenty-one years of age, and added that she had acted from
+a motive of revenge, the young man having led her astray
+formerly with a promise of marriage, which he had never
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+fulfilled. In the morning of that day she had summoned
+him to keep his word, and, upon his refusal, had determined
+on making the dancing-room the scene of her revenge. She
+was at first locked up in the prison of Mentone, and afterwards
+sent on to Nice. The young man continues in an
+alarming state."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_VI" id="APPENDIX_VI"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_9">APPENDIX VI.</a></h2>
+
+<h5>Page 94.&mdash;<i>Regulations of Trade.</i></h5>
+
+<p>I print portions of two letters of Mr. Dixon's in this
+place; one referring to our former discussion respecting the
+sale of votes:&mdash;<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="date"><small>"57, Nile Street, Sunderland, March 21, 1867.</small></p>
+
+<p>"I only wish I could write in some tolerable good style, so that I
+could idealize, or rather realize to folks, the life and love, and
+marriage of a working man and his wife. It is in my opinion a working
+man that really does know what a true wife is, for his every want, his
+every comfort in life depends on her; and his children's home, their
+daily lives and future lives, are shaped by her. Napoleon wisely said,
+'France needs good mothers more than brave men. Good mothers are the
+makers or shapers of good and brave men.' I cannot say that these are
+the words, but it is the import of his speech on the topic. We have a
+saying amongst us: 'The man may spend and money lend, if his wife be
+<i>ought</i>,'&mdash;<i>i. e.</i> good wife;&mdash;'but he may work and try to
+save, but will have <i>nought</i>, if his wife be nought,'&mdash;<i>i. e.</i>
+bad or thriftless wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, since you are intending to treat of the working man's parliament
+and its duties, I will just throw out a few suggestions of what I
+consider should be the questions or measures that demand an early
+inquiry into and debate on. That guilds be established in every town,
+where masters and men may meet, so as to avoid the temptations of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+public-house and <i>drink</i>. And then, let it be made law that every lad
+should serve an apprenticeship of not less than seven years to a trade
+or art, before he is allowed to be a member of such guild; also, that
+all wages be based on a rate of so much <i>per hour</i>, and not day, as at
+present; and let every man prove his workmanship before such a guild,
+and then allow to him such payment per hour as his craft merits. Let
+there be three grades, and then let there be trials of skill in
+workmanship every year; and then, if the workman of the third grade
+prove that he has made progress in his craft, reward him accordingly.
+Then, before a lad is put to any trade, why not see what he is
+naturally fitted for? Combe's book, entitled <i>The Constitution of
+Man</i>, throws a good deal of truth on to these matters. Now, here are
+two branches of the science of life that, so far, have never once been
+given trial of in this way. We certainly use them after a <i>crime</i> has
+been committed, but not till then.</p>
+
+<p>"Next to that, cash, payment for all and everything needed in life.
+<i>Credit is a curse</i> to him that gives it, and that takes it. He that
+lives by credit lives in general carelessly. If there was no credit,
+people then would have to live on what they earned! Then, after that,
+the Statute of Limitations of Fortune you propose. By the hour system,
+not a single man <i>need be idle</i>; it would give employment to all, and
+even two hours per day would realize more to a man than <i>breaking
+stones</i>. Thus you would make every one self-dependent&mdash;also no
+fear of being out of work altogether. Then let there be a Government
+fund for all the savings of the working man. I am afraid you will
+think this a wild, discursive sort of a letter.</p>
+
+<p class="regards">"Yours truly,</p>
+<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">Thomas Dixon.</span>"</p>
+
+<p><br />"I have read your references to the <i>Times</i> on 'Bribery.'
+Well, that has long been my own opinion; they simply have
+a vote to sell, and sell it the same way as they sell potatoes,
+or a coat, or any other salable article. Voters generally say,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+'What does this gentleman want in Parliament? Why, to
+help himself and his family or friends; he does not spend all
+the money he spends over his election for pure good of his
+country! No: it's to benefit his pocket, to be sure. Why
+should I not make a penny with my vote, as well as he does
+with his in Parliament?' I think that if the system of canvassing
+or election agents were done away with, and all personal
+canvassing for votes entirely abolished, it would help
+to put down bribery. Let each gentleman send to the electors
+his political opinions in a circular, and then let papers
+be sent, or cards, to each elector, and then let them go and
+record their votes in the same way they do for a councillor
+in the Corporation. It would save a great deal of expense,
+and prevent those scenes of drunkenness so common in our
+towns during elections. <i>Bewick's opinions</i> of these matters
+are quite to the purpose, I think (<i>see page 201 of Memoir</i>).
+Again, respecting the Paris matter referred to in your last
+letter, I have read it. Does it not manifest plainly enough
+that Europeans are also in a measure possessed with that
+same <i>demoniacal spirit like the Japanese</i>?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="APPENDIX_VII" id="APPENDIX_VII"></a>APPENDIX VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The following letter did not form part of the series written to Mr.
+Dixon; but is perhaps worth reprinting. I have not the date of the
+number of the <i>Gazette</i> in which it appeared, but it was during the
+tailors' strike in London.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<p class="salute">"<span class="smcap">To the Editor of the</span> <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In your yesterday's article on strikes you have very neatly and tersely
+expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy&mdash;to wit, that
+'the value of any piece of labor cannot be defined'&mdash;and that 'all
+that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got to do it for a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+certain sum.' Now, sir, the 'value' of any piece of labor, that is to
+say, the quantity of food and air which will enable a man to perform
+it without losing actually any of his flesh or his nervous energy, is
+as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of powder necessary to
+carry a given ball a given distance. And within limits varying by
+exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it is an ascertainable
+quantity. I told the public this five years ago&mdash;and under pardon
+of your politico-economical contributors&mdash;it is not a
+'sentimental,' but a chemical fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Let any half-dozen of recognized London physicians state in precise
+terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they
+consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a laborer in
+any given manufacture, and the number of hours he may, without
+shortening his life, work at such business daily, if so sustained.</p>
+
+<p>"And let all masters be bound to give their men a choice between an
+order for that quantity of food and lodging, or such wages as the
+market may offer for that number of hours' work.</p>
+
+<p>"Proper laws for the maintenance of families would require further
+concession&mdash;but, in the outset, let but <i>this</i> law of wages be
+established, and if then we have any more strikes you may denounce
+them without one word of remonstrance either from sense or
+sensibility.</p>
+
+<p class="regards"><span style="margin-right: 8em;">"I am, Sir,</span></p>
+<p class="regards">"Your obedient servant,</p>
+<p class="author">"<span class="smcap">John Ruskin.</span>"</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, by John Ruskin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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 www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne
+ Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work
+
+Author: John Ruskin
+
+Release Date: February 6, 2010 [EBook #31196]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: CONISTON
+ FROM A PHOTOGRAPH]
+
+
+ Library Edition
+
+ THE COMPLETE WORKS
+ OF
+ JOHN RUSKIN
+
+
+ CROWN OF WILD OLIVE
+ TIME AND TIDE
+ QUEEN OF THE AIR
+ LECTURES ON ART AND LANDSCAPE
+ ARATRA PENTELICI
+
+
+ NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
+ NEW YORK CHICAGO
+
+
+
+
+ TIME AND TIDE
+
+ BY
+
+ WEARE AND TYNE
+
+
+ TWENTY-FIVE LETTERS
+ TO
+ A WORKING MAN OF SUNDERLAND
+ ON
+ THE LAWS OF WORK.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ PAGE
+ PREFACE ix
+
+ LETTER
+ I. CO-OPERATION 1
+ The two kinds of Co-operation.--In its highest
+ sense it is not yet thought of.
+
+ II. CONTENTMENT 4
+ Co-operation, as hitherto understood, is perhaps
+ not expedient.
+
+ III. LEGISLATION 7
+ Of True Legislation.--That every Man may be a Law
+ to himself.
+
+ IV. EXPENDITURE 11
+ The Expenses for Art and for War.
+
+ V. ENTERTAINMENT 13
+ The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.--(Covent Garden
+ Pantomime.)
+
+ VI. DEXTERITY 18
+ The Corruption of Modern Pleasure.--(The Japanese
+ Jugglers.)
+
+ VII. FESTIVITY 20
+ Of the Various Expressions of National Festivity.
+
+ VIII. THINGS WRITTEN 22
+ The Four Possible Theories respecting the
+ Authority of the Bible.
+
+ IX. THANKSGIVING 27
+ The Use of Music and Dancing under the Jewish
+ Theocracy, compared with their Use by the Modern
+ French.
+
+ X. WHEAT-SIFTING 32
+ The Meaning, and Actual Operation, of Satanic or
+ Demoniacal Influence.
+
+ XI. THE GOLDEN BOUGH 38
+ The Satanic Power is mainly Twofold: the Power of
+ causing Falsehood and the Power of causing Pain.
+ The Resistance is by Law of Honor and Law of
+ Delight.
+
+ XII. DICTATORSHIP 41
+ The Necessity of Imperative Law to the Prosperity
+ of States.
+
+ XIII. EPISCOPACY AND DUKEDOM 45
+ The Proper Offices of the Bishop and Duke; or,
+ "Overseer" and "Leader."
+
+ XIV. TRADE-WARRANT 51
+ The First Group of Essential Laws.--Against Theft
+ by False Work, and by Bankruptcy.--Necessary
+ Publicity of Accounts.
+
+ XV. PER-CENTAGE 54
+ The Nature of Theft by Unjust Profits.--Crime can
+ finally be arrested only by Education.
+
+ XVI. EDUCATION 59
+ Of Public Education irrespective of Class
+ distinction. It consists essentially in giving
+ Habits of Mercy, and Habits of Truth. (_Gentleness
+ and Justice._)
+
+ XVII. DIFFICULTIES 66
+ The Relations of Education to Position in Life.
+
+ XVIII. HUMILITY 68
+ The harmful Effects of Servile Employments. The
+ possible Practice and Exhibition of sincere
+ Humility by Religious Persons.
+
+ XIX. BROKEN REEDS 73
+ The General Pressure of Excessive and Improper
+ Work, in English Life.
+
+ XX. ROSE-GARDENS 78
+ Of Improvidence in Marriage in the Middle Classes;
+ and of the advisable Restrictions of it.
+
+ XXI. GENTILLESSE 83
+ Of the Dignity of the Four Fine Arts; and of the
+ Proper System of Retail Trade.
+
+ XXII. THE MASTER 88
+ Of the Normal Position and Duties of the Upper
+ Classes. General Statement of the Land Question.
+
+ XXIII. LANDMARKS 93
+ Of the Just Tenure of Lands; and the Proper
+ Functions of high Public Officers.
+
+ XXIV. THE ROD AND HONEYCOMB 101
+ The Office of the Soldier.
+
+ XXV. HYSSOP 108
+ Of inevitable Distinction of Rank, and necessary
+ Submission to Authority. The Meaning of
+ Pure-Heartedness. Conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES.
+
+
+ APPENDIX PAGE
+ I. Expenditure on Science and Art 119
+ II. Legislation of Frederick the Great 120
+ III. Effect of Modern Entertainments on the Mind of Youth 124
+ IV. Drunkenness as the Cause of Crime 124
+ V. Abuse of Food 126
+ VI. Regulations of Trade 128
+ VII. Letter to the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ 130
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The following Letters were written to Mr. Thomas Dixon, a working
+cork-cutter of Sunderland, during the agitation for Reform in the
+spring of the present year. They contain, in the plainest terms I
+could use, the substance of what I then desired to say to our English
+workmen, which was briefly this:--"The reform you desire may give you
+more influence in Parliament; but your influence there will of course
+be useless to you,--perhaps worse than useless, until you have wisely
+made up your minds what you wish Parliament to do for you; and when
+you _have_ made up your minds about that, you will find, not only that
+you can do it for yourselves, without the intervention of Parliament;
+but that eventually nobody _but_ yourselves can do it. And to help
+you, as far as one of your old friends may, in so making up your
+minds, such and such things are what it seems to me you should ask
+for, and, moreover, strive for with your heart and might."
+
+The letters now published relate only to one division of the laws
+which I desired to recommend to the consideration of our
+operatives,--those, namely, bearing upon honesty of work, and honesty
+of exchange. I hope in the course of next year that I may be able to
+complete the second part of the series, [I could not; but 'Fors
+Clavigera' is now (1872) answering the same end:] which will relate to
+the possible comforts and wholesome laws, of familiar household life,
+and the share which a laboring nation may attain in the skill, and the
+treasures, of the higher arts.
+
+The letters are republished as they were written, with, here and
+there, correction of a phrase, and omission of one or two passages of
+merely personal or temporary interest; the headings only are added, in
+order to give the reader some clue to the general aim of necessarily
+desultory discussion; and the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters in
+reply, referred to in the text, are added in the Appendix, and will be
+found well deserving of attention.
+
+ DENMARK HILL,
+ _December 14, 1867._
+
+
+
+
+TIME AND TIDE,
+
+BY
+
+WEARE AND TYNE.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+THE TWO KINDS OF CO-OPERATION.--IN ITS HIGHEST SENSE IT IS NOT YET
+THOUGHT OF.
+
+
+ DENMARK HILL, _February 4, 1867._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,
+
+1. You have now everything I have yet published on political economy;
+but there are several points in these books of mine which I intended
+to add notes to, and it seems little likely I shall get that soon
+done. So I think the best way of making up for the want of these is to
+write you a few simple letters, which you can read to other people, or
+send to be printed, if you like, in any of your journals where you
+think they may be useful.
+
+I especially want you, for one thing, to understand the sense in which
+the word "co-operation" is used in my books. You will find I am always
+pleading for it; and yet I don't at all mean the co-operation of
+partnership (as opposed to the system of wages) which is now so
+gradually extending itself among our great firms. I am glad to see it
+doing so, yet not altogether glad: for none of you who are engaged in
+the immediate struggle between the system of co-operation and the
+system of mastership know how much the dispute involves; and none of
+us know the results to which it may finally lead. For the alternative
+is not, in reality, only between two modes of conducting business--it
+is between two different states of society. It is not the question
+whether an amount of wages, no greater in the end than that at present
+received by the men, may be paid to them in a way which shall give
+them share in the risks and interest in the prosperity of the
+business. The question is, really, whether the profits which are at
+present taken, as his own right, by the person whose capital, or
+energy, or ingenuity, has made him head of the firm, are not in some
+proportion to be divided among the subordinates of it.
+
+2. I do not wish, for the moment, to enter into any inquiry as to the
+just claims of capital, or as to the proportions in which profits
+ought to be, or are in actually existing firms, divided. I merely take
+the one assured and essential condition, that a somewhat larger income
+will be in co-operative firms secured to the subordinates, by the
+diminution of the income of the chief. And the general tendency of
+such a system is to increase the facilities of advancement among the
+subordinates; to stimulate their ambition; to enable them to lay by,
+if they are provident, more ample and more early provision for
+declining years; and to form in the end a vast class of persons wholly
+different from the existing operative:--members of society, possessing
+each a moderate competence; able to procure, therefore, not indeed
+many of the luxuries, but all the comforts of life; and to devote some
+leisure to the attainments of liberal education, and to the other
+objects of free life. On the other hand, by the exact sum which is
+divided among them, more than their present wages, the fortune of the
+man who, under the present system, takes all the profits of the
+business, will be diminished; and the acquirement of large private
+fortune by regular means, and all the conditions of life belonging to
+such fortune, will be rendered impossible in the mercantile community.
+
+3. Now, the magnitude of the social change hereby involved, and the
+consequent differences in the moral relations between individuals,
+have not as yet been thought of,--much less estimated,--by any of your
+writers on commercial subjects; and it is because I do not yet feel
+able to grapple with them that I have left untouched, in the books I
+send you, the question of co-operative labor. When I use the word
+"co-operation," it is not meant to refer to these new constitutions of
+firms at all. I use the word in a far wider sense, as opposed, not to
+masterhood, but to _competition_. I do not mean, for instance, by
+co-operation, that all the master bakers in a town are to give a share
+of their profits to the men who go out with the bread; but that the
+masters are not to try to undersell each other, nor seek each to get
+the other's business, but are all to form one society, selling to the
+public under a common law of severe penalty for unjust dealing, and at
+an established price. I do not mean that all bankers' clerks should be
+partners in the bank; but I do mean that all bankers should be members
+of a great national body, answerable as a society for all deposits;
+and that the private business of speculating with other people's money
+should take another name than that of "banking." And, for final
+instance, I mean by "co-operation" not only fellowships between
+trading _firms_, but between trading _nations_; so that it shall no
+more be thought (as it is now, with ludicrous and vain selfishness) an
+advantage for one nation to undersell another; and take its occupation
+away from it; but that the primal and eternal law of vital commerce
+shall be of all men understood--namely, that every nation is fitted by
+its character, and the nature of its territories, for some particular
+employments or manufactures; and that it is the true interest of every
+other nation to encourage it in such speciality, and by no means to
+interfere with, but in all ways forward and protect, its efforts,
+ceasing all rivalship with it, so soon as it is strong enough to
+occupy its proper place. You see, therefore, that the idea of
+co-operation, in the sense in which I employ it, has hardly yet
+entered into the minds of political inquirers; and I will not pursue
+it at present; but return to that system which is beginning to obtain
+credence and practice among us. This, however, must be in a following
+letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+CO-OPERATION, AS HITHERTO UNDERSTOOD, IS PERHAPS NOT EXPEDIENT.
+
+
+ _February 4, 1867._
+
+4. Limiting the inquiry, then, for the present, as proposed in the
+close of my last letter, to the form of co-operation which is now upon
+its trial in practice, I would beg of you to observe that the points
+at issue, in the comparison of this system with that of mastership,
+are by no means hitherto frankly stated; still less can they as yet be
+fairly brought to test. For all mastership is not alike in principle;
+there are just and unjust masterships; and while, on the one hand,
+there can be no question but that co-operation is better than unjust
+and tyrannous mastership, there is very great room for doubt whether
+it be better than a just and benignant mastership.
+
+5. At present you--every one of you--speak, and act, as if there were
+only one alternative; namely, between a system in which profits shall
+be divided in due proportion among all; and the present one, in which
+the workman is paid the least wages he will take, under the pressure
+of competition in the labor-market. But an intermediate method is
+conceivable; a method which appears to me more prudent, and in its
+ultimate results more just, than the co-operative one. An arrangement
+may be supposed, and I have good hope also may one day be effected, by
+which every subordinate shall be paid sufficient and regular wages,
+according to his rank; by which due provision shall be made out of the
+profits of the business for sick and superannuated workers; and by
+which the master, _being held responsible, as a minor king or
+governor, for the conduct as well as the comfort of all those under
+his rule_, shall, on that condition, be permitted to retain to his own
+use the surplus profits of the business which the fact of his being
+its master may be assumed to prove that he has organized by superior
+intellect and energy. And I think this principle of regular
+wage-paying, whether it be in the abstract more just, or not, is at
+all events the more prudent; for this reason mainly, that in spite of
+all the cant which is continually talked by cruel, foolish, or
+designing persons about "the duty of remaining content in the position
+in which Providence has placed you," there is a root of the very
+deepest and holiest truth in the saying, which gives to it such power
+as it still retains, even uttered by unkind and unwise lips, and
+received into doubtful and embittered hearts.
+
+6. If, indeed, no effort be made to discover, in the course of their
+early training, for what services the youths of a nation are
+individually qualified; nor any care taken to place those who have
+unquestionably proved their fitness for certain functions, in the
+offices they could best fulfil,--then, to call the confused wreck of
+social order and life brought about by malicious collision and
+competition, an arrangement of Providence, is quite one of the most
+insolent and wicked ways in which it is possible to take the name of
+God in vain. But if, at the proper time, some earnest effort be made
+to place youths, according to their capacities, in the occupations for
+which they are fitted, I think the system of organization will be
+finally found the best, which gives the least encouragement to
+thoughts of any great future advance in social life.
+
+7. The healthy sense of progress, which is necessary to the strength
+and happiness of men, does not consist in the anxiety of a struggle to
+attain higher place, or rank, but in gradually perfecting the manner,
+and accomplishing the ends, of the life which we have chosen, or which
+circumstances have determined for us. Thus, I think the object of a
+workman's ambition should not be to become a master; but to attain
+daily more subtle and exemplary skill in his own craft, to save from
+his wages enough to enrich and complete his home gradually with more
+delicate and substantial comforts; and to lay by such store as shall
+be sufficient for the happy maintenance of his old age (rendering him
+independent of the help provided for the sick and indigent by the
+arrangement pre-supposed), and sufficient also for the starting of his
+children in a rank of life equal to his own. If his wages are not
+enough to enable him to do this, they are unjustly low; if they are
+once raised to this adequate standard, I do not think that by the
+possible increase of his gains under contingencies of trade, or by
+divisions of profits with his master, he should be enticed into
+feverish hope of an entire change of condition; and as an almost
+necessary consequence, pass his days in an anxious discontent with
+immediate circumstances, and a comfortless scorn of his daily life,
+for which no subsequent success could indemnify him. And I am the more
+confident in this belief, because, even supposing a gradual rise in
+social rank possible for all well-conducted persons, my experience
+does not lead me to think the elevation itself, when attained, would
+be conducive to their happiness.
+
+8. The grounds of this opinion I will give you in a future letter; in
+the present one, I must pass to a more important point--namely, that
+if this stability of condition be indeed desirable for those in whom
+existing circumstances might seem to justify discontent, much more
+must it be good and desirable for those who already possess everything
+which can be conceived necessary to happiness. It is the merest
+insolence of selfishness to preach contentment to a laborer who gets
+thirty shillings a week, while we suppose an active and plotting
+covetousness to be meritorious in a man who has three thousand a year.
+In this, as in all other points of mental discipline, it is the duty
+of the upper classes to set an example to the lower; and to recommend
+and justify the restraint of the ambition of their inferiors, chiefly
+by severe and timely limitation of their own. And, without at present
+inquiring into the greater or less convenience of the possible methods
+of accomplishing such an object, (every detail in suggestions of this
+kind necessarily furnishing separate matter of dispute,) I will merely
+state my long-fixed conviction, that one of the most important
+conditions of a healthful system of social economy, would be the
+restraint of the properties and incomes of the upper classes within
+certain fixed limits. The temptation to use every energy in the
+accumulation of wealth being thus removed, another, and a higher ideal
+of the duties of advanced life would be necessarily created in the
+national mind; by withdrawal of those who had attained the prescribed
+limits of wealth from commercial competition, earlier worldly success,
+and earlier marriage, with all its beneficent moral results, would
+become possible to the young; while the older men of active intellect,
+whose sagacity is now lost or warped in the furtherance of their own
+meanest interests, would be induced unselfishly to occupy themselves
+in the superintendence of public institutions, or furtherance of
+public advantage. And out of this class it would be found natural and
+prudent always to choose the members of the legislative body of the
+Commons; and to attach to the order also some peculiar honors, in the
+possession of which such complacency would be felt as would more than
+replace the unworthy satisfaction of being supposed richer than
+others, which to many men is the principal charm of their wealth. And
+although no law of this purport would ever be imposed on themselves by
+the actual upper classes, there is no hindrance to its being gradually
+brought into force from beneath, without any violent or impatient
+proceedings; and this I will endeavor to show you in my next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+OF TRUE LEGISLATION. THAT EVERY MAN MAY BE A LAW TO HIMSELF.
+
+
+ _February 17, 1867._
+
+9. No, I have not been much worse in health; but I was asked by a
+friend to look over some work in which you will all be deeply
+interested one day, so that I could not write again till now. I was
+the more sorry, because there were several things I wished to note in
+your last letter; one especially leads me directly to what I in any
+case was desirous of urging upon you. You say, "In vol. 6th of
+'Frederick the Great' I find a great deal that I feel quite certain,
+if our Queen or Government could make law, thousands of our English
+workmen would hail with a shout of joy and gladness." I do not
+remember to what you especially allude, but whatever the rules you
+speak of may be, unless there be anything in them contrary to the
+rights of present English property, why should you care whether the
+Government makes them law or not? Can you not, you thousands of
+English workmen, simply make them a law to yourselves, by practising
+them?
+
+It is now some five or six years since I first had occasion to speak
+to the members of the London Working Men's College on the subject of
+Reform, and the substance of what I said to them was this: "You are
+all agape, my friends, for this mighty privilege of having your
+opinions represented in Parliament. The concession might be
+desirable,--at all events courteous,--if only it were quite certain
+you had got any opinions to represent. But have you? Are you agreed on
+any single thing you systematically want? Less work and more wages, of
+course; but how much lessening of work do you suppose is possible? Do
+you think the time will ever come for everybody to have _no_ work and
+_all_ wages? Or have you yet taken the trouble so much as to think out
+the nature of the true connection between wages and work, and to
+determine, even approximately, the real quantity of the one, that can,
+according to the laws of God and nature, be given for the other; for,
+rely on it, make what laws you like, that quantity only can you at
+last get.
+
+10. "Do you know how many mouths can be fed on an acre of land, or how
+fast those mouths multiply? and have you considered what is to be done
+finally with unfeedable mouths? 'Send them to be fed elsewhere,' do
+you say? Have you, then, formed any opinion as to the time at which
+emigration should begin, or the countries to which it should
+preferably take place, or the kind of population which should be left
+at home? Have you planned the permanent state which you would wish
+England to hold, emigrating over her edges, like a full well,
+constantly? How full would you have her be of people, first? and of
+what sort of people? Do you want her to be nothing but a large
+workshop and forge, so that the name of 'Englishman' shall be
+synonymous with 'ironmonger,' all over the world? or would you like to
+keep some of your lords and landed gentry still, and a few green
+fields and trees?
+
+11. "You know well enough that there is not one of these questions, I
+do not say which you can answer, but which you have ever _thought_ of
+answering; and yet you want to have voices in Parliament! Your voices
+are not worth a rat's squeak, either in Parliament or out of it, till
+you have some ideas to utter with them; and when you have the
+thoughts, you will not want to utter them, for you will see that your
+way to the fulfilling of them does not lie through speech. You think
+such matters need debating about? By all means debate about them; but
+debate among yourselves, and with such honest helpers of your thoughts
+as you can find; if by that way you cannot get at the truth, do you
+suppose you could get at it sooner in the House of Commons, where the
+only aim of many of the members would be to refute every word uttered
+in your favor; and where the settlement of any question whatever
+depends merely on the perturbations of the balance of conflicting
+interests?"
+
+12. That was, in main particulars, what I then said to the men of the
+Working Men's College; and in this recurrent agitation about Reform,
+that is what I would steadfastly say again. Do you think it is only
+under the lacquered splendors of Westminster,--you working men of
+England,--that your affairs can be rationally talked over? You have
+perfect liberty and power to talk over, and establish for yourselves,
+whatever laws you please; so long as you do not interfere with other
+people's liberties or properties. Elect a parliament of your own.
+Choose the best men among you, the best at least you can find, by
+whatever system of election you think likeliest to secure such
+desirable result. Invite trustworthy persons of other classes to join
+your council; appoint time and place for its stated sittings, and let
+this parliament, chosen after your own hearts, deliberate upon the
+possible modes of the regulation of industry, and advisablest schemes
+for helpful discipline of life; and so lay before you the best laws
+they can devise, which such of you as were wise might submit to, and
+teach their children to obey. And if any of the laws thus determined
+appear to be inconsistent with the present circumstances or customs of
+trade, do not make a noise about them, nor try to enforce them
+suddenly on others, nor embroider them on flags, nor call meetings in
+parks about them, in spite of railings and police; but keep them in
+your thoughts and sight, as objects of patient purpose and future
+achievement by peaceful strength.
+
+13. For you need not think that even if you obtained a majority of
+representatives in the existing parliament, you could immediately
+compel any system of business, broadly contrary to that now
+established by custom. If you could pass laws to-morrow, wholly
+favorable to yourselves, as you might think, because unfavorable to
+your masters, and to the upper classes of society,--the only result
+would be that the riches of the country would at once leave it, and
+you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great change
+for the better can ever be easily accomplished, or quickly; nor by
+impulsive, ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men,
+without much suffering. The suffering must, indeed, come, one way or
+another, in all greatly critical periods; the only question, for us,
+is whether we will reach our ends (if we ever reach them) through a
+chain of involuntary miseries, many of them useless, and all ignoble;
+or whether we will know the worst at once, and deal with it by the
+wisely sharp methods of Godsped courage.
+
+14. This, I repeat to you, it is wholly in your own power to do, but
+it is in your power on one condition only, that of steadfast truth to
+yourselves, and to all men. If there is not, in the sum of it, honesty
+enough among you to teach you to frame, and strengthen you to obey,
+_just_ laws of trade, there is no hope left for you. No political
+constitution can ennoble knaves; no privileges can assist them; no
+possessions enrich them. Their gains are occult curses; comfortless
+loss their truest blessing; failure and pain Nature's only mercy to
+them. Look to it, therefore, first that you get some wholesome honesty
+for the foundation of all things. Without the resolution in your
+hearts to do good work, so long as your right hands have motion in
+them; and to do it whether the issue be that you die or live, no life
+worthy the name will ever be possible to you, while, in once forming
+the resolution that your work is to be well done, life is really won,
+here and for ever. And to make your children capable of such
+resolution, is the beginning of all true education, of which I have
+more to say in a future letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+THE EXPENSES FOR ART AND FOR WAR.
+
+
+ _February 19, 1867._
+
+15. In the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of yesterday, second column of second
+page, you will find, close to each other, two sentences which bear
+closely on matters in hand. The first of these is the statement, that
+in the debate on the grant for the Blacas collection, "Mr. Bernal
+Osborne got an assenting cheer, when he said that 'whenever science
+and art were mentioned it was a sign to look after the national
+pockets.'" I want you to notice this fact, _i. e._, (the debate in
+question being on a _total_ grant of 164,000_l._, of which 48,000_l._
+only were truly for art's sake, and the rest for shop's sake,) in
+illustration of a passage in my 'Sesame and Lilies' (pp. 69, 70 of the
+small edition, and pp. 46, 47 of Vol. I. of the Revised Series of the
+Entire Works),[A] to which I shall have again to refer you, with some
+further comments, in the sequel of these letters. The second passage
+is to the effect that "The Trades' Union Bill was read a second time,
+after a claim from Mr. Hadfield, Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Samuelson, to
+admit working men into the commission; to which Mr. Watkin answered
+'that the working men's friend was too conspicuous in the body;' and
+Mr. Roebuck, 'that when a butcher was tried for murder it was not
+necessary to have butchers on the jury.'"
+
+ [A] Appendix I.
+
+16. Note this second passage with respect to what I said in my last
+letter, as to the impossibility of the laws of work being investigated
+in the House of Commons. What admixture of elements, think you, would
+avail to obtain so much as decent hearing (how should we then speak of
+impartial judgment?) of the cause of working men, in an assembly which
+permits to one of its principal members this insolent discourtesy of
+language, in dealing with a preliminary question of the highest
+importance; and permits it as so far expressive of the whole color and
+tone of its own thoughts, that the sentence is quoted by one of the
+most temperate and accurate of our daily journals, as representing the
+total answer of the opposite side in the debate? No! be assured you
+can do nothing yet at Westminster. You must have your own parliament,
+and if you cannot detect enough honesty among you to constitute a
+justly minded one, for the present matters must take their course, and
+that will be, yet awhile, to the worse.
+
+17. I meant to have continued this subject, but I see two other
+statements in the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of to-day, with which, and a
+single remark upon them, I think it will be well to close my present
+letter.
+
+(1) "The total sum asked for in the army estimates, published this
+morning, is 14,752,200_l._, being an increase of 412,000_l._ over the
+previous year."
+
+(2) "Yesterday the annual account of the navy receipts and expenditure
+for the year ending 31st March, 1866, was issued from the Admiralty.
+The expenditure was 10,268,115_l._ 7_s._"
+
+Omitting the seven shillings, and even the odd hundred-thousands of
+pounds, the net annual expenditure for army and navy appears to be
+twenty-four millions.
+
+The "grant in science and art," two-thirds of which was not in reality
+for either, but for amusement and shop interests in the Paris
+Exhibition--the grant which the House of Commons feels to be
+indicative of general danger to the national pockets--is, as above
+stated, 164,000_l._ Now, I believe the three additional ciphers which
+turn thousands into millions produce on the intelligent English mind
+usually the effect of--three ciphers. But calculate the proportion of
+these two sums, and then imagine to yourself the beautiful state of
+rationality of any private gentleman, who, having regretfully spent
+164_l._ on pictures for his walls, paid willingly 24,000_l._ annually
+to the policeman who looked after his shutters! You practical
+English!--will you ever unbar the shutters of your brains, and hang
+a picture or two in those state-chambers?
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.--(COVENT GARDEN PANTOMIME.)
+
+
+ _February 25, 1867._
+
+18. There is this great advantage in the writing real letters, that
+the direct correspondence is a sufficient reason for saying, in or out
+of order, everything that the chances of the day bring into one's
+head, in connection with the matter in hand; and as such things very
+usually go out of one's head again, after they get tired of their
+lodging, they would otherwise never get said at all. And thus to-day,
+quite out of order, but in very close connection with another part of
+our subject, I am going to tell you what I was thinking on Friday
+evening last, in Covent Garden Theater, as I was looking, and not
+laughing, at the pantomime of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.'
+
+When you begin seriously to consider the question referred to in my
+second letter, of the essential, and in the outcome inviolable,
+connection between quantity of wages, and quantity of work, you will
+see that "wages" in the full sense don't mean "pay" merely, but the
+reward, whatever it may be, of pleasure as well as profit, and of
+various other advantages, which a man is meant by Providence to get
+during life, for work well done. Even limiting the idea to "pay," the
+question is not so much what quantity of coin you get, as--what you
+can get for it when you have it. Whether a shilling a day be good pay
+or not, depends wholly on what a "shilling's worth" is; that is to
+say, what quantity of the things you want may be had for a shilling.
+And that again depends, and a great deal more than that depends, on
+what you _do_ want. If only drink, and foul clothes, such and such pay
+may be enough for you; if you want good meat and good clothes, you
+must have larger wage; if clean rooms and fresh air, larger still, and
+so on. You say, perhaps, "every one wants these better things." So far
+from that, a wholesome taste for cleanliness and fresh air is one of
+the final attainments of humanity. There are now not many European
+gentlemen, even in the highest classes, who have a pure and right love
+of fresh air. They would put the filth of tobacco even into the first
+breeze of a May morning.
+
+19. But there are better things even than these, which one may want.
+Grant that one has good food, clothes, lodging, and breathing, is that
+all the pay one ought to have for one's work? Wholesome means of
+existence and nothing more? Enough, perhaps, you think, if everybody
+could get these. It may be so; I will not, at this moment, dispute it;
+nevertheless, I will boldly say that you should sometimes want more
+than these; and for one of many things more, you should want
+occasionally to be amused!
+
+You know, the upper classes, most of them, want to be amused all day
+long. They think
+
+ "One moment _un_amused a misery
+ Not made for feeble men."
+
+Perhaps you have been in the habit of despising them for this; and
+thinking how much worthier and nobler it was to work all day, and care
+at night only for food and rest, than to do no useful thing all day,
+eat unearned food, and spend the evening, as the morning, in "change
+of follies and relays of joy." No, my good friend, that is one of the
+fatalest deceptions. It is not a noble thing, in sum and issue of it,
+not to care to be amused. It is indeed a far higher _moral_ state, but
+is a much lower _creature_ state, than that of the upper classes.
+
+20. Yonder poor horse, calm slave in daily chains at the railroad
+siding, who drags the detached rear of the train to the front again,
+and slips aside so deftly as the buffers meet; and, within eighteen
+inches of death every ten minutes, fulfils his changeless duty all day
+long, content, for eternal reward, with his night's rest, and his
+champed mouthful of hay;--anything more earnestly moral and beautiful
+one cannot image--I never see the creature without a kind of worship.
+And yonder musician, who used the greatest power which (in the art he
+knew) the Father of spirits ever yet breathed into the clay of this
+world;--who used it, I say, to follow and fit with perfect sound the
+words of the 'Zauberfloete' and of 'Don Giovanni'--foolishest and most
+monstrous of conceivable human words and subjects of thought--for the
+future "amusement" of his race!--No such spectacle of unconscious (and
+in that unconsciousness all the more fearful) moral degradation of the
+highest faculty to the lowest purpose can be found in history. But
+Mozart is nevertheless a nobler creature than the horse at the siding;
+nor would it be the least nearer the purpose of his Maker that he, and
+all his frivolous audiences, should evade the degradation of the
+profitless piping, only by living, like horses, in daily physical
+labor for daily bread.
+
+21. There are three things to which man is born[A]--labor, and sorrow,
+and joy. Each of these three things has its baseness and its
+nobleness. There is base labor, and noble labor. There is base sorrow,
+and noble sorrow. There is base joy, and noble joy. But you must not
+think to avoid the corruption of these things by doing without the
+things themselves. Nor can any life be right that has not all three.
+Labor without joy is base. Labor without sorrow is base. Sorrow
+without labor is base. Joy without labor is base.
+
+ [A] I ask the reader's thoughtful attention to this
+ paragraph, on which much of what else I have to say depends.
+
+22. I dare say you think I am a long time in coming to the pantomime;
+I am not ready to come to it yet in due course, for we ought to go and
+see the Japanese jugglers first, in order to let me fully explain to
+you what I mean. But I can't write much more to-day; so I shall merely
+tell you what part of the play set me thinking of all this, and leave
+you to consider of it yourself, till I can send you another letter.
+The pantomime was, as I said, 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.' The
+forty thieves were girls. The forty thieves had forty companions, who
+were girls. The forty thieves and their forty companions were in some
+way mixed up with about four hundred and forty fairies, who were
+girls. There was an Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, in which the
+Oxford and Cambridge men were girls. There was a transformation scene,
+with a forest, in which the flowers were girls, and a chandelier, in
+which the lamps were girls, and a great rainbow which was all of
+girls.
+
+23. Mingled incongruously with these seraphic, and, as far as my
+boyish experience extends, novel, elements of pantomime, there were
+yet some of its old and fast-expiring elements. There were, in
+speciality, two thoroughly good pantomime actors--Mr. W. H. Payne and
+Mr. Frederick Payne. All that these two did, was done admirably. There
+were two subordinate actors, who played, subordinately well, the fore
+and hind legs of a donkey. And there was a little actress of whom I
+have chiefly to speak, who played exquisitely the little part she had
+to play. The scene in which she appeared was the only one in the whole
+pantomime in which there was any dramatic effort, or, with a few rare
+exceptions, any dramatic possibility. It was the home scene, in which
+Ali Baba's wife, on washing day, is called upon by butcher, baker,
+and milkman, with unpaid bills; and in the extremity of her distress
+hears her husband's knock at the door, and opens it for him to drive
+in his donkey, laden with gold. The children who have been beaten
+instead of getting breakfast, presently share in the raptures of their
+father and mother; and the little lady I spoke of, eight or nine years
+old,--dances a _pas-de-deux_ with the donkey.
+
+24. She did it beautifully and simply, as a child ought to dance. She
+was not an infant prodigy; there was no evidence, in the finish or
+strength of her motion, that she had been put to continual torture
+through half her eight or nine years. She did nothing more than any
+child well taught, but painlessly, might easily do. She caricatured no
+older person,--attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She was
+dressed decently,--she moved decently,--she looked and behaved
+innocently,--and she danced her joyful dance with perfect grace,
+spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness. And through all the vast
+theater, full of English fathers and mothers and children, there was
+not one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.
+
+Presently after this, came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you,
+were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and
+time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty
+thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British
+public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a thinking; and
+saw little more of the piece, except as an ugly and disturbing dream.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.--(THE JAPANESE JUGGLERS.)
+
+
+ _February 28, 1867._
+
+25. I have your pleasant letter with references to Frederick. I will
+look at them carefully.[A] Mr. Carlyle himself will be pleased to hear
+this letter when he comes home. I heard from him last week at Mentone.
+He is well, and glad of the light and calm of Italy. I must get back
+to the evil light and uncalm, of the places I was taking you through.
+
+ [A] Appendix 2.
+
+(Parenthetically, did you see the article in the 'Times' of yesterday
+on bribery, and the conclusion of the commission--"No one sold any
+opinions, for no one had any opinions to sell"?)
+
+Both on Thursday and Friday last I had been tormented by many things,
+and wanted to disturb my course of thought any way I could. I have
+told you what entertainment I got on Friday, first, for it was then
+that I began meditating over these letters; let me tell you now what
+entertainment I found on Thursday.
+
+26. You may have heard that a company of Japanese jugglers has come
+over to exhibit in London. There has long been an increasing interest
+in Japanese art, which has been very harmful to many of our own
+painters, and I greatly desired to see what these people were, and
+what they did. Well, I have seen Blondin, and various English and
+French circus work, but never yet anything that surprised me so much
+as one of these men's exercises on a suspended pole. Its special
+character was a close approximation to the action and power of the
+monkey; even to the prehensile power in the foot; so that I asked a
+sculptor-friend who sat in front of me, whether he thought such a
+grasp could be acquired by practice, or indicated difference in race.
+He said he thought it might be got by practice. There was also much
+inconceivably dexterous work in spinning of tops,--making them pass in
+balanced motion along the edge of a sword, and along a level string,
+and the like;--the father performing in the presence of his two
+children, who encouraged him continually with short, sharp cries, like
+those of animals. Then there was some fairly good sleight-of-hand
+juggling of little interest; ending with a dance by the juggler, first
+as an animal, and then as a goblin, Now, there was this great
+difference between the Japanese masks used in this dance and our
+common pantomime masks for beasts and demons,--that our English masks
+are only stupidly and loathsomely ugly, by exaggeration of feature, or
+of defect of feature. But the Japanese masks (like the frequent
+monsters of Japanese art) were inventively frightful, like fearful
+dreams; and whatever power it is that acts on human minds, enabling
+them to invent such, appears to me not only to deserve the term
+"demoniacal," as the only word expressive of its character; but to be
+logically capable of no other definition.
+
+27. The impression, therefore, produced upon me by the whole scene,
+was that of being in the presence of human creatures of a partially
+inferior race, but not without great human gentleness, domestic
+affection, and ingenious intellect; who were, nevertheless, as a
+nation, afflicted by an evil spirit, and driven by it to recreate
+themselves in achieving, or beholding the achievement, through years
+of patience, of a certain correspondence with the nature of the lower
+animals.
+
+28. These, then, were the two forms of diversion or recreation of my
+mind possible to me, in two days, when I needed such help, in this
+metropolis of England. I might, as a rich man, have had better music,
+if I had so chosen, though, even so, not rational or helpful; but a
+poor man could only have these, or worse than these, if he cared for
+any manner of spectacle. (I am not at present, observe, speaking of
+pure acting, which is a study, and recreative only as a noble book is;
+but of means of _mere_ amusement.)
+
+Now, lastly, in illustration of the effect of these and other such
+"amusements," and of the desire to obtain them, on the minds of our
+youth, read the 'Times' correspondent's letter from Paris, in the
+tenth page of the paper, to-day;[A] and that will be quite enough for
+you to read, for the present, I believe.
+
+ [A] Appendix 3.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+OF THE VARIOUS EXPRESSIONS OF NATIONAL FESTIVITY.
+
+
+ _March 4, 1867._
+
+29. The subject which I want to bring before you is now branched, and
+worse than branched, reticulated, in so many directions, that I hardly
+know which shoot of it to trace, or which knot to lay hold of first.
+
+I had intended to return to those Japanese jugglers, after a visit to
+a theater in Paris; but I had better, perhaps, at once tell you the
+piece of the performance which, in connection with the scene in the
+English pantomime, bears most on matters in hand.
+
+It was also a dance by a little girl--though one older than Ali Baba's
+daughter, (I suppose a girl of twelve or fourteen). A dance, so
+called, which consisted only in a series of short, sharp contractions
+and jerks of the body and limbs, resulting in attitudes of distorted
+and quaint ugliness, such as might be produced in a puppet by sharp
+twitching of strings at its joints: these movements being made to the
+sound of two instruments, which between them accomplished only a quick
+vibratory beating and strumming, in nearly the time of a
+hearth-cricket's song, but much harsher, and of course louder, and
+without any sweetness; only in the monotony and unintended aimless
+construction of it, reminding one of various other insect and reptile
+cries or warnings: partly of the cicala's hiss; partly of the little
+melancholy German frog which says "Mu, mu, mu," all summer-day long,
+with its nose out of the pools by Dresden and Leipsic; and partly of
+the deadened quivering and intense continuousness of the alarm of the
+rattlesnake.
+
+While this was going on, there was a Bible text repeating itself over
+and over again in my head, whether I would or no:--"And Miriam the
+prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all
+the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances." To which
+text and some others, I shall ask your attention presently; but I must
+go to Paris first.
+
+30. Not at once, however, to the theater, but to a bookseller's shop,
+No. 4, Rue Voltaire, where, in the year 1858, was published the fifth
+edition of Balzac's 'Contes Drolatiques,' illustrated by 425 designs
+by Gustave Dore.
+
+Both text and illustrations are as powerful as it is ever in the
+nature of evil things to be (there is no _final_ strength but in
+rightness). Nothing more witty, nor more inventively horrible, has yet
+been produced in the evil literature, or by the evil art, of man: nor
+can I conceive it possible to go beyond either in their specialities
+of corruption. The text is full of blasphemies, subtle, tremendous,
+hideous in shamelessness, some put into the mouths of priests; the
+illustrations are, in a word, one continuous revelry in the most
+loathsome and monstrous aspects of death and sin, enlarged into
+fantastic ghastliness of caricature, as if seen through the distortion
+and trembling of the hot smoke of the mouth of hell. Take this
+following for a general type of what they seek in death: one of the
+most labored designs is of a man cut in two, downwards, by the sweep
+of a sword--one half of him falls toward the spectator; the other half
+is elaborately drawn in its section--giving the profile of the divided
+nose and lips; cleft jaw--breast--and entrails; and this is done with
+farther pollution and horror of intent in the circumstances, which I
+do not choose to describe--still less some other of the designs which
+seek for fantastic extreme of sin, as this for the utmost horror of
+death. But of all the 425, there is not one, which does not violate
+every instinct of decency and law of virtue or life, written in the
+human soul.
+
+31. Now, my friend, among the many "Signs of the Times" the production
+of a book like this is a significant one: but it becomes more
+significant still when connected with the farther fact, that M.
+Gustave Dore, the designer of this series of plates, has just been
+received with loud acclaim by the British Evangelical Public, as the
+fittest and most able person whom they could at present find to
+illustrate, to their minds, and recommend with grace of sacred art,
+their hitherto unadorned Bible for them.
+
+Of which Bible, and of the use we at present make of it in England,
+having a grave word or two to say in my next letter (preparatory to
+the examination of that verse which haunted me through the Japanese
+juggling, and of some others also), I leave you first this sign of the
+public esteem of it to consider at your leisure.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII.
+
+THE FOUR POSSIBLE THEORIES RESPECTING THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE.
+
+
+ _March 7, 1867._
+
+32. I have your yesterday's letter, but must not allow myself to be
+diverted from the business in hand for this once, for it is the most
+important of which I have to write to you.
+
+You must have seen long ago that the essential difference between the
+political economy I am trying to teach, and the popular science, is,
+that mine is based on _presumably attainable honesty_ in men, and
+conceivable respect in them for the interests of others, while the
+popular science founds itself wholly on their supposed constant regard
+for their own, and on their honesty only so far as thereby likely to
+be secured.
+
+It becomes, therefore, for me, and for all who believe anything I say,
+a great primal question on what this presumably attainable honesty is
+to be based.
+
+33. "Is it to be based on religion?" you may ask. "Are we to be
+honest for fear of losing heaven if we are dishonest, or (to put it as
+generously as we may) for fear of displeasing God? Or, are we to be
+honest on speculation, because honesty is the best policy; and to
+invest in virtue as in an undepreciable stock?"
+
+And my answer is--not in any hesitating or diffident way (and you
+know, my friend, that whatever people may say of me, I often do speak
+diffidently; though, when I am diffident of things, I like to avoid
+speaking of them, if it may be; but here I say with no shadow of
+doubt)--your honesty is _not_ to be based either on religion or
+policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on _it_. Your
+honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the
+lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the
+night. If you ask why you are to be honest--you are, in the question
+itself, dishonored. "Because you are a man," is the only answer; and
+therefore I said in a former letter that to make your children
+_capable of honesty_ is the beginning of education. Make them men
+first, and religious men afterwards, and all will be sound; but a
+knave's religion is always the rottenest thing about him.
+
+34. It is not, therefore, because I am endeavoring to lay down a
+foundation of religious concrete, on which to build piers of policy,
+that you so often find me quoting Bible texts in defense of this or
+that principle or assertion. But the fact that such references are an
+offense, as I know them to be, to many of the readers of these
+political essays, is one among many others, which I would desire you
+to reflect upon (whether you are yourself one of the offended or not),
+as expressive of the singular position which the mind of the British
+public has at present taken with respect to its worshiped Book. The
+positions, honestly tenable, before I use any more of its texts, I
+must try to define for you.
+
+35. All the theories possible to theological disputants respecting the
+Bible are resolvable into four, and four only.
+
+(1.) The first is that of the illiterate modern religious world, that
+every word of the book known to them as "The Bible" was dictated by
+the Supreme Being, and is in every syllable of it His "Word."
+
+This theory is of course tenable by no ordinarily well-educated
+person.
+
+(2.) The second theory is, that, although admitting verbal error, the
+substance of the whole collection of books called the Bible is
+absolutely true, and furnished to man by Divine inspiration of the
+speakers and writers of it; and that every one who honestly and
+prayerfully seeks for such truth in it as is necessary for his
+salvation, will infallibly find it there.
+
+This theory is that held by most of our good and upright clergymen,
+and the better class of the professedly religious laity.
+
+(3.) The third theory is that the group of books which we call the
+Bible were neither written nor collected under any Divine guidance,
+securing them from substantial error; and that they contain, like all
+other human writings, false statements mixed with true, and erring
+thoughts mixed with just thoughts; but that they nevertheless relate,
+on the whole, faithfully, the dealings of the one God with the first
+races of man, and His dealings with them in aftertime through Christ:
+that they record true miracles, and bear true witness to the
+resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
+
+This is a theory held by many of the active leaders of modern thought.
+
+(4.) The fourth, and last possible, theory is that the mass of
+religious Scripture contains merely the best efforts which we hitherto
+know to have been made by any of the races of men towards the
+discovery of some relations with the spiritual world; that they are
+only trustworthy as expressions of the enthusiastic visions or beliefs
+of earnest men oppressed by the world's darkness, and have no more
+authoritative claim on our faith than the religious speculations and
+histories of the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, and Indians; but are, in
+common with all these, to be reverently studied, as containing a
+portion, divinely appointed, of the best wisdom which human
+intellect, earnestly seeking for help from God, has hitherto been able
+to gather between birth and death.
+
+This has been, for the last half-century, the theory of the soundest
+scholars and thinkers of Europe.
+
+36. There is yet indeed one farther condition of incredulity
+attainable, and sorrowfully attained, by many men of powerful
+intellect--the incredulity, namely, of inspiration in any sense, or of
+help given by any Divine power to the thoughts of men. But this form
+of infidelity merely indicates a natural incapacity for receiving
+certain emotions; though many honest and good men belong to this
+insentient class.
+
+37. The educated men, therefore, who may be seriously appealed to, in
+these days, on questions of moral responsibility, as modified by
+Scripture, are broadly divisible into three classes, severally holding
+the last three theories above stated.
+
+Now, whatever power a passage from the statedly authoritative portions
+of the Bible may have over the mind of a person holding the fourth
+theory, it will have a proportionately greater over that of persons
+holding the third or the second. I, therefore, always imagine myself
+speaking to the fourth class of theorists. If I can persuade or
+influence _them_, I am logically sure of the others. I say
+"logically," for the actual fact, strange as it may seem, is that no
+persons are so little likely to submit to a passage of Scripture not
+to their fancy, as those who are most positive on the subject of its
+general inspiration.
+
+38. Addressing, then, this fourth class of thinkers, I would say to
+them, when asking them to enter on any subject of importance to
+national morals, or conduct, "This book, which has been the accepted
+guide of the moral intelligence of Europe for some fifteen hundred
+years, enforces certain simple laws of human conduct which you know
+have also been agreed upon, in every main point, by all the religious,
+and by all the greatest profane writers, of every age and country.
+This book primarily forbids pride, lasciviousness, and covetousness;
+and you know that all great thinkers, in every nation of mankind,
+have similarly forbidden these mortal vices. This book enjoins truth,
+temperance, charity, and equity; and you know that every great
+Egyptian, Greek, and Indian, enjoins these also. You know besides,
+that through all the mysteries of human fate and history, this one
+great law of fate is written on the walls of cities, or in their dust;
+written in letters of light, and letters of blood,--that where truth,
+temperance, and equity have been preserved, all strength, and peace,
+and joy have been preserved also;--that where lying, lasciviousness,
+and covetousness have been practised, there has followed an
+infallible, and, for centuries, irrecoverable ruin. And you know,
+lastly, that the observance of this common law of righteousness,
+commending itself to all the pure instincts of men, and fruitful in
+their temporal good, is by the religious writers of every nation, and
+chiefly in this venerated Scripture of ours, connected with some
+distinct hope of better life, and righteousness, to come.
+
+39. "Let it not then offend you if, deducing principles of action
+first from the laws and facts of nature, I nevertheless fortify them
+also by appliance of the precepts, or suggestive and probable
+teachings of this Book, of which the authority is over many around
+you, more distinctly than over you, and which, confessing to be
+divine, _they_, at least, can only disobey at their moral peril."
+
+On these grounds, and in this temper, I am in the habit of appealing
+to passages of Scripture in my writings on political economy; and in
+this temper I will ask you to consider with me some conclusions which
+appear to me derivable from that text about Miriam, which haunted me
+through the jugglery; and from certain others.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+
+THE USE OF MUSIC AND DANCING UNDER THE JEWISH THEOCRACY, COMPARED WITH
+THEIR USE BY THE MODERN FRENCH.
+
+
+ _March 10, 1867._
+
+40. Having, I hope, made you now clearly understand with what feeling
+I would use the authority of the book which the British public,
+professing to consider sacred, have lately adorned for themselves with
+the work of the boldest violator of the instincts of human honor and
+decency known yet in art-history, I will pursue by the help of that
+verse about Miriam, and some others, the subject which occupied my
+mind at both theaters, and to which, though in so apparently desultory
+manner, I have been nevertheless very earnestly endeavoring to lead
+you.
+
+41. The going forth of the women of Israel after Miriam with timbrels
+and with dances, was, as you doubtless remember, their expression of
+passionate triumph and thankfulness, after the full accomplishment of
+their deliverance from the Egyptians. That deliverance had been by the
+utter death of their enemies, and accompanied by stupendous miracle;
+no human creatures could in an hour of triumph be surrounded by
+circumstances more solemn. I am not going to try to excite your
+feelings about them. Consider only for yourself what that seeing of
+the Egyptians "dead upon the sea-shore" meant to every soul that saw
+it. And then reflect that these intense emotions of mingled horror,
+triumph, and gratitude were expressed, in the visible presence of the
+Deity, by music and dancing. If you answer that you do not believe the
+Egyptians so perished, or that God ever appeared in a pillar of cloud,
+I reply, "Be it so--believe or disbelieve, as you choose;--This is yet
+assuredly the fact, that the author of the poem or fable of the Exodus
+supposed that, under such circumstances of Divine interposition as he
+had invented, the triumph of the Israelitish women would have been,
+and ought to have been, under the direction of a prophetess,
+expressed by music and dancing."
+
+42. Nor was it possible that he should think otherwise, at whatever
+period he wrote; both music and dancing being, among all great ancient
+nations, an appointed and very principal part of the worship of the
+gods.
+
+And that very theatrical entertainment at which I sate thinking over
+these things for you--that pantomime, which depended throughout for
+its success on an appeal to the vices of the lower London populace,
+was, in itself, nothing but a corrupt remnant of the religious
+ceremonies which guided the most serious faiths of the Greek mind, and
+laid the foundation of their gravest moral and didactic--more forcibly
+so because at the same time dramatic--literature.
+
+43. Returning to the Jewish history, you find soon afterwards this
+enthusiastic religious dance and song employed, in their more common
+and habitual manner, in the idolatries under Sinai; but beautifully
+again and tenderly, after the triumph of Jephthah, "And behold his
+daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances." Again,
+still more notably, at the triumph of David with Saul, "the women came
+out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul
+with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music." And you have
+this joyful song and dance of the virgins of Israel not only
+incidentally alluded to in the most solemn passages of Hebrew
+religious poetry (as in Psalm lxviii. 24, 25, and Psalm cxlix. 2, 3),
+but approved, and the restoration of it promised as a sign of God's
+perfect blessing, most earnestly by the saddest of the Hebrew
+prophets, and in one of the most beautiful of all his sayings.
+
+"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, 'Yea, I have loved
+thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving-kindness have I
+drawn thee.--I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O Virgin of
+Israel; thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and thou shalt
+go forth in dances with them that make merry,'" (Jer. xxxi. 3, 4; and
+compare v. 13). And finally, you have in two of quite the most
+important passages in the whole series of Scripture (one in the Old
+Testament, one in the New), the rejoicing in the repentance from, and
+remission of, sins, expressed by means of music and dancing, namely,
+in the rapturous dancing of David before the returning ark; and in the
+joy of the father's household at the repentance of the prodigal son.
+
+44. I could put all this much better, and more convincingly, before
+you, if I were able to take any pains in writing at present; but I am
+not, as I told you; being weary and ill; neither do I much care now to
+use what, in the very truth, are but tricks of literary art, in
+dealing with this so grave subject. You see I write you my letter
+straightforward, and let you see all my scratchings out and puttings
+in; and if the way I say things shocks you, or any other reader of
+these letters, I cannot help it; this only I know, that what I tell
+you is true, and written more earnestly than anything I ever wrote
+with my best literary care; and that you will find it useful to think
+upon, however it be said. Now, therefore, to draw towards our
+conclusion. Supposing the Bible inspired, in any of the senses above
+defined, you have in these passages a positively Divine authority for
+the use of song and dance, as a means of religious service, and
+expression of national thanksgiving. Supposing it not inspired, you
+have (taking the passages for as slightly authoritative as you choose)
+record in them, nevertheless, of a state of mind in a great nation,
+producing the most beautiful religious poetry and perfect moral law
+hitherto known to us, yet only expressible by them, to the fulfilment
+of their joyful passion, by means of professional dance and choral
+song.
+
+45. Now I want you to contrast this state of religious rapture with
+some of our modern phases of mind in parallel circumstances. You see
+that the promise of Jeremiah's, "Thou shalt go forth in the dances of
+them that make merry," is immediately followed by this, "Thou shalt
+yet _plant vines_ upon the mountains of Samaria." And again, at the
+yearly feast to the Lord in Shiloh, the dancing of the virgins was in
+the midst of the vineyards (Judges xxi. 21), the feast of the vintage
+being in the south, as our harvest home in the north, a peculiar
+occasion of joy and thanksgiving. I happened to pass the autumn of
+1863 in one of the great vine districts of Switzerland, under the
+slopes of the outlying branch of the Jura which limits the arable
+plain of the Canton Zurich, some fifteen miles north of Zurich itself.
+That city has always been a renowned, stronghold of Swiss
+Protestantism, next in importance only to Geneva; and its evangelical
+zeal for the conversion of the Catholics of Uri, and endeavors to
+bring about that spiritual result by stopping the supplies of salt
+they needed to make their cheeses with, brought on (the Uri men
+reading their Matt. v. 13, in a different sense) the battle of Keppel,
+and the death of the reformer Zwinglius. The town itself shows the
+most gratifying signs of progress in all the modern arts and sciences
+of life. It is nearly as black as Newcastle--has a railroad station
+larger than the London terminus of the Chatham and Dover--fouls the
+stream of the Limmat as soon as it issues from the lake, so that you
+might even venture to compare the formerly simple and innocent Swiss
+river (I remember it thirty years ago--a current of pale green
+crystal) with the highly educated English streams of Weare or Tyne;
+and, finally, has as many French prints of dissolute tendency in its
+principal shop windows as if they had the privilege of opening on the
+Parisian Boulevards.
+
+46. I was somewhat anxious to see what species of thanksgiving or
+exultation would be expressed at _their_ vintage, by the peasantry in
+the neighborhood of this much enlightened, evangelical, and commercial
+society. It consisted in two ceremonies only. During the day, the
+servants of the farms where the grapes had been gathered, collected in
+knots about the vineyards, and slowly fired horse-pistols, from
+morning to evening. At night they got drunk, and staggered up and down
+the hill paths, uttering, at short intervals, yells and shrieks,
+differing only from the howling of wild animals by a certain intended
+and insolent discordance, only attainable by the malignity of debased
+human creatures.
+
+47. I must not do the injustice to the Zurich peasantry of implying
+that this manner of festivity is peculiar to them. A year before, in
+1862, I had formed the intention of living some years in the
+neighborhood of Geneva, and had established myself experimentally on
+the eastern slope of the Mont Saleve; but I was forced to abandon my
+purpose at last, because I could not endure the rabid howling, on
+Sunday evenings, of the holiday-makers who came out from Geneva to get
+drunk in the mountain village. By the way, your last letter, with its
+extracts about our traffic in gin, is very valuable. I will come to
+that part of the business in a little while. Meantime, my friend, note
+this, respecting what I have told you, that in the very center of
+Europe, in a country which is visited for their chief pleasure by the
+most refined and thoughtful persons among all Christian nations--a
+country made by God's hand the most beautiful in the temperate regions
+of the earth, and inhabited by a race once capable of the sternest
+patriotism and simplest purity of life, your modern religion, in the
+very stronghold of it, has reduced the song and dance of ancient
+virginal thanksgiving to the howlings and staggerings of men
+betraying, in intoxication, a nature sunk more than half-way towards
+the beasts; and you will begin to understand why the Bible should have
+been "illustrated" by Gustave Dore.
+
+48. One word more is needful, though this letter is long already. The
+peculiar ghastliness of this Swiss mode of festivity is in its utter
+failure of joy; the paralysis and helplessness of a vice in which
+there is neither pleasure, nor art. But we are not, throughout Europe,
+wholly thus. There is such a thing, yet, as rapturous song and dance
+among us, though not indicative, by any means, of joy over repentant
+sinners. You must come back to Paris with me again. I had an evening
+to spare there, last summer, for investigation of theaters; and as
+there was nothing at any of them that I cared much about seeing, I
+asked a valet-de-place at Meurice's what people were generally going
+to. He said, "All the English went to see the _Lanterne Magique_." I
+do not care to tell you what general entertainment I received in
+following, for once, the lead of my countrymen; but it closed with
+the representation of the characteristic dancing of all ages of the
+world; and the dance given as characteristic of modern time was the
+Cancan, which you will see alluded to in the extract given in the note
+at page 80 of 'Sesame and Lilies' (the small edition; and page 54 of
+Vol. I. of the Revised Series of the Entire Works). "The ball
+terminated with a Devilish Chain and a Cancan of Hell, at seven in the
+morning." It was led by four principal dancers (who have since
+appeared in London in the _Huguenot Captain_), and it is many years
+since I have seen such perfect dancing, as far as finish and accuracy
+of art and fulness of animal power and fire are concerned. Nothing
+could be better done, in its own evil way, the object of the dance
+throughout being to express, in every gesture, the wildest fury of
+insolence and vicious passions possible to human creatures. So that
+you see, though, for the present, we find ourselves utterly incapable
+of a rapture of gladness or thanksgiving, the dance which is presented
+as characteristic of modern civilization is still rapturous
+enough--but it is with rapture of blasphemy.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+
+THE MEANING AND ACTUAL OPERATION OF SATANIC OR DEMONIACAL INFLUENCE.
+
+
+ _March 16, 1867._
+
+49. You may gather from the facts given you in my last letter that, as
+the expression of true and holy gladness was in old time statedly
+offered up by men for a part of worship to God their Father, so the
+expression of false and unholy gladness is in modern times, with as
+much distinctness and plainness, asserted by them openly to be offered
+to another spirit: "Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being
+the names assigned to these modern forms of joyous procession.
+
+Now, you know that, among the best and wisest of our present
+religious teachers, there is a gradual tendency to disbelieve, and to
+preach their disbelief, in the commonly received ideas of the Devil,
+and of his place, and his work. While, among some of our equally
+well-meaning, but far less wise, religious teachers, there is, in
+consequence, a panic spreading in anticipation of the moral dangers
+which must follow on the loss of the help of the Devil. One of the
+last appearances in public of the author of the 'Christian Year' was
+at a conclave of clergymen assembled in defense of faith in
+damnation.[A] The sense of the meeting generally was, that there
+_must_ be such a place as hell, because no one would ever behave
+decently upon earth unless they were kept in wholesome fear of the
+fires beneath it: and Mr. Keble, especially insisting on this view,
+related a story of an old woman who had a wicked son, and who, having
+lately heard with horror of the teaching of Mr. Maurice and others,
+exclaimed pathetically, "My son is bad enough as it is, and if he were
+not afraid of hell, what would become of him!" (I write from memory,
+and cannot answer for the words, but I can for their purport.)
+
+ [A] _Physical_ damnation, I should have said. It is strange
+ how seldom pain of heart is spoken of as a possible element
+ of future, or as the worst of present pain.
+
+50. Now, my friend, I am afraid that I must incur the charge of such
+presumption as may be involved in variance from _both_ these systems
+of teaching.
+
+I do not merely _believe_ there is such a place as hell. I _know_
+there is such a place; and I know also that when men have got to the
+point of believing virtue impossible but through dread of it, they
+have got _into_ it.
+
+I mean, that according to the distinctness with which they hold such a
+creed, the stain of nether fire has passed upon them. In the depth of
+his heart Mr. Keble could not have entertained the thought for an
+instant; and I believe it was only as a conspicuous sign to the
+religious world of the state into which they were sinking, that this
+creed, possible in its sincerity only to the basest of them, was
+nevertheless appointed to be uttered by the lips of the most tender,
+gracious, and beloved of their teachers.
+
+51. "Virtue impossible but for fear of hell"--a lofty creed for your
+English youth--and a holy one! And yet, my friend, there was something
+of right in the terrors of this clerical conclave. For, though you
+should assuredly be able to hold your own in the straight ways of God,
+without always believing that the Devil is at your side, it is a state
+of mind much to be dreaded, that you should not _know_ the Devil when
+you _see_ him there. For the probability is that when you do see him,
+the way you are walking in is not one of God's ways at all, but is
+leading you quite into other neighborhoods than His. On His way,
+indeed, you may often, like Albert Duerer's Knight, see the Fiend
+behind you, but you will find that he drops always farther and farther
+behind; whereas, if he jogs with you at your side, it is probably one
+of his own bypaths you are got on. And, in any case, it is a highly
+desirable matter that you should know him when you set eyes on him,
+which we are very far from doing in these days, having convinced
+ourselves that the graminivorous form of him, with horn and tail, is
+extant no longer. But in fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Him
+_is_ here; in the world, with us, and within us, mock as you may; and
+the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous.
+
+Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically, or with any
+other than literal and earnest meaning of words. Hear me, I pray you,
+therefore, for a little while, as earnestly as I speak.
+
+52. Every faculty of man's soul, and every instinct of it by which he
+is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption:
+and whether within Man, or in the external world, there is a power or
+condition of temptation which is perpetually endeavoring to reduce
+every glory of his soul, and every power of his life, to such
+corruption as is possible to them. And the more beautiful they are,
+the more fearful is the death which is attached as a penalty to their
+degradation.
+
+53. Take, for instance, that which, in its purity, is the source of
+the highest and purest mortal happiness--Love. Think of it first at
+its highest--as it may exist in the disciplined spirit of a perfect
+human creature; as it has so existed again and again, and does always,
+wherever it truly exists at all, as the _purifying_ passion of the
+soul. I will not speak of the transcendental and imaginative intensity
+in which it may reign in noble hearts, as when it inspired the
+greatest religious poem yet given to men; but take it in its true and
+quiet purity in any simple lover's heart,--as you have it expressed,
+for instance, thus, exquisitely, in the 'Angel in the House':--
+
+ "And there, with many a blissful tear,
+ I vowed to love and prayed to wed
+ The maiden who had grown so dear;--
+ Thanked God, who had set her in my path;
+ And promised, as I hoped to win,
+ I never would sully my faith
+ By the least selfishness or sin;
+ Whatever in her sight I'd seem
+ I'd really be; I ne'er would blend,
+ With my delight in her, a dream
+ 'Twould change her cheek to comprehend;
+ And, if she wished it, would prefer
+ Another's to my own success;
+ And always seek the best for her
+ With unofficious tenderness."
+
+Take this for the pure type of it in its simplicity; and then think of
+what corruption this passion is capable. I will give you a type of
+that also, and at your very doors. I cannot refer you to the time when
+the crime happened; but it was some four or five years ago, near
+Newcastle, and it has remained always as a ghastly landmark in my
+mind, owing to the horror of the external circumstances. The body of
+the murdered woman was found naked, rolled into a heap of ashes, at
+the mouth of one of your pits.
+
+54. You have thus two limiting examples, of the Pure Passion, and of
+its corruption. Now, whatever influence it is, without or within us,
+which has a tendency to degrade the one towards the other, is
+literally and accurately "Satanic." And this treacherous or deceiving
+spirit is perpetually at work, so that all the worst evil among us is
+a betrayed or corrupted good. Take religion itself: the desire of
+finding out God, and placing one's self in some true son's or
+servant's relation to Him. The Devil, that is to say, the deceiving
+spirit within us, or outside of us, mixes up our own vanity with this
+desire; makes us think that in our love to God we have established
+some connection with Him which separates us from our fellow-men, and
+renders us superior to them. Then it takes but one wave of the Devil's
+hand; and we are burning them alive for taking the liberty of
+contradicting us.
+
+55. Take the desire of teaching--the entirely unselfish and noble
+instinct for telling to those who are ignorant, the truth we know, and
+guarding them from the errors we see them in danger of;--there is no
+nobler, no more constant instinct in honorable breasts; but let the
+Devil formalize it, and mix the pride of a profession with it--get
+foolish people entrusted with the business of instruction, and make
+their giddy heads giddier by putting them up in pulpits above a
+submissive crowd--and you have it instantly corrupted into its own
+reverse; you have an alliance _against_ the light, shrieking at the
+sun, and the moon, and stars, as profane spectra:--a company of the
+blind, beseeching those they lead to remain blind also. "The heavens
+and the lights that rule them are untrue; the laws of creation are
+treacherous; the poles of the earth are out of poise. But _we_ are
+true. Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast, and we will
+lead you."
+
+56. Take the desire and faith of mutual help; the virtue of vowed
+brotherhood for the accomplishment of common purpose, (without which
+nothing great can be wrought by multitudinous bands of men); let the
+Devil put pride of caste into it, and you have a military organization
+applied for a thousand years to maintain that higher caste in idleness
+by robbing the laboring poor; let the Devil put a few small personal
+interests into it, and you have all faithful deliberation on national
+law rendered impossible in the parliaments of Europe, by the
+antagonism of parties.
+
+57. Take the instinct for justice, and the natural sense of
+indignation against crime; let the Devil color it with personal
+passion, and you have a mighty race of true and tender-hearted men
+living for centuries in such bloody feud that every note and word of
+their national songs is a dirge, and every rock of their hills is a
+gravestone. Take the love of beauty, and power of imagination, which
+are the source of every true achievement in art; let the Devil touch
+them with sensuality, and they are stronger than the sword or the
+flame to blast the cities where they were born, into ruin without
+hope. Take the instinct of industry and ardor of commerce, which are
+meant to be the support and mutual maintenance of man; let the Devil
+touch them with avarice, and you shall see the avenues of the exchange
+choked with corpses that have died of famine.
+
+58. Now observe--I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what you
+like--or to theorize about it as you like. All that I desire you to
+recognize is the fact of its being here, and the need of its being
+fought with. If you take the Bible's account of it, or Dante's, or
+Milton's, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual
+creature, commanding others, and resisted by others: if you take
+AEschylus's or Hesiod's account of it, you will hold it for a partly
+elementary and unconscious adversity of fate, and partly for a group
+of monstrous spiritual agencies connected with death, and begotten out
+of the dust; if you take a modern rationalist's, you will accept it
+for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral nature
+exposing it to loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is capable
+of mortification or leprosy. I do not care what you call it,--whose
+history you believe of it,--nor what you yourself can imagine about
+it; the origin, or nature, or name may be as you will, but the
+deadly reality of the thing is with us, and warring against us,
+and on our true war with it depends whatever life we can win. Deadly
+reality, I say. The puff-adder or horned asp is not more real.
+Unbelievable,--_those_,--unless you had seen them; no fable could have
+been coined out of any human brain so dreadful, within its own poor
+material sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent--working its way sidelong
+in the sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death--this worm that
+dies not, and fire that is not quenched, within our souls or around
+them. Eternal death, I say--sure, that, whatever creed you hold;--if
+the old Scriptural one, Death of perpetual banishment from before
+God's face; if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal for _us_,
+instant and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.
+
+This is what this unquestionably present--this, according to his
+power, _omni_-present--fiend, brings us towards, daily. He is the
+person to be "voted" against, my working friend; it is worth
+something, having a vote against _him_, if you can get it! Which you
+can, indeed; but not by gift from Cabinet Ministers; you must work
+warily with your own hands, and drop sweat of heart's blood, before
+you can record that vote effectually.
+
+Of which more in next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI.
+
+THE SATANIC POWER IS MAINLY TWOFOLD: THE POWER OF CAUSING FALSEHOOD
+AND THE POWER OF CAUSING PAIN. THE RESISTANCE IS BY LAW OF HONOR AND
+LAW OF DELIGHT.
+
+
+ _March 19, 1857._
+
+59. You may perhaps have thought my last three or four letters mere
+rhapsodies. They are nothing of the kind; they are accurate accounts
+of literal facts, which we have to deal with daily. This thing, or
+power, opposed to God's power, and specifically called "Mammon" in the
+Sermon on the Mount, is, in deed and in truth, a continually present
+and active enemy, properly called "_Arch_-enemy," that is to say,
+"Beginning and Prince of Enemies," and daily we have to record our
+vote for, or against him. Of the manner of which record we were next
+to consider.
+
+60. This enemy is always recognizable, briefly in two functions. He is
+pre-eminently the Lord of _Lies_ and the Lord of _Pain_. Wherever Lies
+are, he is; wherever Pain is, he has been--so that of the Spirit of
+Wisdom (who is called God's Helper, as Satan His Adversary) it is
+written, not only that by her Kings reign, and Princes decree justice,
+but also that her ways are ways of Pleasantness, and all her paths
+Peace.
+
+Therefore, you will succeed, you working men, in recording your votes
+against this arch-enemy, precisely in the degree in which you can do
+away with falsehood and pain in your work and lives; and bring truth
+into the one, and pleasure into the other; all education being
+directed to make yourselves and your children _capable of Honesty_ and
+_capable of Delight_; and to rescue yourselves from iniquity and
+agony. And this is what I meant by saying in the preface to 'Unto this
+Last' that the central requirement of education consisted in giving
+habits of gentleness and justice; "gentleness" (as I will show you
+presently) being the best single word I could have used to express the
+capacity for giving and receiving true pleasure; and "justice" being
+similarly the most comprehensive word for all kind of honest dealing.
+
+61. Now, I began these letters with the purpose of explaining the
+nature of the requirements of justice first, and then those of
+gentleness, but I allowed myself to be led into that talk about the
+theaters, not only because the thoughts could be more easily written
+as they came, but also because I was able thus to illustrate for you
+more directly the nature of the enemy we have to deal with. You do not
+perhaps know, though I say this diffidently (for I often find working
+men know many things which one would have thought were out of their
+way), that music was, among the Greeks, quite the first means of
+education; and that it was so connected with their system of ethics
+and of intellectual training, that the God of Music is with them also
+the God of Righteousness;--the God who purges and avenges iniquity,
+and contends with their Satan as represented under the form of Python,
+"the corrupter." And the Greeks were incontrovertibly right in this.
+Music is the nearest at hand, the most orderly, the most delicate, and
+the most perfect, of all bodily pleasures; it is also the only one
+which is equally helpful to all the ages of man,--helpful from the
+nurse's song to her infant, to the music, unheard of others, which so
+often haunts the deathbed of pure and innocent spirits. And the action
+of the deceiving or devilish power is in _nothing_ shown quite so
+distinctly among us at this day,--not even in our commercial
+dishonesties, nor in our social cruelties,--as in its having been able
+to take away music, as an instrument of education, altogether; and to
+enlist it almost wholly in the service of superstition on the one
+hand, and of sensuality on the other.
+
+62. This power of the Muses, then, and its proper influence over you
+workmen, I shall eventually have much to insist upon with you; and in
+doing so I shall take that beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son
+(which I have already referred to), and explain, as far as I know, the
+significance of it, and then I will take the three means of festivity,
+or wholesome human joy, therein stated,--fine dress, rich food, and
+music;--("bring forth the fairest robe for him,"--"bring forth the
+fatted calf, and kill it;" "as he drew nigh, he heard music and
+dancing"); and I will show you how all these three things, fine dress,
+rich food, and music (including ultimately all the other arts) are
+meant to be sources of life, and means of moral discipline, to all
+men; and how they have all three been made, by the Devil, the means of
+guilt, dissoluteness, and death.[A] But first I must return to my
+original plan of these letters, and endeavor to set down for you some
+of the laws which, in a true Working Men's Parliament, must be
+ordained in defense of Honesty.
+
+ [A] See 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIV.
+
+Of which laws (preliminary to all others, and necessary above all
+others), having now somewhat got my raveled threads together again,
+I will begin talk in my next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XII.
+
+THE NECESSITY OF IMPERATIVE LAW TO THE PROSPERITY OF STATES.
+
+
+ _March 20, 1867._
+
+63. I have your most interesting letter,[A] which I keep for
+reference, when I come to the consideration of its subject in its
+proper place, under the head of the abuse of Food. I do not wonder
+that your life should be rendered unhappy by the scenes of drunkenness
+which you are so often compelled to witness; nor that this so gigantic
+and infectious evil should seem to you the root of the greater part of
+the misery of our lower orders. I do not wonder that George Cruikshank
+has warped the entire current of his thoughts and life, at once to my
+admiration and my sorrow, from their natural field of work, that he
+might spend them, in struggle with this fiend, for the poor lowest
+people whom he knows so well. I wholly sympathize with you in
+indignation at the methods of temptation employed, and at the use of
+the fortunes made by the vendors of death; and whatever immediately
+applicable legal means there might be of restricting the causes of
+drunkenness, I should without hesitation desire to bring into
+operation. But all such appliance I consider temporary and
+provisionary; nor, while there is record of the miracle at Cana (not
+to speak of the sacrament) can I conceive it possible, without
+(logically) the denial of the entire truth of the New Testament, to
+reprobate the use of wine as a stimulus to the powers of life.
+Supposing we did deny the words and deeds of the Founder of
+Christianity, the authority of the wisest heathens, especially that of
+Plato in the 'Laws,' is wholly against abstinence from wine; and much
+as I can believe, and as I have been endeavoring to make you believe
+also, of the subtlety of the Devil, I do not suppose the vine to have
+been one of his inventions. Of this, however, more in another place.
+By the way, was it not curious that in the 'Manchester Examiner,' in
+which that letter of mine on the abuse of dancing appeared, there
+chanced to be, in the next column, a paragraph giving an account of a
+girl stabbing her betrayer in a ball-room; and another paragraph
+describing a Parisian character, which gives exactly the extreme type
+I wanted, for example of the abuse of Food?[B]
+
+ [A] Appendix 4.
+
+ [B] Appendix 5.
+
+64. I return, however, now to the examination of possible means for
+the enforcement of justice, in temper and in act, as the first of
+political requirements. And as, in stating my conviction of the
+necessity of certain stringent laws on this matter, I shall be in
+direct opposition to Mr. Stuart Mill; and, more or less, in opposition
+to other professors of modern political economy, as well as to many
+honest and active promoters of the privileges of working men (as if
+privilege only were wanted and never restraint!), I will give you, as
+briefly as I can, the grounds on which I am prepared to justify such
+opposition.
+
+65. When the crew of a wrecked ship escape in an open boat, and the
+boat is crowded, the provisions scanty, and the prospect of making
+land distant, laws are instantly established and enforced which no one
+thinks of disobeying. An entire equality of claim to the provisions is
+acknowledged without dispute; and an equal liability to necessary
+labor. No man who can row is allowed to refuse his oar; no man,
+however much money he may have saved in his pocket, is allowed so much
+as half a biscuit beyond his proper ration. Any riotous person who
+endangered the safety of the rest would be bound, and laid in the
+bottom of the boat, without the smallest compunction, for such
+violation of the principles of individual liberty; and, on the other
+hand, any child, or woman, or aged person, who was helpless, and
+exposed to great danger and suffering by their weakness, would receive
+more than ordinary care and indulgence, not unaccompanied with
+unanimous self-sacrifice on the part of the laboring crew.
+
+There is never any question under circumstances like these, of what is
+right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, wise or foolish. If there _be_
+any question, there is little hope for boat or crew. The right man is
+put at the helm; every available hand is set to the oars; the sick are
+tended, and the vicious restrained, at once, and decisively; or if
+not, the end is near.
+
+66. Now, the circumstances of every associated group of human society,
+contending bravely for national honors and felicity of life, differ
+only from those thus supposed, in the greater, instead of less,
+necessity for the establishment of restraining law. There is no point
+of difference in the difficulties to be met, nor in the rights
+reciprocally to be exercised. Vice and indolence are not less, but
+more, injurious in a nation than in a boat's company; the modes in
+which they affect the interests of worthy persons being far more
+complex, and more easily concealed. The right of restraint, vested in
+those who labor, over those who would impede their labor, is as
+absolute in the large as in the small society; the equal claim to
+share in whatever is necessary to the common life (or commonwealth) is
+as indefeasible; the claim of the sick and helpless to be cared for by
+the strong with earnest self-sacrifice, is as pitiful and as
+imperative; the necessity that the governing authority should be in
+the hands of a true and trained pilot is as clear and as constant. In
+none of these conditions is there any difference between a nation and
+a boat's company. The only difference is in this, that the
+impossibility of discerning the effects of individual error and crime,
+or of counteracting them by individual effort, in the affairs of a
+great nation renders it tenfold more necessary than in a small society
+that direction by law should be sternly established. Assume that your
+boat's crew is disorderly and licentious, and will, by agreement,
+submit to no order;--the most troublesome of them will yet be easily
+discerned; and the chance is that the best man among them knocks him
+down. Common instinct of self-preservation will make the rioters put a
+good sailor at the helm, and impulsive pity and occasional help will
+be, by heart and hand, here and there given to visible distress. Not
+so in the ship of the realm. The most troublesome persons in _it_ are
+usually the least recognized for such, and the most active in its
+management; the best men mind their own business patiently, and are
+never thought of; the good helmsman never touches the tiller but in
+the last extremity; and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only
+from every eye, but from every thought. On the deck, the aspect is of
+Cleopatra's galley--under hatches there is a slave hospital; while,
+finally (and this is the most fatal difference of all), even the few
+persons who care to interfere energetically, with purpose of doing
+good, can, in a large society, discern so little of the real state of
+evil to be dealt with, and judge so little of the best means of
+dealing with it, that half of their best efforts will be misdirected,
+and some may even do more harm than good. Whereas it is the sorrowful
+law of this universe, that evil, even unconscious and unintended,
+never fails of _its_ effect; and in a state where the evil and the
+good, under conditions of individual "liberty," are allowed to contend
+together, not only every _stroke_ on the Devil's side tells--but every
+_slip_, (the mistakes of wicked men being as mischievous as their
+successes); while on the side of right, there will be much direct and
+fatal defeat, and, even of its measure of victory, half will be
+fruitless.
+
+67. It is true, of course, that, in the end of ends, nothing but the
+right conquers; the prevalent thorns of wrong, at last, crackle away
+in indiscriminate flame: and of the good seed sown, one grain in a
+thousand some day comes up--and somebody lives by it; but most of our
+great teachers, not excepting Carlyle and Emerson themselves, are a
+little too encouraging in their proclamation of this comfort, not, to
+my mind, very sufficient, when for the present our fields are full of
+nothing but darnel instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley; and
+none of them seem to me yet to have enough insisted on the inevitable
+power and infectiousness of all evil, and the easy and utter
+extinguishableness of good. Medicine often fails of its effect--but
+poison never: and while, in summing the observation of past life, not
+unwatchfully spent, I can truly say that I have a thousand times seen
+patience disappointed of her hope, and wisdom of her aim, I have never
+yet seen folly fruitless of mischief, nor vice conclude but in
+calamity.
+
+68. There is, however, one important condition in national economy, in
+which the analogy of that of a ship's company is incomplete: namely,
+that while labor at oar or sail is necessarily united, and can attain
+no independent good, or personal profit, the labor properly undertaken
+by the several members of a political community is necessarily, and
+justly, within certain limits, independent; and obtains for them
+independent advantage, of which, if you will glance at the last
+paragraph of the first chapter of 'Munera Pulveris,' you will see I
+should be the last person to propose depriving them. This great
+difference in final condition involves necessarily much complexity in
+the system and application of general laws; but it in no wise
+abrogates,--on the contrary, it renders yet more imperative,--the
+necessity for the firm ordinance of such laws, which, marking the due
+limits of independent agency, may enable it to exist in full energy,
+not only without becoming injurious, but so as more variously and
+perfectly to promote the entire interests of the commonwealth.
+
+I will address myself therefore in my next letter to the statement of
+some of these necessary laws.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII.
+
+THE PROPER OFFICES OF THE BISHOP AND DUKE; OR, "OVERSEER" AND
+"LEADER."
+
+
+ _March 21, 1867._
+
+69. I see, by your last letter, for which I heartily thank you, that
+you would not sympathize with me in my sorrow for the desertion of his
+own work by George Cruikshank, that he may fight in the front of the
+temperance ranks. But you do not know what work he has left undone,
+nor how much richer inheritance you might have received from his hand.
+It was no more _his_ business to etch diagrams of drunkenness than it
+is mine at this moment to be writing these letters against anarchy. It
+is "the first mild day of March" (high time, I think, that it should
+be!), and by rights I ought to be out among the budding banks and
+hedges, outlining sprays of hawthorn and clusters of primrose. That is
+_my_ right work; and it is not, in the inner gist and truth of it,
+right nor good, for you, or for anybody else, that Cruikshank with his
+great gift, and I with my weak, but yet thoroughly clear and definite
+one, should both of us be tormented by agony of indignation and
+compassion, till we are forced to give up our peace, and pleasure, and
+power; and rush down into the streets and lanes of the city, to do the
+little that is in the strength of our single hands against their
+uncleanliness and iniquity. But, as in a sorely besieged town, every
+man must to the ramparts, whatsoever business he leaves, so neither he
+nor I have had any choice but to leave our household stuff, and go on
+crusade, such as we are called to; not that I mean, if Fate may be
+anywise resisted, to give up the strength of my life, as he has given
+his; for I think he was wrong in doing so; and that he should only
+have carried the fiery cross his appointed leagues, and then given it
+to another hand; and, for my own part, I mean these very letters to
+close my political work for many a day; and I write them, not in any
+hope of their being at present listened to, but to disburthen my heart
+of the witness I have to bear, that I may be free to go back to my
+garden lawns, and paint birds and flowers there.
+
+70. For these same statutes which we are to consider to-day, have
+indeed been in my mind now these fourteen years, ever since I wrote
+the last volume of the 'Stones of Venice,' in which you will find, in
+the long note on Modern Education, most of what I have been now in
+detail writing to you, hinted in abstract; and, at the close of it,
+this sentence, of which I solemnly now avouch (in thankfulness that I
+was permitted to write it), every word: "Finally, I hold it for
+indisputable, that the first duty of a State is to see that every
+child born therein shall be well housed, clothed, fed, and educated,
+till it attain years of discretion. But in order to the effecting this
+the Government must have an authority over the people of which we now
+do not so much as dream."
+
+That authority I did not then endeavor to define, for I knew all such
+assertions would be useless, and that the necessarily resultant outcry
+would merely diminish my influence in other directions. But now I do
+not care about influence any more, it being only my concern to say
+truly that which I know, and, if it may be, get some quiet life, yet,
+among the fields in the evening shadow.
+
+71. There is, I suppose, no word which men are prouder of the right to
+attach to their names, or more envious of others who bear it, when
+they themselves may not, than the word "noble." Do you know what it
+originally meant, and always, in the right use of it, means? It means
+a "known" person; one who has risen far enough above others to draw
+men's eyes to him, and to be known (honorably) for such and such an
+one. "Ignoble," on the other hand, is derived from the same root as
+the word "ignorance." It means an unknown, inglorious person. And no
+more singular follies have been committed by weak human creatures than
+those which have been caused by the instinct, pure and simple, of
+escaping from this obscurity. Instinct, which, corrupted, will
+hesitate at no means, good or evil, of satisfying itself with
+notoriety--instinct, nevertheless, which, like all other natural ones,
+has a true and pure purpose, and ought always in a worthy way to be
+satisfied.
+
+All men ought to be in this sense "noble"; known of each other, and
+desiring to be known. And the first law which a nation, desiring to
+conquer all the devices of the Father of Lies, should establish among
+its people, is that they _shall_ be so known.
+
+72. Will you please now read Sec. 22 of 'Sesame and Lilies'? The
+reviewers in the ecclesiastical journals laughed at it, as a rhapsody,
+when the book came out; none having the slightest notion of what I
+meant: (nor, indeed, do I well see how it could be otherwise!).
+Nevertheless, I meant precisely and literally what is there said,
+namely, that a bishop's duty being to watch over the souls of his
+people, and _give_ account of every one of them, it becomes
+practically necessary for him first to _get_ some account of their
+bodies. Which he was wont to do in the early days of Christianity by
+help of a person called "deacon" or "ministering servant," whose name
+is still retained among preliminary ecclesiastical dignities, vainly
+enough! Putting, however, all questions of forms and names aside, the
+thing actually needing to be done is this--that over every hundred
+(more or less) of the families composing a Christian State, there
+should be appointed an overseer, or bishop, to render account, to the
+State, of the life of every individual in those families; and to have
+care both of their interest and conduct to such an extent as they may
+be willing to admit, or as their faults may justify: so that it may be
+impossible for any person, however humble, to suffer from unknown
+want, or live in unrecognized crime;--such help and observance being
+rendered without officiousness either of interference or inquisition
+(the limits of both being determined by national law), but with the
+patient and gentle watchfulness which true Christian pastors now
+exercise over their flocks; only with a higher legal authority
+presently to be defined, of interference on due occasion.
+
+And with this farther function, that such overseers shall be not only
+the pastors, but the biographers, of their people; a written statement
+of the principal events in the life of each family being annually
+required to be rendered by them to a superior State Officer. These
+records, laid up in public offices, would soon furnish indications of
+the families whom it would be advantageous to the nation to advance in
+position, or distinguish with honor, and aid by such reward as it
+should be the object of every Government to distribute no less
+punctually, and far more frankly, than it distributes punishment:
+(compare 'Munera Pulveris,' Essay IV., in paragraph on Critic Law),
+while the mere fact of permanent record being kept of every event of
+importance, whether disgraceful or worthy of praise, in each family,
+would of itself be a deterrent from crime, and a stimulant to
+well-deserving conduct, far beyond mere punishment or reward.
+
+73. Nor need you think that there would be anything in such a system
+un-English, or tending to espionage. No uninvited visits should ever
+be made in any house, unless law had been violated; nothing recorded,
+against its will, of any family, but what was inevitably known of its
+publicly visible conduct, and the results of that conduct. What else
+was written should be only by the desire, and from the communications,
+of its head. And in a little while it would come to be felt that the
+true history of a nation was indeed not of its wars, but of its
+households; and the desire of men would rather be to obtain some
+conspicuous place in these honorable annals, than to shrink behind
+closed shutters from public sight. Until at last, George Herbert's
+grand word of command would hold not only on the conscience, but the
+actual system and outer economy of life,
+
+ "Think the King sees thee still, for _his_ King does."
+
+74. Secondly, above these bishops or pastors, who are only to be
+occupied in offices of familiar supervision and help, should be
+appointed higher officers of State, having executive authority over as
+large districts as might be conveniently (according to the number and
+circumstances of their inhabitants) committed to their care; officers
+who, according to the reports of the pastors, should enforce or
+mitigate the operation of too rigid general law, and determine
+measures exceptionally necessary for public advantage. For instance,
+the general law being that all children of the operative classes, at a
+certain age, should be sent to public schools, these superior officers
+should have power, on the report of the pastors, to dispense with the
+attendance of children who had sick parents to take charge of, or
+whose home-life seemed to be one of better advantage for them than
+that of the common schools; or who, for any other like cause, might
+justifiably claim remission. And it being the general law that the
+entire body of the public should contribute to the cost, and divide
+the profits, of all necessary public works and undertakings, as roads,
+mines, harbor protections, and the like, and that nothing of this kind
+should be permitted to be in the hands of private speculators, it
+should be the duty of the district officer to collect whatever
+information was accessible respecting such sources of public profit;
+and to represent the circumstances in Parliament: and then, with
+Parliamentary authority, but on his own sole personal responsibility,
+to see that such enterprises were conducted honestly and with due
+energy and order.
+
+The appointment to both these offices should be by election, and for
+life; by what forms of election shall be matter of inquiry, after we
+have determined some others of the necessary constitutional laws.
+
+75. I do not doubt but that you are already beginning to think it was
+with good reason I held my peace these fourteen years,--and that, for
+any good likely to be done by speaking, I might as well have held it
+altogether!
+
+It may be so: but merely to complete and explain my own work, it is
+necessary that I should say these things finally; and I believe that
+the imminent danger to which we are now in England exposed by the
+gradually accelerated fall of our aristocracy (wholly their own
+fault), and the substitution of money-power for their martial one; and
+by the correspondingly imminent prevalence of mob violence here, as in
+America; together with the continually increasing chances of insane
+war, founded on popular passion, whether of pride, fear, or
+acquisitiveness,--all these dangers being further darkened and
+degraded by the monstrous forms of vice and selfishness which the
+appliances of recent wealth, and of vulgar mechanical art, make
+possible to the million,--will soon bring us into a condition in which
+men will be glad to listen to almost any words but those of a
+demagogue, and to seek any means of safety rather than those in which
+they have lately trusted. So, with your good leave, I will say my say
+to the end, mock at it who may.
+
+P.S.--I take due note of the regulations of trade proposed in your
+letter just received[A]--all excellent. I shall come to them
+presently, "Cash payment" above all. You may write that on your
+trade-banners in letters of gold, wherever you would have them raised
+victoriously.
+
+ [A] Appendix 6.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV.
+
+THE FIRST GROUP OF ESSENTIAL LAWS--AGAINST THEFT BY FALSE WORK, AND BY
+BANKRUPTCY.--NECESSARY PUBLICITY OF ACCOUNTS.
+
+
+ _March 26, 1867._
+
+76. I feel much inclined to pause at this point, to answer the kind of
+questions and objections which I know must be rising in your mind,
+respecting the authority supposed to be lodged in the persons of the
+officers just specified. But I can neither define, nor justify to you,
+the powers I would desire to see given to them, till I state to you
+the kind of laws they would have to enforce: of which the first group
+should be directed to the prevention of all kinds of thieving; but
+chiefly of the occult and polite methods of it; and, of all occult
+methods, chiefly, the making and selling of bad goods. No form of
+theft is so criminal as this--none so deadly to the State. If you
+break into a man's house and steal a hundred pounds' worth of plate,
+he knows his loss, and there is an end (besides that you take your
+risk of punishment for your gain, like a man). And if you do it
+bravely and openly, and habitually live by such inroad, you may retain
+nearly every moral and manly virtue, and become a heroic rider and
+reiver, and hero of song. But if you swindle me out of twenty
+shillings' worth of quality on each of a hundred bargains, I lose my
+hundred pounds all the same, and I get a hundred untrustworthy
+articles besides, which will fail me and injure me in all manner of
+ways, when I least expect it; and you, having done your thieving
+basely, are corrupted by the guilt of it to the very heart's core.
+
+77. This is the first thing, therefore, which your general laws must
+be set to punish, fiercely, immitigably, to the utter prevention and
+extinction of it, or there is no hope for you. No religion that ever
+was preached on this earth of God's rounding ever proclaimed any
+salvation to sellers of bad goods. If the Ghost that is in you,
+whatever the essence of it, leaves your hand a juggler's, and your
+heart a cheat's, it is not a Holy Ghost, be assured of that. And for
+the rest, all political economy, as well as all higher virtue, depends
+_first on sound work_.
+
+Let your laws, then, I say, in the beginning, be set to secure this.
+You cannot make punishment too stern for subtle knavery. Keep no truce
+with this enemy, whatever pardon you extend to more generous ones. For
+light weights and false measures, or for proved adulteration or
+dishonest manufacture of article, the penalty should be simply
+confiscation of goods and sending out of the country. The kind of
+person who desires prosperity by such practices could not be made to
+"emigrate" too speedily. What to do with him in the place you appoint
+to be blessed by his presence, we will in time consider.
+
+78. Under such penalty, however, and yet more under the pressure of
+such a right public opinion as could pronounce and enforce such
+penalty, I imagine that sham articles would become speedily as rare as
+sound ones are now. The chief difficulty in the matter would be to fix
+your standard. This would have to be done by the guild of every trade
+in its own manner, and within certain easily recognizable limits, and
+this fixing of standard would necessitate much simplicity in the forms
+and kinds of articles sold. You could only warrant a certain kind of
+glazing or painting in china, a certain quality of leather or cloth,
+bricks of a certain clay, loaves of a defined mixture of meal.
+Advisable improvements or varieties in manufacture would have to be
+examined and accepted by the trade guild: when so accepted, they
+would be announced in public reports; and all puffery and
+self-proclamation, on the part of tradesmen, absolutely forbidden, as
+much as the making of any other kind of noise or disturbance.
+
+79. But observe, this law is only to have force over tradesmen whom I
+suppose to have joined voluntarily in carrying out a better system of
+commerce. Outside of their guild, they would have to leave the rogue
+to puff and cheat as he chose, and the public to be gulled as they
+chose. All that is necessary is that the said public should clearly
+know the shops in which they could get warranted articles; and, as
+clearly, those in which they bought at their own risk.
+
+And the above-named penalty of confiscation of goods should of course
+be enforced only against dishonest members of the trade guild. If
+people chose to buy of those who had openly refused to join an honest
+society, they should be permitted to do so, at their pleasure, and
+peril: and this for two reasons,--the first, that it is always
+necessary, in enacting strict law, to leave some safety valve for
+outlet of irrepressible vice (nearly all the stern lawgivers of old
+time erred by oversight in this; so that the morbid elements of the
+State, which it should be allowed to get rid of in a cutaneous and
+openly curable manner, were thrown inwards, and corrupted its
+constitution, and broke all down);--the second, that operations of
+trade and manufacture conducted under, and guarded by, severe law,
+ought always to be subject to the stimulus of such erratic external
+ingenuity as cannot be tested by law, or would be hindered from its
+full exercise by the dread of it; not to speak of the farther need of
+extending all possible indulgence to foreign traders who might wish to
+exercise their industries here without liability to the surveillance
+of our trade guilds.
+
+80. Farther, while for all articles warranted by the guild (as above
+supposed) the prices should be annually fixed for the trade throughout
+the kingdom; and the producing workman's wages fixed, so as to define
+the master's profits within limits admitting only such variation as
+the nature of the given article of sale rendered inevitable;--yet, in
+the production of other classes of articles, whether by skill of
+applied handicraft, or fineness of material above the standard of the
+guild, attaining, necessarily, values above its assigned prices, every
+firm should be left free to make its own independent efforts and
+arrangements with its workmen, subject always to the same penalty, if
+it could be proved to have consistently described, or offered,
+anything to the public for what it was not: and finally, the state of
+the affairs of every firm should be annually reported to the guild,
+and its books laid open to inspection, for guidance in the regulation
+of prices in the subsequent year; and any firm whose liabilities
+exceeded its assets by a hundred pounds should be forthwith declared
+bankrupt. And I will anticipate what I have to say in succeeding
+letters so far as to tell you that I would have this condition extend
+to every firm in the country, large or small, and of whatever rank in
+business. And thus you perceive, my friend, I shall not have to
+trouble you or myself much with deliberations respecting commercial
+"panics," nor to propose legislative cures for _them_, by any
+laxatives or purgatives of paper currency, or any other change of
+pecuniary diet.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XV.
+
+THE NATURE OF THEFT BY UNJUST PROFITS.--CRIME CAN FINALLY BE ARRESTED
+ONLY BY EDUCATION.
+
+
+ _29th March._
+
+81. The first methods of polite robbery, by dishonest manufacture and
+by debt, of which we have been hitherto speaking, are easily enough to
+be dealt with and ended, when once men have a mind to end them. But
+the third method of polite robbery, by dishonest _acquisition_, has
+many branches, and is involved among honest arts of acquisition, so
+that it is difficult to repress the one without restraining the other.
+
+Observe, first, large fortunes cannot honestly be made by the work of
+any _one_ man's hands, or head. If his work benefits multitudes, and
+involves position of high trust, it may be (I do not say that it _is_)
+expedient to reward him with great wealth or estate; but fortune of
+this kind is freely given in gratitude for benefit, not as repayment
+for labor. Also, men of peculiar genius in any art, if the public can
+enjoy the product of their genius, may set it at almost any price they
+choose; but this, I will show you when I come to speak of art, is
+unlawful on their part and ruinous to their own powers. Genius must
+not be sold; the sale of it involves, in a transcendental, but
+perfectly true, sense, the guilt both of simony and prostitution. Your
+labor only may be sold; your soul must not.
+
+82. Now, by fair pay for fair labor, according to the rank of it, a
+man can obtain means of comfortable, or if he needs it, refined life.
+But he cannot obtain large fortune. Such fortunes as are now the
+prizes of commerce can be made only in one of three ways:--
+
+(1.) By obtaining command over the labor of multitudes of other men
+and taxing it for our own profit.
+
+(2.) By treasure-trove,--as of mines, useful vegetable products, and
+the like,--in circumstances putting them under our own exclusive
+control.
+
+(3.) By speculation, (commercial gambling).
+
+The first two of these means of obtaining riches are, in some forms
+and within certain limits, lawful, and advantageous to the State. The
+third is entirely detrimental to it; for in all cases of profit
+derived from speculation, at best, what one man gains another loses;
+and the net results to the State is zero, (pecuniarily,) with the loss
+of the time and ingenuity spent in the transaction; besides the
+disadvantage involved in the discouragement of the losing party, and
+the corrupted moral natures of both. This is the result of speculation
+at its best. At its worst, not only B loses what A gains (having taken
+his fair risk of such loss for his fair chance of gain), but C and D,
+who never had any chance at all, are drawn in by B's fall, and the
+final result is that A sets up his carriage on the collected sum
+which was once the means of living to a dozen families.
+
+83. Nor is this all. For while real commerce is founded on real
+necessities or uses, and limited by these, speculation, of which the
+object is merely gain, seeks to excite imaginary necessities and
+popular desires, in order to gather its temporary profit from the
+supply of them. So that not only the persons who lend their money to
+it will be finally robbed, but the work done with their money will be,
+for the most part, useless, and thus the entire body of the public
+injured as well as the persons concerned in the transaction. Take, for
+instance, the architectural decorations of railways throughout the
+kingdom,--representing many millions of money for which no farthing of
+dividend can ever be forthcoming. The public will not be induced to
+pay the smallest fraction of higher fare to Rochester or Dover because
+the ironwork of the bridge which carries them over the Thames is
+covered with floral cockades, and the piers of it edged with
+ornamental cornices. All that work is simply put there by the builders
+that they may put the percentage upon it into their own pockets; and,
+the rest of the money being thrown into that floral form, there is an
+end of it, as far as the shareholders are concerned. Millions upon
+millions have thus been spent, within the last twenty years, on
+ornamental arrangements of zigzag bricks, black and blue tiles,
+cast-iron foliage, and the like; of which millions, as I said, not a
+penny can ever return into the shareholders' pockets, nor contribute
+to public speed or safety on the line. It is all sunk forever in
+ornamental architecture, and (trust me for this!) _all that
+architecture is bad_. As such, it had incomparably better not have
+been built. Its only result will be to corrupt what capacity of taste
+or right pleasure in such work we have yet left to us! And consider a
+little, what other kind of result than that might have been attained
+if all those millions had been spent usefully: say, in buying land for
+the people, or building good houses for them, or (if it had been
+imperatively required to be spent decoratively) in laying out gardens
+and parks for them,--or buying noble works of art for their permanent
+possession,--or, best of all, establishing frequent public schools and
+libraries. Count what those lost millions would have so accomplished
+for you! But you left the affair to "supply and demand," and the
+British public had not brains enough to "demand" land, or lodging, or
+books. It "demanded" cast-iron cockades and zigzag cornices, and is
+"supplied" with them, to its beatitude for evermore.
+
+84. Now, the theft we first spoke of, by falsity of workmanship or
+material, is, indeed, so far worse than these thefts by dishonest
+acquisition, that there is no possible excuse for it on the ground of
+self-deception; while many speculative thefts are committed by persons
+who really mean to do no harm, but think the system on the whole a
+fair one, and do the best they can in it for themselves. But in the
+real fact of the crime, when consciously committed, in the numbers
+reached by its injury, in the degree of suffering it causes to those
+whom it ruins, in the baseness of its calculated betrayal of implicit
+trust, in the yet more perfect vileness of the obtaining such trust
+by misrepresentation, only that it may be betrayed, and in the
+impossibility that the crime should be at all committed, except by
+persons of good position and large knowledge of the world--what manner
+of theft is so wholly unpardonable, so inhuman, so contrary to every
+law and instinct which binds or animates society?
+
+And then consider farther, how many of the carriages that glitter in
+our streets are driven, and how many of the stately houses that gleam
+among our English fields are inhabited, by this kind of thief!
+
+85. I happened to be reading this morning (29th March) some portions
+of the Lent services, and I came to a pause over the familiar words,
+"And with Him they crucified two thieves." Have you ever considered
+(I speak to you now as a professing Christian), why, in the
+accomplishment of the "numbering among transgressors," the
+transgressors chosen should have been especially thieves--not
+murderers, nor, as far as we know, sinners by any gross violence? Do
+you observe how the sin of theft is again and again indicated as the
+chiefly antagonistic one to the law of Christ? "This he said, not that
+he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the bag"
+(of Judas). And again, though Barabbas was a leader of sedition, and a
+murderer besides,--(that the popular election might be in all respects
+perfect)--yet St. John, in curt and conclusive account of him, fastens
+again on the theft. "Then cried they all again saying, Not this man,
+but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber." I believe myself the reason
+to be that theft is indeed, in its subtle forms, the most complete and
+excuseless of human crimes. Sins of violence usually are committed
+under sudden or oppressive temptation: they may be the madness of
+moments; or they may be apparently the only means of extrication from
+calamity. In other cases, they are the diseased acts or habits of
+lower and brutified natures.[A] But theft involving deliberative
+intellect, and absence of passion, is the purest type of wilful
+iniquity, in persons capable of doing right. Which being so, it seems
+to be fast becoming the practice of modern society to crucify its
+Christ indeed, as willingly as ever, in the persons of His poor; but
+by no means now to crucify its thieves beside Him! It elevates its
+thieves after another fashion; sets them upon a hill, that their light
+may shine before men and that all may see their good works, and
+glorify their Father, in--the Opposite of Heaven.
+
+ [A] See the analysis of the moral system of Dante, respecting
+ punishment, given in 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXIII.
+
+86. I think your trade parliament will have to put an end to this kind
+of business somehow! But it cannot be done by laws merely, where the
+interests and circumstances are so extended and complex. Nay, even as
+regards lower and more defined crimes, the assigned punishment is not
+to be thought of as a preventive means; but only as the seal of
+opinion set by society on the fact. Crime cannot be hindered by
+punishment; it will always find some shape and outlet, unpunishable or
+unclosed. Crime can only be truly hindered by letting no man grow up a
+criminal--by taking away the _will_ to commit sin; not by mere
+punishment of its commission. Crime, small and great, can only be
+truly stayed by education--not the education of the intellect only,
+which is, on some men, wasted, and for others mischievous; but
+education of the heart, which is alike good and necessary for all. So,
+on this matter, I will try in my next letter to say one or two things
+of which the silence has kept my own heart heavy this many a day.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI.
+
+OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IRRESPECTIVE OF CLASS-DISTINCTION. IT CONSISTS
+ESSENTIALLY IN GIVING HABITS OF MERCY, AND HABITS OF TRUTH.
+(GENTLENESS[A] AND JUSTICE.)
+
+
+ _March 30th, 1867._
+
+87. Thank you for sending me the pamphlet containing the account of
+the meeting of clergy and workmen, and of the reasonings which there
+took place. I cannot promise you that I shall read much of them, for
+the question to my mind most requiring discussion and explanation is
+not, why workmen don't go to church, but--why other people do.
+However, this I know, that if among our many spiritual teachers, there
+are indeed any who heartily and literally believe that the wisdom they
+have to teach "is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou
+canst desire are not to be compared unto her," and if, so believing,
+they will further dare to affront their congregations by the
+assertion; and plainly tell them they are not to hunt for rubies or
+gold any more, at their peril, till they have gained that which cannot
+be gotten for gold, nor silver weighed for the price thereof,--such
+believers, so preaching, and refusing to preach otherwise till they
+are in that attended to, will never want congregations, both of
+working men, and every other kind of men.
+
+ [A] "Mercy," in its full sense, means delight in perceiving
+ nobleness, or in doing kindness. Compare Sec. 50.
+
+88. Did you ever hear of anything else so ill-named as the phantom
+called the "Philosopher's Stone"? A talisman that shall turn base
+metal into precious metal, nature acknowledges not; nor would any but
+fools seek after it. But a talisman to turn base souls into noble
+souls, nature has given us! and that is a "Philosopher's Stone"
+indeed, but it is a stone which the builders refuse.
+
+89. If there were two valleys in California or Australia, with two
+different kinds of gravel in the bottom of them; and in the one stream
+bed you could dig up, occasionally and by good fortune, nuggets of
+gold; and in the other stream bed, certainly and without hazard, you
+could dig up little caskets, containing talismans which gave length of
+days and peace; and alabaster vases of precious balms, which were
+better than the Arabian Dervish's ointment, and made not only the eyes
+to see, but the mind to know, whatever it would--I wonder in which of
+the stream beds there would be most diggers?
+
+90. "Time is money"--so say your practised merchants and economists.
+None of them, however, I fancy, as they draw towards death, find that
+the reverse is true, and that "money is time"? Perhaps it might be
+better for them, in the end, if they did not turn so much of their
+time into money, lest, perchance, they also turn Eternity into it!
+There are other things, however, which in the same sense are money, or
+can be changed into it, as well as time. Health is money, wit is
+money, knowledge is money; and all your health, and wit, and knowledge
+may be changed for gold; and the happy goal so reached, of a sick,
+insane, and blind, auriferous old age; but the gold cannot be changed
+in its turn back into health and wit.
+
+91. "Time is money;" the words tingle in my ears so that I can't go on
+writing. Is it nothing better, then? If we could thoroughly understand
+that time was--_itself_,--would it not be more to the purpose? A thing
+of which loss or gain was absolute loss, and perfect gain. And that it
+was expedient also to buy health and knowledge with money, if so
+purchasable; but not to buy money with _them_?
+
+And purchasable they are at the beginning of life, though not at its
+close. Purchasable, always, for others, if not for ourselves. You can
+buy, and cheaply, life, endless life, according to your Christian's
+creed--(there's a bargain for you!) but--long years of knowledge, and
+peace, and power, and happiness of love--these assuredly and
+irrespectively of any creed or question,--for all those desolate and
+haggard children about your streets.
+
+92. "That is not political economy, however." Pardon me; the
+all-comfortable saying, "What he layeth out, it shall be paid him
+again," is quite literally true in matters of education; no money seed
+can be sown with so sure and large return at harvest-time as that;
+only of this money-seed, more than of flesh-seed, it is utterly true,
+"That which thou sowest is not quickened except it _die_." You must
+forget your money, and every other material interest, and educate for
+education's sake only! or the very good you try to bestow will become
+venomous, and that and your money will be lost together.
+
+93. And this has been the real cause of failure in our efforts for
+education hitherto--whether from above or below. There is no honest
+desire for the thing itself. The cry for it among the lower orders is
+because they think that, when once they have got it, they must become
+upper orders. There is a strange notion in the mob's mind now-a-days
+(including all our popular economists and educators, as we most justly
+may, under that brief term "mob"), that _everybody_ can be uppermost;
+or at least, that a state of general scramble, in which everybody in
+his turn should come to the top, is a proper Utopian constitution; and
+that, once give every lad a good education, and he cannot but come to
+ride in his carriage (the methods of supply of coachmen and footmen
+not being contemplated). And very sternly I say to you--and say from
+sure knowledge--that a man had better not know how to read and write,
+than receive education on such terms.
+
+94. The first condition under which it can be given usefully is, that
+it should be clearly understood to be no means of getting on in the
+world, but a means of staying pleasantly in your place there. And the
+first elements of State education should be calculated equally for the
+advantage of every order of person composing the State. From the
+lowest to the highest class, every child born in this island should be
+required by law to receive these general elements of human discipline,
+and to be baptized--not with a drop of water on its forehead--but in
+the cloud and sea of heavenly wisdom and of earthly power.
+
+And the elements of this general State education should be briefly
+these:
+
+95. First--The body must be made as beautiful and perfect in its youth
+as it can be, wholly irrespective of ulterior purpose. If you mean
+afterwards to set the creature to business which will degrade its body
+and shorten its life, first, I should say, simply,--you had better let
+such business alone;--but if you must have it done, somehow, yet let
+the living creature, whom you mean to kill, get the full strength of
+its body first, and taste the joy, and bear the beauty of youth. After
+that, poison it, if you will. Economically, the arrangement is a wiser
+one, for it will take longer in the killing than if you began with it
+younger; and you will get an excess of work out of it which will more
+than pay for its training.
+
+Therefore, first teach--as I have said in the preface to 'Unto this
+Last'--"The Laws of Health, and exercises enjoined by them;" and, to
+this end, your schools must be in fresh country, and amidst fresh air,
+and have great extents of land attached to them in permanent estate.
+Riding, running, all the honest, personal exercises of offense and
+defense, and music, should be the primal heads of this bodily
+education.
+
+96. Next to these bodily accomplishments, the two great mental graces
+should be taught, Reverence and Compassion: not that these are in a
+literal sense to be "taught," for they are innate in every well-born
+human creature, but they have to be developed exactly as the strength
+of the body must be, by deliberate and constant exercise. I never
+understood why Goethe (in the plan of education in 'Wilhelm Meister')
+says that reverence is not innate, but must be taught from without; it
+seems to me so fixedly a function of the human spirit, that if men can
+get nothing else to reverence they will worship a fool, or a stone, or
+a vegetable.[A] But to teach reverence rightly is to attach it to the
+right persons and things; first, by setting over your youth masters
+whom they cannot but love and respect; next, by gathering for them,
+out of past history, whatever has been most worthy in human deeds and
+human passion; and leading them continually to dwell upon such
+instances, making this the principal element of emotional excitement
+to them; and, lastly, by letting them justly feel, as far as may be,
+the smallness of their own powers and knowledge, as compared with the
+attainments of others.
+
+ [A] By steady preaching against it, one may quench reverence,
+ and bring insolence to its height; but the instinct cannot be
+ wholly uprooted.
+
+97. Compassion, on the other hand, is to be taught chiefly by making
+it a point of honor, collaterally with courage, and in the same rank
+(as indeed the complement and evidence of courage), so that, in the
+code of unwritten school law, it shall be held as shameful to have
+done a cruel thing as a cowardly one. All infliction of pain on weaker
+creatures is to be stigmatized as unmanly crime; and every possible
+opportunity taken to exercise the youths in offices of some practical
+help, and to acquaint them with the realities of the distress which,
+in the joyfulness of entering into life, it is so difficult, for those
+who have not seen home suffering, to conceive.
+
+98. Reverence, then, and compassion, we are to teach primarily, and
+with these, as the bond and guardian of them, truth of spirit and
+word, of thought and sight. Truth, earnest and passionate, sought for
+like a treasure, and kept like a crown.
+
+This teaching of truth as a habit will be the chief work the master
+has to do; and it will enter into all parts of education. First, you
+must accustom the children to close accuracy of statement; this both
+as a principle of honor, and as an accomplishment of language, making
+them try always who shall speak truest, both as regards the fact he
+has to relate or express (not concealing or exaggerating), and as
+regards the precision of the words he expresses it in, thus making
+truth (which, indeed, it is) the test of perfect language, and giving
+the intensity of a moral purpose to the study and art of words: then
+carrying this accuracy into all habits of thought and observation
+also, so as always to _think_ of things as they truly are, and to see
+them as they truly are, as far as in us rests. And it does rest much
+in our power, for all false thoughts and seeings come mainly of our
+thinking of what we have no business with, and looking for things we
+want to see, instead of things that ought to be seen.
+
+99. "Do not talk but of what you know; do not think but of what you
+have materials to think justly upon; and do not look for things only
+that you like, when there are others to be seen"--this is the lesson
+to be taught to our youth, and inbred in them; and that mainly by our
+own example and continence. Never teach a child anything of which you
+are not yourself sure; and, above all, if you feel anxious to force
+anything into its mind in tender years, that the virtue of youth and
+early association may fasten it there, be sure it is no lie which you
+thus sanctify. There is always more to be taught of absolute,
+incontrovertible knowledge, open to its capacity, than any child can
+learn; there is no need to teach it anything doubtful. Better that it
+should be ignorant of a thousand truths, than have consecrated in its
+heart a single lie.
+
+100. And for this, as well as for many other reasons, the principal
+subjects of education, after history, ought to be natural science and
+mathematics; but with respect to these studies, your schools will
+require to be divided into three groups: one for children who will
+probably have to live in cities, one for those who will live in the
+country, and one for those who will live at sea; the schools for these
+last, of course, being always placed on the coast. And for children
+whose life is to be in cities, the subjects of study should be, as
+far as their disposition will allow of it, mathematics and the arts;
+for children who are to live in the country, natural history of birds,
+insects, and plants, together with agriculture taught practically; and
+for children who are to be seamen, physical geography, astronomy, and
+the natural history of sea-fish and sea-birds.
+
+101. This, then, being the general course and material of education
+for all children, observe farther, that in the preface to 'Unto this
+Last' I said that every child, besides passing through this course,
+was at school to learn "the calling by which it was to live." And it
+may perhaps appear to you that after, or even in the early stages of
+education such as this above described, there are many callings which,
+however much called to them, the children might not willingly
+determine to learn or live by. "Probably," you may say, "after they
+have learned to ride, and fence, and sing, and know birds and flowers,
+it will be little to their liking to make themselves into tailors,
+carpenters, shoemakers, blacksmiths, and the like." And I cannot but
+agree with you as to the exceeding probability of some such reluctance
+on their part, which will be a very awkward state of things indeed,
+(since we can by no means get on without tailoring and shoemaking,)
+and one to be meditated upon very seriously in next letter.
+
+102. P.S.--Thank you for sending me your friend's letter about Gustave
+Dore; he is wrong, however, in thinking there is any good in those
+illustrations of 'Elaine.' I had intended to speak of them afterwards,
+for it is to my mind quite as significant--almost as awful--a sign of
+what is going on in the midst of us, that our great English poet
+should have suffered his work to be thus contaminated, as that the
+lower Evangelicals, never notable for sense in the arts, should have
+got their Bibles dishonored. Those 'Elaine' illustrations are just as
+impure as anything else that Dore has done; but they are also vapid,
+and without any one merit whatever in point of art. The illustrations
+to the 'Contes Drolatiques' are full of power and invention; but those
+to 'Elaine' are merely and simply stupid; theatrical betises, with
+the taint of the charnel-house on them besides.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII.
+
+THE RELATIONS OF EDUCATION TO POSITION IN LIFE.
+
+
+ _April 3, 1867._
+
+103. I am not quite sure that you will feel the awkwardness of the
+dilemma I got into at the end of last letter, as much as I do myself.
+You working men have been crowing and peacocking at such a rate
+lately; and setting yourselves forth so confidently for the cream of
+society, and the top of the world, that perhaps you will not
+anticipate any of the difficulties which suggest themselves to a
+thoroughbred Tory and Conservative, like me. Perhaps you will expect a
+youth properly educated--a good rider--musician--and well-grounded
+scholar in natural philosophy, to think it a step of promotion when he
+has to go and be made a tailor of, or a coalheaver? If you do, I
+should very willingly admit that you might be right, and go on to the
+farther development of my notions without pausing at this
+stumbling-block, were it not that, unluckily, all the wisest men whose
+sayings I ever heard or read, agree in expressing (one way or another)
+just such contempt for those useful occupations, as I dread on the
+part of my foolishly refined scholars. Shakespeare and Chaucer,--Dante
+and Virgil,--Horace and Pindar,--Homer, AEschylus, and Plato,--all the
+men of any age or country who seem to have had Heaven's music on their
+lips, agree in their scorn of mechanic life. And I imagine that the
+feeling of prudent Englishmen, and sensible as well as sensitive
+Englishwomen, on reading my last letter, would mostly be--"Is the man
+mad, or laughing at us, to propose educating the working classes this
+way? He could not, if his wild scheme were possible, find a better
+method of making them acutely wretched."
+
+104. It may be so, my sensible and polite friends; and I am heartily
+willing, as well as curious, to hear you develop your own scheme of
+operative education, so only that it be universal, orderly, and
+careful. I do not say that I shall be prepared to advocate my
+athletics and philosophies instead. Only, observe what you admit, or
+imply, in bringing forward your possibly wiser system. You imply that
+a certain portion of mankind must be employed in degrading work; and
+that, to fit them for this work, it is necessary to limit their
+knowledge, their active powers, and their enjoyments, from childhood
+upwards, so that they may not be able to conceive of any state better
+than the one they were born in, nor possess any knowledge or
+acquirements inconsistent with the coarseness, or disturbing the
+monotony, of their vulgar occupation. And by their labor in this
+contracted state of mind, we superior beings are to be maintained; and
+always to be curtseyed to by the properly ignorant little girls, and
+capped by the properly ignorant little boys, whenever we pass by.
+
+105. Mind, I do not say that this is _not_ the right state of things.
+Only, if it be, you need not be so over-particular about the
+slave-trade, it seems to me. What is the use of arguing so
+pertinaciously that a black's skull will hold as much as a white's,
+when you are declaring in the same breath that a white's skull must
+not hold as much as it can, or it will be the worse for him? It does
+not appear to me at all a profound state of slavery to be whipped into
+doing a piece of low work that I don't like; but it is a very profound
+state of slavery to be kept, myself, low in the forehead, that I may
+not dislike low work.
+
+106. You see, my friend, the dilemma is really an awkward one,
+whichever way you look at it. But, what is still worse, I am not
+puzzled only, at this part of my scheme, about the boys I shall have
+to make _workmen_ of; I am just as much puzzled about the boys I
+shall have to make _nothing_ of! Grant, that by hook or crook, by
+reason or rattan, I persuade a certain number of the roughest ones
+into some serviceable business, and get coats and shoes made for the
+rest,--what is the business of "the rest" to be? Naturally, according
+to the existing state of things, one supposes they are to belong to
+some of the gentlemanly professions; to be soldiers, lawyers, doctors,
+or clergymen. But alas, I shall not want any soldiers of special skill
+or pugnacity. _All_ my boys will be soldiers. So far from wanting any
+lawyers, of the kind that live by talking, I shall have the strongest
+possible objection to their appearance in the country. For doctors, I
+shall always entertain a profound respect; but when I get my athletic
+education fairly established, of what help to them will my respect be?
+They will all starve! And for clergymen, it is true, I shall have a
+large number of episcopates--one over every hundred families--(and
+many positions of civil authority also, for civil officers, above them
+and below), but all these places will involve much hard work, and be
+anything but covetable; while, of clergymen's usual work, admonition,
+theological demonstration, and the like, I shall want very little done
+indeed, and that little done for nothing! for I will allow no man to
+admonish anybody, until he has previously earned his own dinner by
+more productive work than admonition.
+
+Well, I wish, my friend, you would write me a word or two in answer to
+this, telling me your own ideas as to the proper issue out of these
+difficulties. I should like to know what you think, and what you
+suppose others will think, before I tell you my own notions about the
+matter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII.
+
+THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF SERVILE EMPLOYMENTS. THE POSSIBLE PRACTICE AND
+EXHIBITION OF SINCERE HUMILITY BY RELIGIOUS PERSONS.
+
+
+ _April 7, 1867._
+
+107. I have been waiting these three days to know what you would say
+to my last questions; and now you send me two pamphlets of Combe's to
+read! I never read anything in spring-time (except the Ai, Ai, on the
+"sanguine flower inscribed with woe"); and, besides, if, as I gather
+from your letter, Combe thinks that among well-educated boys there
+would be a percentage constitutionally inclined to be cobblers, or
+looking forward with unction to establishment in the oil and tallow
+line, or fretting themselves for a flunkey's uniform, nothing that he
+could say would make me agree with him. I know, as well as he does,
+the unconquerable differences in the clay of the human creature: and I
+know that, in the outset, whatever system of education you adopted, a
+large number of children could be made nothing of, and would
+necessarily fall out of the ranks, and supply candidates enough for
+degradation to common mechanical business: but this enormous
+difference in bodily and mental capacity has been mainly brought about
+by difference in occupation, and by direct maltreatment; and in a few
+generations, if the poor were cared for, their marriages looked after,
+and sanitary law enforced, a beautiful type of face and form, and a
+high intelligence, would become all but universal, in a climate like
+this of England. Even as it is, the marvel is always to me, how the
+race resists, at least in its childhood, influences of ill-regulated
+birth, poisoned food, poisoned air, and soul neglect. I often see
+faces of children, as I walk through the black district of St. Giles's
+(lying, as it does, just between my own house and the British Museum),
+which, through all their pale and corrupt misery, recall the old "Non
+Angli," and recall it, not by their beauty, but by their sweetness of
+expression, even though signed already with trace and cloud of the
+coming life,--a life so bitter that it would make the curse of the
+137th Psalm true upon our modern Babylon, though we were to read it
+thus, "Happy shall _thy children_ be, if one taketh and dasheth them
+against the stones."
+
+108. Yes, very solemnly I repeat to you that in those worst treated
+children of the English race, I yet see the making of gentlemen and
+gentlewomen--not the making of dog-stealers and gin-drinkers, such as
+their parents were; and the child of the average English tradesman or
+peasant, even at this day, well schooled, will show no innate
+disposition such as must fetter him forever to the clod or the
+counter. You say that many a boy runs away, or would run away if he
+could, from good positions to go to sea. Of course he does. I never
+said I should have any difficulty in finding sailors, but I shall in
+finding fishmongers. I am at no loss for gardeners either, but what
+am I to do for greengrocers?
+
+109. The fact is, a great number of quite necessary employments are,
+in the accuratest sense, "Servile;" that is, they sink a man to the
+condition of a serf, or unthinking worker, the proper state of an
+animal, but more or less unworthy of men; nay, unholy in some sense,
+so that a day is made "holy" by the fact of its being commanded, "Thou
+shalt do no _servile_ work therein." And yet, if undertaken in a
+certain spirit, such work might be the holiest of all. If there were
+but a thread or two of sound fiber here and there left in our modern
+religion, so that the stuff of it would bear a real strain, one might
+address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists
+somewhat after this fashion:--"Good friends, these differences of
+opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity,
+and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning
+from you what, perhaps, we ought. But, as we read your Book, we, for
+our part, gather from it that you might, without danger to your own
+souls, set an undivided example to us, for the benefit of ours. You,
+both of you, as far as we understand, agree in the necessity of
+humility to the perfection of your character. We often hear you, of
+Calvinistic persuasion, speaking of yourselves as 'sinful dust and
+ashes,'--would it then be inconsistent with your feelings to make
+yourselves into 'serviceable' dust and ashes? We observe that of late
+many of our roads have been hardened and mended with cinders; now, if,
+in a higher sense, you could allow us to mend the roads of the world
+with _you_ a little, it would be a great proof to us of your
+sincerity. Suppose, only for a little while, in the present difficulty
+and distress, you were to make it a test of conversion that a man
+should regularly give Zaccheus's portion, half his goods, to the
+poor, and at once adopt some disagreeable and despised, but thoroughly
+useful, trade? You cannot think that this would finally be to your
+disadvantage; you doubtless believe the texts, 'He that giveth to the
+poor lendeth to the Lord,' and 'He that would be chief among you, let
+him be your servant.' The more you parted with, and the lower you
+stooped, the greater would be your final reward, and final exaltation.
+You profess to despise human learning and worldly riches; leave both
+of these to _us_; undertake for us the illiterate and ill-paid
+employments which must deprive you of the privileges of society and
+the pleasures of luxury. You cannot possibly preach your faith so
+forcibly to the world by any quantity of the finest words, as by a few
+such simple and painful acts; and over your counters, in honest retail
+business, you might preach a gospel that would sound in more ears than
+any that was ever proclaimed over pulpit cushions or tabernacle rails.
+And, whatever may be your gifts of utterance, you cannot but feel
+(studying St. Paul's Epistles as carefully as you do) that you might
+more easily and modestly emulate the practical teaching of the silent
+Apostle of the Gentiles than the speech or writing of his companion.
+Amidst the present discomforts of your brethren you may surely, with
+greater prospect of good to them, seek the title of Sons of
+Consolation, than of Sons of Thunder, and be satisfied with Barnabas's
+confession of faith, (if you can reach no farther,) who, 'having land,
+sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet.'
+
+110. "To you, on the other hand, gentlemen of the embroidered robe,
+who neither despise learning nor the arts, we know that sacrifices
+such as these would be truly painful, and might at first appear
+inexpedient. But the doctrine of self-mortification is not a new one
+to you; and we should be sorry to think--we would not, indeed, for a
+moment dishonor you by thinking--that these melodious chants, and
+prismatic brightnesses of vitreous pictures, and floral graces of
+deep-wrought stone, were in any wise intended for your own poor
+pleasures, whatever profane attraction they may exercise on more
+fleshly-minded persons. And as you have certainly received no definite
+order for the painting, carving, or lighting up of churches, while the
+temple of the body of so many poor living Christians is so pale, so
+mis-shapen, and so ill-lighted; but have, on the contrary, received
+very definite orders for the feeding and clothing of such sad
+humanity, we may surely ask you, not unreasonably, to humiliate
+yourselves in the most complete way--not with a voluntary, but a
+sternly _in_voluntary humility--not with a show of wisdom in
+will-worship, but with practical wisdom, in all honor, to the
+satisfying of the flesh; and to associate yourselves in monasteries
+and convents for the better practice of useful and humble trades. Do
+not burn any more candles, but mould some; do not paint any more
+windows, but mend a few where the wind comes in, in winter time, with
+substantial clear glass and putty. Do not vault any more high roofs,
+but thatch some low ones; and embroider rather on backs which are
+turned to the cold, than only on those which are turned to
+congregations. And you will have your reward afterwards, and attain,
+with all your flocks thus tended, to a place where you may have as
+much gold, and painted glass, and singing, as you like."
+
+Thus much, it seems to me, one might say with some hope of acceptance,
+to any very earnest member of either of our two great religious
+parties, if, as I say, their faith could stand a strain. I have not,
+however, based any of my imaginary political arrangements on the
+probability of its doing so; and I trust only to such general good
+nature and willingness to help each other, as I presume may be found
+among men of the world; to whom I should have to make quite another
+sort of speech, which I will endeavor to set down the heads of, for
+you, in next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX.
+
+THE GENERAL PRESSURE OF EXCESSIVE AND IMPROPER WORK, IN ENGLISH LIFE.
+
+
+ _April 10, 1867._
+
+111. I cannot go on to-day with the part of my subject I had proposed,
+for I was disturbed by receiving a letter last night, which I herewith
+enclose to you, and of which I wish you to print, here following, the
+parts I have not underlined--
+
+ 1, Phene Street, Chelsea, April 8, 1867.
+
+ MY DEAR R----,--
+
+ It is long since you have heard of me, and now I ask your
+ patience with me for a little. I have but just returned from
+ the funeral of my dear, dear friend ----, the first artist
+ friend I made in London--a loved and prized one. For years
+ past he had lived in the very humblest way, fighting his
+ battle of life against mean appreciation of his talents, the
+ wants of a rising family, and frequent attacks of illness,
+ crippling him for months at a time, the wolf at the door
+ meanwhile.
+
+ But about two years since his prospects brightened * * * and
+ he had but a few weeks since ventured on removal to a larger
+ house. His eldest boy of seventeen years, a very intelligent
+ youth, so strongly desired to be a civil engineer that Mr.
+ ----, not being able to pay the large premium required for
+ his apprenticeship, had been made very glad by the consent
+ of Mr. Penn, of Millwall, to receive him without a premium
+ after the boy should have spent some time at King's College
+ in the study of mechanics. The rest is a sad story. About a
+ fortnight ago Mr. ---- was taken ill, and died last week,
+ the doctors say, of sheer physical exhaustion, not
+ thirty-nine years old, leaving eight young children, and his
+ poor widow expecting her confinement, and so weak and ill as
+ to be incapable of effort. This youth is the eldest, and the
+ other children range downwards to a babe of eighteen months.
+ There is not one who knew him, I believe, that will not give
+ cheerfully, to their ability, for his widow and children;
+ but such aid will go but a little way in this painful case;
+ and it would be a real boon to this poor widow if some of
+ her children could be got into an Orphan Asylum. * * *
+
+ If you are able to do anything I would send particulars of
+ the age and sex of the children.
+
+ I remain, dear Sir, ever obediently yours,
+ FRED. J. SHIELDS.
+
+ P.S.--I ought to say that poor ---- has been quite unable to
+ save, with his large family; and that they would be utterly
+ destitute now, but for the kindness of some with whom he was
+ professionally connected.
+
+112. Now this case, of which you see the entire authenticity, is, out
+of the many of which I hear continually, a _notably_ sad one only in
+so far as the artist in question has died of distress while he was
+catering for the public amusement. Hardly a week now passes without
+some such misery coming to my knowledge; and the quantity of pain, and
+anxiety of daily effort, through the best part of life, ending all at
+last in utter grief, which the lower middle classes in England are now
+suffering, is so great that I feel constantly as if I were living in
+one great churchyard, with people all round me clinging feebly to the
+edges of the open graves, and calling for help, as they fall back into
+them, out of sight.
+
+113. Now I want you to observe here, in a definite case, the working
+of your beautiful modern political economy of "supply and demand."
+Here is a man who could have "supplied" you with good and entertaining
+art,--say for fifty good years,--if you had paid him enough for his
+day's work to find him and his children peacefully in bread. But you
+like having your prints as cheap as possible--you triumph in the
+little that your laugh costs--you take all you can get from the man,
+give the least you can give to him,--and you accordingly kill him at
+thirty-nine; and thereafter have his children to take care of, or to
+kill also, whichever you choose; but, now, observe, you must take care
+of _them_ for nothing, or not at all; and what you might have had good
+value for, if you had given it when it would have cheered the father's
+heart, you now can have no return for at all, to yourselves; and what
+you give to the orphans, if it does not degrade them, at least
+afflicts, coming, not through their father's hand, its honest
+earnings, but from strangers.
+
+Observe, farther, whatever help the orphans may receive, will not be
+from the public at all. It will not be from those who profited by
+their father's labors; it will be chiefly from his fellow-laborers; or
+from persons whose money would have been beneficially spent in other
+directions, from whence it is drawn away to this need, which ought
+never to have occurred,--while those who waste their money without
+doing any service to the public will never contribute one farthing to
+this distress.
+
+114. Now it is this double fault in the help--that it comes too late,
+and that the burden of it falls wholly on those who ought least to be
+charged with it--which would be corrected by that institution of
+overseers of which I spoke to you in the twelfth of these letters,
+saying, you remember, that they were to have farther legal powers,
+which I did not then specify, but which would belong to them chiefly
+in the capacity of public almoners, or help-givers, aided by their
+deacons, the reception of such help, in time of true need, being not
+held disgraceful, but honorable; since the fact of its reception would
+be so entirely public that no impostor or idle person could ever
+obtain it surreptitiously.
+
+115. (11th April.) I was interrupted yesterday, and I am glad of it,
+for here happens just an instance of the way in which the unjust
+distribution of the burden of charity is reflected on general
+interests; I cannot help what taint of ungracefulness you or other
+readers of these letters may feel that I incur, in speaking, in this
+instance, of myself. If I could speak with the same accurate knowledge
+of any one else, most gladly I would; but I also think it right that,
+whether people accuse me of boasting or not, they should know that I
+practise what I preach. I had not intended to say what I now shall,
+but the coming of this letter last night just turns the balance of the
+decision with me. I enclose it with the other; you see it is one from
+my bookseller, Mr. Quaritch, offering me Fischer's work on the _Flora
+of Java_, and Latour's on _Indian Orchidaceae_, bound together, for
+twenty guineas. Now, I am writing a book on botany just now, for young
+people, chiefly on wild flowers, and I want these two books very much;
+but I simply cannot afford to buy them, because I sent my last spare
+twenty guineas to Mr. Shields yesterday for this widow. And though you
+may think it not the affair of the public that I have not this book on
+Indian flowers, it is their affair finally, that what I write for them
+should be founded on as broad knowledge as possible; whatever value my
+own book may or may not have, it will just be in a given degree worth
+_less_ to them, because of my want of this knowledge.
+
+116. So again--for having begun to speak of myself I will do so yet
+more frankly--I suppose that when people see my name down for a
+hundred pounds to the Cruikshank Memorial, and for another hundred to
+the Eyre Defense Fund, they think only that I have more money than I
+know what to do with. Well, the giving of those subscriptions simply
+decides the question whether or no I shall be able to afford a journey
+to Switzerland this year, in the negative; and I wanted to go, not
+only for health's sake, but to examine the junctions of the molasse
+sandstones and nagelfluh with the Alpine limestone, in order to
+complete some notes I meant to publish next spring on the geology of
+the great northern Swiss valley; notes which must now lie by me at
+least for another year; and I believe this delay (though I say it)
+will be really something of a loss to the traveling public, for the
+little essay was intended to explain to them, in a familiar way, the
+real wonderfulness of their favorite mountain, the Righi; and to give
+them some amusement in trying to find out where the many-colored
+pebbles of it had come from. But it is more important that I should,
+with some stoutness, assert my respect for the genius and earnest
+patriotism of Cruikshank, and my much more than disrespect for the
+Jamaica Committee, than that I should see the Alps this year, or get
+my essay finished next spring; but I tell you the fact, because I want
+you to feel how, in thus leaving their men of worth to be assisted or
+defended only by those who deeply care for them, the public more or
+less cripple, to their own ultimate disadvantage, just the people
+who could serve them in other ways; while the speculators and
+money-seekers, who are only making their profit out of the said
+public, of course take no part in the help of anybody. And even if
+the willing bearers could sustain the burden anywise adequately, none
+of us would complain; but I am certain there is no man, whatever
+his fortune, who is now engaged in any earnest offices of kindness
+to these sufferers, especially of the middle class, among his
+acquaintance, who will not bear me witness that for one we can
+relieve, we must leave three to perish. I have left three, myself, in
+the first three months of this year. One was the artist Paul Gray, for
+whom an appeal was made to me for funds to assist him in going abroad
+out of the bitter English winter. I had not the means by me, and he
+died a week afterwards. Another case was that of a widow whose husband
+had committed suicide, for whom application was made to me at the same
+time; and the third was a personal friend, to whom I refused a sum
+which he said would have saved him from bankruptcy. I believe six
+times as much would not have saved him; however, I refused, and he is
+ruined.
+
+117. And observe, also, it is not the mere crippling of my means that
+I regret. It is the crippling of my temper, and waste of my time. The
+knowledge of all this distress, even when I can assist it,--much more
+when I cannot,--and the various thoughts of what I can and cannot, or
+ought and ought not, to do, are a far greater burden to me than the
+mere loss of the money. It is peremptorily not my business--it is not
+my gift, bodily or mentally, to look after other people's sorrow. I
+have enough of my own; and even if I had not, the sight of pain is not
+good for me. I don't want to be a bishop. In a most literal and
+sincere sense, "_nolo episcopari_." I don't want to be an almoner, nor
+a counselor, nor a Member of Parliament, nor a voter for Members of
+Parliament. (What would Mr. Holyoake say to me if he knew that I have
+never voted for anybody in my life, and never mean to do so!) I am
+essentially a painter and a leaf dissector; and my powers of thought
+are all purely mathematical, seizing ultimate principles only--never
+accidents; a line is always, to me, length without breadth; it is not
+a cable or a crowbar; and though I can almost infallibly reason out
+the final law of anything, if within reach of my industry, I neither
+care for, nor can trace, the minor exigencies of its daily appliance.
+So, in every way, I like a quiet life; and I don't like seeing people
+cry, or die; and should rejoice, more than I can tell you, in giving
+up the full half of my fortune for the poor, provided I knew that the
+public would make Lord Overstone also give the half of his, and other
+people who were independent give the half of theirs; and then set men
+who were really fit for such office to administer the fund, and answer
+to us for nobody's perishing innocently; and so leave us all to do
+what we chose with the rest, and with our days, in peace.
+
+Thus far of the public's fault in the matter. Next, I have a word or
+two to say of the sufferers' own fault--for much as I pity them, I
+conceive that none of them _do_ perish altogether innocently. But this
+must be for next letter.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XX.
+
+OF IMPROVIDENCE IN MARRIAGE IN THE MIDDLE CLASSES; AND OF THE
+ADVISABLE RESTRICTIONS OF IT.
+
+
+ _April 12, 1867._
+
+118. It is quite as well, whatever irregularity it may introduce in
+the arrangement of the general subject, that yonder sad letter warped
+me away from the broad inquiry, to this speciality, respecting the
+present distress of the middle classes. For the immediate cause of
+that distress, in their own imprudence, of which I have to speak to
+you to-day, is only to be finally vanquished by strict laws, which,
+though they have been many a year in my mind, I was glad to have a
+quiet hour of sunshine for the thinking over again, this morning.
+Sunshine which happily rose cloudless; and allowed me to meditate my
+tyrannies before breakfast, under the just opened blossoms of my
+orchard, and assisted by much melodious advice from the birds; who (my
+gardener having positive orders never to trouble any of them in
+anything, or object to their eating even my best peas if they like
+their flavor) rather now get _into_ my way, than out of it, when they
+see me about the walks; and take me into most of their counsels in
+nest-building.
+
+119. The letter from Mr. Shields, which interrupted us, reached me,
+as you see, on the evening of the 9th instant. On the morning of the
+10th, I received another, which I herewith forward to you, for
+verification. It is--characteristically enough--dateless, so you must
+take the time of its arrival on my word. And substituting M. N. for
+the name of the boy referred to, and withholding only the address and
+name of the writer, you see that it may be printed word for word--as
+follows:--
+
+ SIR,--
+
+ May I beg for the favor of your presentation to Christ's
+ Hospital for my youngest son, M. N.? I have nine children,
+ and no means to educate them. I ventured to address you,
+ believing that my husband's name is not unknown to you as
+ an artist.
+
+ Believe me to remain faithfully yours,
+ * * *
+
+120. Now this letter is only a typical example of the entire class of
+those which, being a governor of Christ's Hospital, I receive, in
+common with all the other governors, at the rate of about three a day,
+for a month or six weeks from the date of our names appearing in the
+printed list of the governors who have presentations for the current
+year. Having been a governor now some twenty-five years, I have
+documentary evidence enough to found some general statistics upon;
+from which there have resulted two impressions on my mind, which I
+wish here specially to note to you, and I do not doubt but that all
+the other governors, if you could ask them, would at once confirm what
+I say. My first impression is, a heavy and sorrowful sense of the
+general feebleness of intellect of that portion of the British public
+which stands in need of presentations to Christ's Hospital. This
+feebleness of intellect is mainly shown in the nearly total
+unconsciousness of the writers that anybody else may want a
+presentation, besides themselves. With the exception here and there
+of a soldier's or a sailor's widow, hardly one of them seems to have
+perceived the existence of any distress in the world but their own:
+none know what they are asking for, or imagine, unless as a remote
+contingency, the possibility of its having been promised at a prior
+date. The second most distinct impression on my mind, is that the
+portion of the British public which is in need of presentations to
+Christ's Hospital considers it a merit to have large families, with or
+without the means of supporting them!
+
+121. Now it happened also (and remember, all this is strictly true,
+nor in the slightest particular represented otherwise than as it
+chanced; though the said chance brought thus together exactly the
+evidence I wanted for my letter to you)--it happened, I say, that on
+this same morning of the 10th April, I became accidentally acquainted
+with a case of quite a different kind: that of a noble girl, who,
+engaged at sixteen, and having received several advantageous offers
+since, has remained for ten years faithful to her equally faithful
+lover; while, their circumstances rendering it, as they rightly
+considered, unjustifiable in them to think of marriage, each of them
+simply and happily, aided and cheered by the other's love, discharged
+the duties of their own separate positions in life.
+
+122. In the nature of things, instances of this kind of noble life
+remain more or less concealed, (while imprudence and error proclaim
+themselves by misfortune,) but they are assuredly not unfrequent in
+our English homes. Let us next observe the political and national
+result of these arrangements. You leave your marriages to be settled
+by "supply and demand," instead of wholesome law. And thus, among your
+youths and maidens, the improvident, incontinent, selfish, and foolish
+ones marry, whether you will or not; and beget families of children
+necessarily inheritors in a great degree of these parental
+dispositions; and for whom, supposing they had the best dispositions
+in the world, you have thus provided, by way of educators, the
+foolishest fathers and mothers you could find; (the only rational
+sentence in their letters, usually, is the invariable one, in which
+they declare themselves "incapable of providing for their children's
+education"). On the other hand, whosoever is wise, patient, unselfish,
+and pure among your youth, you keep maid or bachelor; wasting their
+best days of natural life in painful sacrifice, forbidding them their
+best help and best reward, and carefully excluding their prudence and
+tenderness from any offices of parental duty.
+
+Is not this a beatific and beautifully sagacious system for a
+Celestial Empire, such as that of these British Isles?
+
+123. I will not here enter into any statement of the physical laws
+which it is the province of our physicians to explain; and which are
+indeed at last so far beginning to be understood, that there is hope
+of the nation's giving some of the attention to the conditions
+affecting the race of man, which it has hitherto bestowed only on
+those which may better its races of cattle.
+
+It is enough, I think, to say here that the beginning of all sanitary
+and moral law is in the regulation of marriage, and that, ugly and
+fatal as is every form and agency of license, no licentiousness is so
+mortal as licentiousness in marriage.
+
+124. Briefly, then, and in main points, subject in minor ones to such
+modifications in detail as local circumstances and characters would
+render expedient, those following are laws such as a prudent nation
+would institute respecting its marriages. Permission to marry should
+be the reward held in sight of its youth during the entire latter part
+of the course of their education; and it should be granted as the
+national attestation that the first portion of their lives had been
+rightly fulfilled. It should not be attainable without earnest and
+consistent effort, though put within the reach of all who were willing
+to make such effort; and the granting of it should be a public
+testimony to the fact, that the youth or maid to whom it was given
+had lived, within their proper sphere, a modest and virtuous life, and
+had attained such skill in their proper handicraft, and in arts of
+household economy, as might give well-founded expectations of their
+being able honorably to maintain and teach their children.
+
+125. No girl should receive her permission to marry before her
+seventeenth birthday, nor any youth before his twenty-first; and it
+should be a point of somewhat distinguished honor with both sexes to
+gain their permission of marriage in the eighteenth and twenty-second
+years; and a recognized disgrace not to have gained it at least before
+the close of their twenty-first and twenty-fourth. I do not mean that
+they should in any wise hasten actual marriage; but only that they
+should hold it a point of honor to have the right to marry. In every
+year there should be two festivals, one on the first of May, and one
+at the feast of harvest home in each district, at which festivals
+their permissions to marry should be given publicly to the maidens and
+youths who had won them in that half-year; and they should be crowned,
+the maids by the old French title of Rosieres, and the youths, perhaps
+by some name rightly derived from one supposed signification of the
+word "bachelor," "laurel fruit," and so led in joyful procession, with
+music and singing, through the city street or village lane, and the
+day ended with feasting of the poor.
+
+126. And every bachelor and rosiere should be entitled to claim, if
+they needed it, according to their position in life, a fixed income
+from the State, for seven years from the day of their marriage, for
+the setting up of their homes; and, however rich they might be by
+inheritance, their income should not be permitted to exceed a given
+sum, proportioned to their rank, for the seven years following that in
+which they had obtained their permission to marry, but should
+accumulate in the trust of the State until that seventh year, in which
+they should be put (on certain conditions) finally in possession of
+their property; and the men, thus necessarily not before their
+twenty-eighth, nor usually later than their thirty-first year, become
+eligible to offices of State. So that the rich and poor should not be
+sharply separated in the beginning of the war of life; but the one
+supported against the first stress of it long enough to enable them,
+by proper forethought and economy, to secure their footing; and the
+other trained somewhat in the use of moderate means, before they were
+permitted to have the command of abundant ones. And of the sources
+from which these State incomes for the married poor should be
+supplied, or of the treatment of those of our youth whose conduct
+rendered it advisable to refuse them permission to marry, I defer what
+I have to say till we come to the general subjects of taxation and
+criminal discipline; leaving the proposals made in this letter to
+bear, for the present, whatever aspect of mere romance and
+unrealizable vision they probably may, and to most readers, such as
+they assuredly will. Nor shall I make the slightest effort to redeem
+them from these imputations; for though there is nothing in all their
+purport which would not be approved, as in the deepest sense
+"practical"--by the Spirit of Paradise--
+
+ "Which gives to all the self-same bent,
+ Whose lives are wise and innocent,"
+
+and though I know that national justice in conduct, and peace in
+heart, could by no other laws be so swiftly secured, I confess with
+much _dis_peace of heart, that both justice and happiness have at this
+day become, in England, "romantic impossibilities."
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI.
+
+OF THE DIGNITY OF THE FOUR FINE ARTS; AND OF THE PROPER SYSTEM OF
+RETAIL TRADE.
+
+
+ _April 15, 1867._
+
+127. I return now to the part of the subject at which I was
+interrupted--the inquiry as to the proper means of finding persons
+willing to maintain themselves and others by degrading occupations.
+
+That, on the whole, simply manual occupations _are_ degrading, I
+suppose I may assume you to admit; at all events, the fact is so,
+and I suppose few general readers will have any doubt of it.[A]
+
+ [A] Many of my working readers have disputed this statement
+ eagerly, feeling the good effect of work in themselves; but
+ observe, I only say, _simply_ or _totally_ manual work; and
+ that, alone, _is_ degrading, though often in measure,
+ refreshing, wholesome, and necessary. So it is highly
+ necessary and wholesome to eat sometimes; but degrading to
+ eat all day, as to labor with the hands all day. But it is
+ not degrading to think all day--if you can. A highly-bred
+ court lady, rightly interested in politics and literature,
+ is a much finer type of the human creature than a servant of
+ all work, however clever and honest.
+
+Granting this, it follows as a direct consequence that it is the duty
+of all persons in higher stations of life, by every means in their
+power to diminish their demand for work of such kind, _and to live
+with as little aid from the lower trades_, as they can possibly
+contrive.
+
+128. I suppose you see that this conclusion is not a little at
+variance with received notions on political economy? It is popularly
+supposed that it benefits a nation to invent a want. But the fact is,
+that the true benefit is in extinguishing a want--in living with as
+few wants as possible.
+
+I cannot tell you the contempt I feel for the common writers on
+political economy, in their stupefied missing of this first principle
+of all human economy--individual or political--to live, namely, with
+as few wants as possible, and to waste nothing of what is given you to
+supply them.
+
+129. This ought to be the first lesson of every rich man's political
+code. "Sir," his tutor should early say to him, "you are so placed in
+society,--it may be for your misfortune, it _must_ be for your
+trial--that you are likely to be maintained all your life by the labor
+of other men. You will have to make shoes for nobody, but some one
+will have to make a great many for you. You will have to dig ground
+for nobody, but some one will have to dig through every summer's hot
+day for you. You will build houses and make clothes for no one, but
+many a rough hand must knead clay, and many an elbow be crooked to the
+stitch, to keep that body of yours warm and fine. Now remember,
+whatever you and your work may be worth, the less your keep costs, the
+better. It does not cost money only. It costs degradation. You do not
+merely employ these people. You also tread upon them. It cannot be
+helped;--you have your place, and they have theirs; but see that you
+tread as lightly as possible, and on as few as possible. What food,
+and clothes, and lodging, you honestly need, for your health and
+peace, you may righteously take. See that you take the plainest you
+can serve yourself with--that you waste or wear nothing vainly--and
+that you employ no man in furnishing you with any useless luxury."
+
+130. That is the first lesson of Christian--or human--economy; and
+depend upon it, my friend, it is a sound one, and has every voice and
+vote of the spirits of Heaven and earth to back it, whatever views the
+Manchester men, or any other manner of men, may take respecting
+"demand and supply." Demand what you deserve, and you shall be
+supplied with it, for your good. Demand what you do _not_ deserve, and
+you shall be supplied with something which you have not demanded, and
+which Nature perceives that you deserve, quite to the contrary of your
+good. That is the law of your existence, and if you do not make it the
+law of your resolved acts, so much, precisely, the worse for you and
+all connected with you.
+
+131. Yet observe, though it is out of its proper place said here, this
+law forbids no luxury which men are not degraded in providing. You may
+have Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, if you like, or Benvenuto
+Cellini to make cups for you. But you must not employ a hundred divers
+to find beads to stitch over your sleeve. (Did you see the account of
+the sales of the Esterhazy jewels the other day?)
+
+And the degree in which you recognize the difference between these two
+kinds of services, is precisely what makes the difference between your
+being a civilized person or a barbarian. If you keep slaves to furnish
+forth your dress--to glut your stomach--sustain your indolence--or
+deck your pride, you are a barbarian. If you keep servants, properly
+cared for, to furnish you with what you verily want, and no more than
+that--you are a "civil" person--a person capable of the qualities of
+citizenship.[A]
+
+ [A] Compare 'The Crown of Wild Olive,' Sec.Sec. 79, 118, and 122.
+
+132. Now, farther, observe that in a truly civilized and disciplined
+state, no man would be allowed to meddle with any material who did not
+know how to make the best of it. In other words, the arts of working
+in wood, clay, stone, and metal, would all be _fine_ arts (working in
+iron for machinery becoming an entirely distinct business). There
+would be no joiner's work, no smith's, no pottery nor stone-cutting,
+so debased in character as to be entirely unconnected with the finer
+branches of the same art; and to at least one of these finer branches
+(generally in metal-work) every painter and sculptor would be
+necessarily apprenticed during some years of his education. There
+would be room, in these four trades alone, for nearly every grade of
+practical intelligence and productive imagination.
+
+133. But it should not be artists alone who are exercised early in
+these crafts. It would be part of my scheme of physical education that
+every youth in the state--from the King's son downwards,--should learn
+to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand, so as to let him
+know what _touch_ meant; and what stout craftsmanship meant; and to
+inform him of many things besides, which no man can learn but by some
+severely accurate discipline in doing. Let him once learn to take a
+straight shaving off a plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering,
+or lay a brick level in its mortar; and he has learned a multitude of
+other matters which no lips of man could ever teach him. He might
+choose his craft, but whatever it was, he should learn it to some
+sufficient degree of true dexterity: and the result would be, in after
+life, that among the middle classes a good deal of their house
+furniture would be made, and a good deal of rough work, more or less
+clumsily, but not ineffectively, got through, by the master himself
+and his sons, with much furtherance of their general health and peace
+of mind, and increase of innocent domestic pride and pleasure, and to
+the extinction of a great deal of vulgar upholstery and other mean
+handicraft.
+
+134. Farther. A great deal of the vulgarity, and nearly all the vice,
+of retail commerce, involving the degradation of persons occupied in
+it, depends simply on the fact that their minds are always occupied by
+the vital (or rather mortal) question of profits. I should at once put
+an end to this source of baseness by making all retail dealers merely
+salaried officers in the employ of the trade guilds; the stewards,
+that is to say, of the salable properties of those guilds, and
+purveyors of such and such articles to a given number of families. A
+perfectly well-educated person might, without the least degradation,
+hold such an office as this, however poorly paid; and it would be
+precisely the fact of his being well educated which would enable him
+to fulfil his duties to the public without the stimulus of direct
+profit. Of course the current objection to such a system would be that
+no man, for a regularly paid salary, would take pains to please his
+customers; and the answer to that objection is, that if you can train
+a man to so much unselfishness as to offer himself fearlessly to the
+chance of being shot, in the course of his daily duty, you can most
+assuredly, if you make it also a point of honor with him, train him to
+the amount of self-denial involved in looking you out with care such a
+piece of cheese or bacon as you have asked for.
+
+135. You see that I have already much diminished the number of
+employments involving degradation; and raised the character of many of
+those that are left. There remain to be considered the necessarily
+painful or mechanical works of mining, forging, and the like: the
+unclean, noisome, or paltry manufactures--the various kinds of
+transport--(by merchant shipping, etc.) and the conditions of menial
+service.
+
+It will facilitate the examination of these if we put them for the
+moment aside, and pass to the other division of our dilemma, the
+question, namely, what kind of lives our gentlemen and ladies are to
+live, for whom all this hard work is to be done.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII.
+
+OF THE NORMAL POSITION AND DUTIES OF THE UPPER CLASSES. GENERAL
+STATEMENT OF THE LAND QUESTION.
+
+
+ _April 17, 1867._
+
+136. In passing now to the statement of conditions affecting the
+interests of the upper classes, I would rather have addressed these
+closing letters to one of themselves than to you, for it is with their
+own faults and needs that each class is primarily concerned. As,
+however, unless I kept the letters private, this change of their
+address would be but a matter of courtesy and form, not of any
+true prudential use; and as besides I am now no more inclined to
+reticence--prudent or otherwise; but desire only to state the facts
+of our national economy as clearly and completely as may be, I pursue
+the subject without respect of persons.
+
+137. Before examining what the occupation and estate of the upper
+classes ought, as far as may reasonably be conjectured, finally to
+become, it will be well to set down in brief terms what they actually
+have been in past ages: for this, in many respects, they must also
+always be. The upper classes, broadly speaking, are originally
+composed of the best-bred (in the mere animal sense of the term), the
+most energetic, and most thoughtful, of the population, who either by
+strength of arm seize the land from the rest, and make slaves of them,
+or bring desert land into cultivation, over which they have therefore,
+within certain limits, true personal right; or, by industry,
+accumulate other property, or by choice devote themselves to
+intellectual pursuits, and, though poor, obtain an acknowledged
+superiority of position, shown by benefits conferred in discovery, or
+in teaching, or in gifts of art. This is all in the simple course of
+the law of nature; and the proper offices of the upper classes, thus
+distinguished from the rest, become, therefore, in the main
+threefold:--
+
+138. (A) Those who are strongest of arm have for their proper
+function the restraint and punishment of vice, and the general
+maintenance of law and order; releasing only from its original
+subjection to their power that which truly deserves to be emancipated.
+
+(B) Those who are superior by forethought and industry, have for their
+function to be the providences of the foolish, the weak, and the idle;
+and to establish such systems of trade and distribution of goods as
+shall preserve the lower orders from perishing by famine, or any other
+consequence of their carelessness or folly, and to bring them all,
+according to each man's capacity, at last into some harmonious
+industry.
+
+(C) The third class, of scholars and artists, of course, have for
+function the teaching and delighting of the inferior multitude.
+
+The office of the upper classes, then, as a body, is to keep order
+among their inferiors, and raise them always to the nearest level with
+themselves of which those inferiors are capable. So far as they are
+thus occupied, they are invariably loved and reverenced intensely by
+all beneath them, and reach, themselves, the highest types of human
+power and beauty.
+
+139. This, then, being the natural ordinance and function of
+aristocracy, its corruption, like that of all other beautiful things
+under the Devil's touch, is a very fearful one. Its corruption is,
+that those who ought to be the rulers and guides of the people,
+forsake their task of painful honorableness; seek their own pleasure
+and pre-eminence only; and use their power, subtlety, conceded
+influence, prestige of ancestry, and mechanical instrumentality of
+martial power, to make the lower orders toil for them, and feed and
+clothe them for nothing, and become in various ways their living
+property, goods, and chattels, even to the point of utter
+regardlessness of whatever misery these serfs may suffer through such
+insolent domination, or they themselves, their masters, commit of
+crime to enforce it.
+
+140. And this is especially likely to be the case when means of
+various and tempting pleasures are put within the reach of the upper
+classes by advanced conditions of national commerce and knowledge: and
+it is _certain_ to be the case as soon as position among those upper
+classes becomes any way purchasable with money, instead of being the
+assured measure of some kind of worth, (either strength of hand, or
+true wisdom of conduct, or imaginative gift). It has been becoming
+more and more the condition of the aristocracy of Europe, ever since
+the fifteenth century; and is gradually bringing about its ruin, and
+in that ruin, checked only by the power which here and there a good
+soldier or true statesman achieves over the putrid chaos of its vain
+policy, the ruin of all beneath it; which can be arrested only, either
+by the repentance of that old aristocracy, (hardly to be hoped,) or by
+the stern substitution of other aristocracy worthier than it.
+
+141. Corrupt as it may be, it and its laws together, I would at this
+moment, if I could, fasten every one of its institutions down with
+bands of iron, and trust for all progress and help against its tyranny
+simply to the patience and strength of private conduct. And if I had
+to choose, I would tenfold rather see the tyranny of old Austria
+triumphant in the old and new worlds, and trust to the chance (or
+rather the distant certainty) of some day seeing a true Emperor born
+to its throne, than, with every privilege of thought and act, run the
+most distant risk of seeing the thoughts of the people of Germany and
+England become like the thoughts of the people of America.
+
+My American friends, of whom one, Charles Eliot Norton, of Cambridge,
+is the dearest I have in the world, tell me I know nothing about
+America. It may be so, and they must do me the justice to observe that
+I, therefore, usually _say_ nothing about America. But this much I
+have said, because the Americans, as a nation, set their trust in
+liberty and in equality, of which I detest the one, and deny the
+possibility of the other; and because, also, as a nation, they are
+wholly undesirous of Rest, and incapable of it; irreverent of
+themselves, both in the present and in the future; discontented with
+what they are, yet having no ideal of anything which they desire to
+become.[A]
+
+ [A] Some following passages in this letter, containing
+ personal references which might, in permanence, have given
+ pain or offense, are now omitted--the substance of them being
+ also irrelevant to my main purpose. These few words about the
+ American war, with which they concluded, are, I think, worth
+ retaining:--"All methods of right government are to be
+ communicated to foreign nations by perfectness of example and
+ gentleness of patiently expanded power, not suddenly, nor at
+ the bayonet's point. And though it is the duty of every
+ nation to interfere, at bayonet point, if they have the
+ strength to do so, to save any oppressed multitude, or even
+ individual, from manifest violence, it is wholly unlawful to
+ interfere in such matter, except with sacredly pledged
+ limitation of the objects to be accomplished in the oppressed
+ person's favor, and with absolute refusal of all selfish
+ advantage and _increase of territory or of political power_
+ which might otherwise accrue from the victory."
+
+142. But, however corrupted, the aristocracy of any nation may thus be
+always divided into three great classes. First, the landed proprietors
+and soldiers, essentially one political body (for the possession of
+land can only be maintained by military power); secondly, the moneyed
+men and leaders of commerce; thirdly, the professional men and masters
+in science, art, and literature.
+
+And we were to consider the proper duties of all these, and the laws
+probably expedient respecting them. Whereupon, in the outset, we are
+at once brought face to face with the great land question.
+
+143. Great as it may be, it is wholly subordinate to those we have
+hitherto been considering. The laws you make regarding methods of
+labor, or to secure the genuineness of the things produced by it,
+affect the entire moral state of the nation, and all possibility of
+human happiness for them. The mode of distribution of the land only
+affects their numbers. By this or that law respecting land you decide
+whether the nation shall consist of fifty or of a hundred millions.
+But by this or that law respecting work, you decide whether the given
+number of millions shall be rogues, or honest men;--shall be wretches,
+or happy men. And the question of numbers is wholly immaterial,
+compared with that of character; or rather, its own materialness
+depends on the prior determination of character. Make your nation
+consist of knaves, and, as Emerson said long ago, it is but the case
+of any other vermin--"the more, the worse." Or, to put the matter in
+narrower limits, it is a matter of no final concern to any parent
+whether he shall have two children, or four; but matter of quite final
+concern whether those he has shall, or shall not, deserve to be
+hanged. The great difficulty in dealing with the land question at all
+arises from the false, though very natural, notion on the part of many
+reformers, and of large bodies of the poor, that the division of the
+land among the said poor would be an immediate and everlasting relief
+to them. An _immediate_ relief it would be to the extent of a small
+annual sum (you may easily calculate how little, if you choose) to
+each of them; on the strength of which accession to their finances,
+they would multiply into as much extra personality as the extra pence
+would sustain, and at that point be checked by starvation, exactly as
+they are now.
+
+144. Any other form of pillage would benefit them only in like manner;
+and, in reality, the difficult part of the question respecting
+numbers, is, not where they shall be arrested, but what shall be the
+method of their arrest.
+
+An island of a certain size has standing room only for so many people;
+feeding ground for a great many fewer than could stand on it. Reach
+the limits of your feeding ground, and you must cease to multiply,
+must emigrate or starve. The modes in which the pressure is gradually
+brought to bear on the population depend on the justice of your laws;
+but the pressure itself must come at last, whatever the distribution
+of the land. And arithmeticians seem to me a little slow to remark the
+importance of the old child's puzzle about the nails in the
+horseshoe--when it is populations that are doubling themselves,
+instead of farthings.
+
+145. The essential land question, then, is to be treated quite
+separately from that of the methods of restriction of population. The
+land question is--At what point will you resolve to stop? It is
+separate matter of discussion how you are to stop at it.
+
+And this essential land question--"At what point will you stop?"--is
+itself two-fold. You have to consider first, by what methods of land
+distribution you can maintain the greatest number of healthy persons;
+and secondly, whether, if, by any other mode of distribution and
+relative ethical laws, you can raise their character, while you
+diminish their numbers, such sacrifice should be made, and to what
+extent? I think it will be better, for clearness' sake, to end this
+letter with the putting of these two queries in their decisive form,
+and to reserve suggestions of answer for my next.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII.
+
+OF THE JUST TENURE OF LANDS: AND THE PROPER FUNCTIONS OF HIGH PUBLIC
+OFFICERS.
+
+
+ _20th April, 1867._
+
+146. I must repeat to you, once more, before I proceed, that I only
+enter on this part of our inquiry to complete the sequence of its
+system, and explain fully the bearing of former conclusions, and not
+for any immediately practicable good to be got out of the
+investigation. Whatever I have hitherto urged upon you, it is in the
+power of all men quietly to promote, and finally to secure, by the
+patient resolution of personal conduct; but no action could be taken
+in re-distribution of land or in limitation of the incomes of the
+upper classes, without grave and prolonged civil disturbance.
+
+Such disturbance, however, is only too likely to take place, if the
+existing theories of political economy are allowed credence much
+longer. In the writings of the vulgar economists, nothing more excites
+my indignation than the subterfuges by which they endeavor to
+accommodate their pseudoscience to the existing abuses of wealth, by
+disguising the true nature of rent. I will not waste time in exposing
+their fallacies, but will put the truth for you into as clear a shape
+as I can.
+
+147. Rent, of whatever kind, is, briefly, the price continuously paid
+for the loan of the property of another person. It may be too little,
+or it may be just or exorbitant or altogether unjustifiable, according
+to circumstances. Exorbitant rents can only be exacted from ignorant
+or necessitous rent-payers: and it is one of the most necessary
+conditions of state economy that there should be clear laws to prevent
+such exaction.
+
+148. I may interrupt myself for a moment to give you an instance of
+what I mean. The most wretched houses of the poor in London often pay
+ten or fifteen per cent. to the landlord; and I have known an instance
+of sanitary legislation being hindered, to the loss of many hundreds
+of lives, in order that the rents of a nobleman, derived from the
+necessities of the poor, might not be diminished. And it is a curious
+thing to me to see Mr. J. S. Mill foaming at the mouth, and really
+afflicted conscientiously, because he supposes one man to have been
+unjustly hanged, while by his own failure, (I believe, _wilful_
+failure)[A] in stating clearly to the public one of the first
+elementary truths of the science he professes, he is aiding and
+abetting the commission of the cruelest possible form of murder on
+many thousands of persons yearly, for the sake simply of putting money
+into the pockets of the landlords. I felt this evil so strongly that I
+bought, in the worst part of London, one freehold and one leasehold
+property, consisting of houses inhabited by the lowest poor; in order
+to try what change in their comfort and habits I could effect by
+taking only a just rent, but that firmly. The houses of the leasehold
+pay me five per cent.; the families that used to have one room in them
+have now two; and are more orderly and hopeful besides; and there is a
+surplus still on the rents they pay after I have taken my five per
+cent., with which, if all goes well, they will eventually be able to
+buy twelve years of the lease from me. The freehold pays three per
+cent., with similar results in the comfort of the tenant. This is
+merely an example of what might be done by firm State action in such
+matters.
+
+ [A] See Sec. 156.
+
+149. Next, of wholly unjustifiable rents. These are for things which
+are not, and which it is criminal to consider as, personal or
+exchangeable property. Bodies of men, land, water, and air, are the
+principal of these things.
+
+Parenthetically, may I ask you to observe, that though a fearless
+defender of some forms of slavery, I am no defender of the slave
+_trade_. It is by a blundering confusion of ideas between _governing_
+men, and _trading in_ men, and by consequent interference with the
+restraint, instead of only with the sale, that most of the great
+errors in action have been caused among the emancipation men. I am
+prepared, if the need be clear to my own mind, and if the power is in
+my hands, to throw men into prison, or any other captivity--to bind
+them or to beat them--and force them, for such periods as I may judge
+necessary, to any kind of irksome labor: and on occasion of desperate
+resistance, to hang or shoot them. But I will not _sell_ them.
+
+150. Bodies of men, or women, then (and much more, as I said before,
+their souls), must not be bought or sold. Neither must land, nor
+water, nor air, these being the necessary sustenance of men's bodies
+and souls.
+
+Yet all these may, on certain terms, be bound, or secured in
+possession, to particular persons under certain conditions. For
+instance, it may be proper, at a certain time, to give a man
+permission to possess land, as you give him permission to marry; and
+farther, if he wishes it and works for it, to secure to him the land
+needful for his life; as you secure his wife to him; and make both
+utterly his own, without in the least admitting his right to buy other
+people's wives, or fields, or to sell his own.
+
+151. And the right action of a State respecting its land is, indeed,
+to secure it in various portions to those of its citizens who deserve
+to be trusted with it, according to their respective desires and
+proved capacities; and after having so secured it to each, to exercise
+only such vigilance over his treatment of it as the State must give
+also to his treatment of his wife and servants; for the most part
+leaving him free, but interfering in cases of gross mismanagement or
+abuse of power. And in the case of great old families, which always
+ought to be, and in some measure, however decadent, still truly are,
+the noblest monumental architecture of the kingdom, living temples of
+sacred tradition and hero's religion, so much land ought to be granted
+to them in perpetuity as may enable them to live thereon with all
+circumstances of state and outward nobleness; _but their income must
+in no wise be derived from the rents of it_, nor must they be occupied
+(even in the most distant or subordinately administered methods), in
+the exaction of rents. That is not noblemen's work. Their income must
+be fixed, and paid them by the State, as the King's is.
+
+152. So far from their land being to them a source of income, it
+should be, on the whole, costly to them, great part of it being kept
+in conditions of natural grace, which return no rent but their
+loveliness; and the rest made, at whatever cost, exemplary in
+perfection of such agriculture as develops the happiest peasant
+life;[A] agriculture which, as I will show you hereafter, must reject
+the aid of all mechanism except that of instruments guided solely by
+the human hand, or by animal, or directly natural forces; and which,
+therefore, cannot compete for profitableness with agriculture carried
+on by aid of machinery.
+
+ [A] Compare 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXI., page 22.
+
+And now for the occupation of this body of men, maintained at fixed
+perennial cost of the State.
+
+153. You know I said I should want no soldiers of special skill or
+pugnacity, for all my boys would be soldiers. But I assuredly want
+_captains_ of soldiers, of special skill and pugnacity. And also, I
+said I should strongly object to the appearance of any lawyers in my
+territory; meaning, however, by lawyers, people who live by arguing
+about law,--not people appointed to administer law; and people who
+live by eloquently misrepresenting facts--not people appointed to
+discover and plainly represent them.
+
+Therefore, the youth of this landed aristocracy would be trained, in
+my schools, to these two great callings, not _by_ which, but _in_
+which, they are to live.
+
+They would be trained, all of them, in perfect science of war, and in
+perfect science of essential law. And from their body should be chosen
+the captains and the judges of England, its advocates, and generally
+its State officers, all such functions being held for fixed pay (as
+already our officers of the Church and army are paid), and no function
+connected with the administration of law ever paid by casual fee. And
+the head of such family should, in his own right, having passed due
+(and high) examination in the science of law, and not otherwise, be a
+judge, law-ward or Lord, having jurisdiction both in civil and
+criminal cases, such as our present judges have, after such case shall
+have been fully represented before, and received verdict from, a jury,
+composed exclusively of the middle or lower orders, and in which no
+member of the aristocracy should sit. But from the decision of these
+juries, or from the Lord's sentence, there should be a final appeal to
+a tribunal, the highest in the land, held solely in the King's name,
+and over which, in the capital, the King himself should preside, and
+therein give judgment on a fixed number of days in each year;--and, in
+other places and at other times, judges appointed by election (under
+certain conditions) out of any order of men in the State (the election
+being national, not provincial): and all causes brought before these
+judges should be decided, without appeal, by their own authority; not
+by juries. This, then, recasting it for you into brief view, would be
+the entire scheme of state authorities:--
+
+154. (1) The King: exercising, as part both of his prerogative and his
+duty, the office of a supreme judge at stated times in the central
+court of appeal of his kingdom.
+
+(2) Supreme judges appointed by national election; exercising sole
+authority in courts of final appeal.
+
+(3) Ordinary judges, holding the office hereditarily under conditions;
+and with power to add to their number (and liable to have it increased
+if necessary by the King's appointment); the office of such judges
+being to administer the national laws under the decision of juries.
+
+(4) State officers charged with the direction of public agency in
+matters of public utility.
+
+(5) Bishops, charged with offices of supervision and aid, to family by
+family, and person by person.
+
+(6) The officers of war, of various ranks.
+
+(7) The officers of public instruction, of various ranks.
+
+I have sketched out this scheme for you somewhat prematurely, for I
+would rather have conducted you to it step by step, and as I brought
+forward the reasons for the several parts of it; but it is, on other
+grounds, desirable that you should have it to refer to, as I go on.
+
+155. Without depending anywise upon nomenclature, yet holding it
+important as a sign and record of the meanings of things, I may tell
+you further that I should call the elected supreme judges, "Princes";
+the hereditary judges, "Lords"; and the officers of public guidance,
+"Dukes"; and that the social rank of these persons would be very
+closely correspondent to that implied by such titles under our present
+constitution; only much more real and useful. And in conclusion of
+this letter, I will but add, that if you, or other readers, think it
+idle of me to write or dream of such things; as if any of them were in
+our power, or within possibility of any near realization, and above
+all, vain to write of them to a workman at Sunderland: you are to
+remember what I told you at the beginning, that I go on with this part
+of my subject in some fulfilment of my long-conceived plan, too large
+to receive at present any deliberate execution from my failing
+strength; (being the body of the work to which 'Munera Pulveris' was
+intended merely as an introduction;) and that I address it to you
+because I know that the working men of England must, for some time,
+be the only body to which we can look for resistance to the deadly
+influence of moneyed power.
+
+I intend, however, to write to you at this moment one more letter,
+partly explanatory of minor details necessarily omitted in this, and
+chiefly of the proper office of the soldier; and then I must delay the
+completion of even this poor task until after the days have turned,
+for I have quite other work to do in the brightness of the full-opened
+spring.
+
+156. P.S.--As I have used somewhat strong language, both here and
+elsewhere, of the equivocations of the economists on the subject of
+rent, I had better refer you to one characteristic example. You will
+find in paragraph 5th and 6th of Book II., chap. 2, of Mr. Mill's
+'Principles,' that the right to tenure of land is based, by his
+admission, only on the proprietor's being its improver.
+
+Without pausing to dwell on the objection that land cannot be improved
+beyond a certain point, and that, at the reaching of that point,
+farther claim to tenure would cease, on Mr. Mill's principle--take
+even this admission, with its proper subsequent conclusion, that "in
+no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the
+proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it."
+Now, had that conclusion been farther followed, it would have
+compelled the admission that all rent was unjustifiable which normally
+maintained any person in idleness; which is indeed the whole truth of
+the matter. But Mr. Mill instantly retreats from this perilous
+admission; and after three or four pages of discussion (quite accurate
+for _its_ part) of the limits of power in management of the land
+itself (which apply just as strictly to the peasant proprietor as to
+the cottier's landlord), he begs the whole question at issue in one
+brief sentence, slipped cunningly into the middle of a long one which
+appears to be telling all the other way, and in which the fatal
+assertion (of the right to rent) nestles itself, as if it had been
+already proved,--thus--I italicize the unproved assertion in which the
+venom of the entire falsehood is concentrated.
+
+"Even in the case of cultivated land, a man whom, though only one
+among millions, the law permits to hold thousands of acres as his
+single share, is not entitled to think that all is given to him to use
+and abuse, and deal with it as if it concerned nobody but himself.
+_The rents or profits which he can obtain from it are his, and his
+only_; but with regard to the land, in everything which he abstains
+from doing, he is morally bound, and should, whenever the case admits,
+be legally compelled to make his interest and pleasure consistent with
+the public good."
+
+157. I say, this sentence in italics is slipped _cunningly_ into the
+long sentence, as if it were of no great consequence; and above I have
+expressed my belief that Mr. Mill's equivocations on this subject are
+wilful. It is a grave accusation; but I cannot, by any stretch of
+charity, attribute these misrepresentations to absolute dulness and
+bluntness of brain, either in Mr. Mill or his follower, Mr. Fawcett.
+Mr. Mill is capable of immense involuntary error; but his involuntary
+errors are usually owing to his seeing only one or two of the many
+sides of a thing; not to obscure sight of the side he _does_ see. Thus
+his 'Essay on Liberty' only takes cognizance of facts that make for
+liberty, and of none that make for restraint. But in its statement of
+all that can be said for liberty, it is so clear and keen, that I have
+myself quoted it before now as the best authority on that side. And,
+if arguing in favor of Rent, absolutely, and with clear explanation of
+what it was, he had then defended it with all his might, I should have
+attributed to him only the honest shortsightedness of partisanship;
+but when I find his defining sentences full of subtle entanglement and
+reserve--and that reserve held throughout his treatment of this
+particular subject,--I cannot, whether I utter the suspicion or not,
+keep the sense of wilfulness in the misrepresentation from remaining
+in my mind. And if there be indeed ground for this blame, and Mr.
+Mill, for fear of fostering political agitation,[A] _has_ disguised
+what he knows to be the facts about rent, I would ask him as one of
+the leading members of the Jamaica Committee, which is the greater
+crime, boldly to sign warrant for the sudden death of one man, known
+to be an agitator, in the immediate outbreak of such agitation, or, by
+equivocation in a scientific work, to sign warrants for the deaths of
+thousands of men in slow misery, for _fear_ of an agitation which has
+not begun; and if begun, would be carried on by debate, not by the
+sword?
+
+ [A] With at last the natural consequences of
+ cowardice,--nitro-glycerine and fire-balls! Let the upper
+ classes speak the truth about themselves boldly, and they
+ will know how to defend themselves fearlessly. It is
+ equivocation in principle, and dereliction from duty, which
+ melt at last into tears in a mob's presence.--(Dec. 16th,
+ 1867.)
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV.
+
+THE OFFICE OF THE SOLDIER.
+
+
+ _April 22, 1867._
+
+158. I must once more deprecate your probable supposition that I bring
+forward this ideal plan of State government, either with any idea of
+its appearing, to our present public mind, practicable even at a
+remote period, or with any positive and obstinate adherence to the
+particular form suggested. There are no wiser words among the many
+wise ones of the most rational and keen-sighted of old English men of
+the world, than these:--
+
+ "For forms of government let fools contest;
+ That which is best administered is best."
+
+For, indeed, no form of government is of any use among bad men; and
+any form will work in the hands of the good; but the essence of all
+government among good men is this, that it is mainly occupied in the
+_production and recognition of human worth_, and in the detection and
+extinction of human unworthiness; and every Government which produces
+and recognizes worth, will also inevitably use the worth it has found
+to govern with; and therefore fall into some approximation to such a
+system as I have described. And, as I told you, I do not contend for
+names, nor particular powers--though I state those which seem to me
+most advisable; on the contrary, I know that the precise extent of
+authorities must be different in every nation at different times, and
+ought to be so, according to their circumstances and character; and
+all that I assert with confidence is the necessity, within afterwards
+definable limits, of _some such_ authorities as these; that is to say,
+
+159. I. An _observant_ one:--by which all men shall be looked after
+and taken note of.
+
+II. A _helpful_ one, from which those who need help may get it.
+
+III. A _prudential_ one, which shall not let people dig in wrong
+places for coal, nor make railroads where they are not wanted; and
+which shall also, with true providence, insist on their digging in
+right places for coal, in a safe manner, and making railroads where
+they _are_ wanted.
+
+IV. A _martial_ one, which will punish knaves and make idle persons
+work.
+
+V. An _instructive_ one, which shall tell everybody what it is their
+duty to know, and be ready pleasantly to answer questions if anybody
+asks them.
+
+VI. A _deliberate_ and _decisive_ one, which shall judge by law, and
+amend or make law;
+
+VII. An _exemplary_ one, which shall show what is loveliest in the art
+of life.
+
+You may divide or name those several offices as you will, or they may
+be divided in practice as expediency may recommend; the plan I have
+stated merely puts them all into the simplest forms and relations.
+
+160. You see I have just defined the martial power as that "which
+punishes knaves and makes idle persons work." For that is indeed the
+ultimate and perennial soldiership; that is the essential warrior's
+office to the end of time. "There is no discharge in that war." To the
+compelling of sloth, and the scourging of sin, the strong hand will
+have to address itself as long as this wretched little dusty and
+volcanic world breeds nettles, and spits fire. The soldier's office at
+present is indeed supposed to be the defense of his country against
+other countries; but that is an office which--Utopian as you may think
+the saying--will soon now be extinct. I say so fearlessly, though I
+say it with wide war threatened, at this moment, in the East and West.
+For observe what the standing of nations on their defense really
+means. It means that, but for such armed attitude, each of them would
+go and rob the other; that is to say, that the majority of active
+persons in every nation are at present--thieves. I am very sorry that
+this should still be so; but it will not be so long. National
+exhibitions, indeed, will not bring peace; but national education
+will, and that is soon coming. I can judge of this by my own mind, for
+I am myself naturally as covetous a person as lives in this world, and
+am as eagerly-minded to go and steal some things the French have got,
+as any housebreaker could be, having clue to attractive spoons. If I
+could by military incursion carry off Paul Veronese's "Marriage in
+Cana," and the "Venus Victrix," and the "Hours of St. Louis," it
+would give me the profoundest satisfaction to accomplish the foray
+successfully; nevertheless, being a comparatively educated person, I
+should most assuredly not give myself that satisfaction, though there
+were not an ounce of gunpowder, nor a bayonet, in all France. I have
+not the least mind to rob anybody, however much I may covet what they
+have got; and I know that the French and British public may and will,
+with many other publics, be at last brought to be of this mind also;
+and to see farther that a nation's real strength and happiness do not
+depend on properties and territories, nor on machinery for their
+defense; but on their getting such territory as they _have_, well
+filled with none but respectable persons. Which is a way of
+_infinitely_ enlarging one's territory, feasible to every potentate;
+and dependent no wise on getting Trent turned, or Rhine-edge reached.
+
+161. Not but that, in the present state of things, it may often be
+soldiers' duty to seize territory, and hold it strongly; but only from
+banditti, or savage and idle persons.
+
+Thus, both Calabria and Greece ought to have been irresistibly
+occupied long ago. Instead of quarreling with Austria about Venice,
+the Italians ought to have made a truce with her for ten years, on
+condition only of her destroying no monuments, and not taxing Italians
+more than Germans; and then thrown the whole force of their army on
+Calabria, shot down every bandit in it in a week, and forced the
+peasantry of it into honest work on every hill-side, with stout and
+immediate help from the soldiers in embanking streams, building walls,
+and the like; and Italian finance would have been a much pleasanter
+matter for the King to take account of by this time; and a fleet might
+have been floating under Garganus strong enough to sweep every hostile
+sail out of the Adriatic, instead of a disgraced and useless remnant
+of one, about to be put up to auction.
+
+And similarly, _we_ ought to have occupied Greece instantly, when they
+asked us, whether Russia liked it or not; given them an English king,
+made good roads for them, and stout laws; and kept them, and their
+hills and seas, with righteous shepherding of Arcadian fields, and
+righteous ruling of Salaminian wave, until they could have given
+themselves a Greek king of men again; and obeyed him, like men.
+
+
+ _April 24._
+
+162. It is strange that just before I finish work for this time, there
+comes the first real and notable sign of the victory of the principles
+I have been fighting for, these seven years. It is only a newspaper
+paragraph, but it means much. Look at the second column of the 11th
+page of yesterday's 'Pall Mall Gazette,' The paper has taken a
+wonderful fit of misprinting lately (unless my friend John Simon has
+been knighted on his way to Weimar, which would be much too right and
+good a thing to be a likely one); but its straws of talk mark which
+way the wind blows perhaps more early than those of any other
+journal--and look at the question it puts in that page, "Whether
+political economy be the sordid and materialistic science some
+account it, or almost the noblest on which thought can be employed?"
+Might not you as well have determined that question a little while
+ago, friend Public? and known what political economy _was_, before you
+talked so much about it?
+
+But, hark, again--"Ostentation, parental pride and a host of moral"
+(immoral?) "qualities must be recognized as among the springs of
+industry; political economy should not ignore these, but, to discuss
+them, _it must abandon its pretensions to the precision of a pure
+science_."
+
+163. Well done the 'Pall Mall'! Had it written "Prudence and parental
+affection," instead of "Ostentation and parental pride," "must be
+recognized among the springs of industry," it would have been still
+better; and it would then have achieved the expression of a part of
+the truth, which I put into clear terms in the first sentence of 'Unto
+this Last,' in the year 1862--which it has thus taken five years to
+get half way into the public's head.
+
+"Among the delusions which at different periods have possessed
+themselves of the minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the
+most curious--certainly the least creditable--is the modern
+_soi-disant_ science of political economy, based on the idea that an
+advantageous code of social action may be determined, irrespectively
+of the influence of social affection."
+
+Look also at the definition of skill, p. 87.
+
+"Under the term 'skill' I mean to include the united force of
+experience, intellect, and passion, in their operation on manual
+labor, and under the term 'passion' to include the entire range of the
+moral feelings."
+
+164. I say half way into the public's head, because you see, a few
+lines further on, the 'Pall Mall' hopes for a pause "half way between
+the rigidity of Ricardo and the sentimentality of Ruskin."
+
+With one hand on their pocket, and the other on their heart! Be it so
+for the present; we shall see how long this statuesque attitude can be
+maintained; meantime, it chances strangely--as several other things
+have chanced while I was writing these notes to you--that they should
+have put in that sneer (two lines before) at my note on the meaning of
+the Homeric and Platonic Sirens, at the very moment when I was
+doubting whether I would or would not tell you the significance of the
+last song of Ariel in 'The Tempest.'
+
+I had half determined not, but now I shall. And this was what brought
+me to think of it:--
+
+165. Yesterday afternoon I called on Mr. H. C. Sorby, to see some of
+the results of an inquiry he has been following all last year, into
+the nature of the coloring matter of leaves and flowers.
+
+You most probably have heard (at all events, may with little trouble
+hear) of the marvelous power which chemical analysis has received in
+recent discoveries respecting the laws of light.
+
+My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rainbow of the
+violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of forest
+leaves being born, and the rainbow of forest leaves dying.
+
+And, last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the
+three-hundredth part of a grain, dissolved in a drop of water; and it
+cast its measured bars, for ever recognizable now to human sight, on
+the chord of the seven colors. And no drop of that red rain can now be
+shed, so small as that the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice
+of it heard out of the ground.
+
+166. But the seeing these flower colors, and the iris of blood
+together with them, just while I was trying to gather into brief space
+the right laws of war, brought vividly back to me my dreaming fancy of
+long ago, that even the trees of the earth were "capable of a kind of
+sorrow, as they opened their innocent leaves in vain for men; and
+along the dells of England her beeches cast their dappled shades only
+where the outlaw drew his bow, and the king rode his careless chase;
+amidst the fair defiles of the Apennines, the twisted olive-trunks hid
+the ambushes of treachery, and on their meadows, day by day, the
+lilies, which were white at the dawn, were washed with crimson at
+sunset."
+
+And so also now this chance word of the daily journal, about the
+Sirens, brought to my mind the divine passage in the Cratylus of
+Plato, about the place of the dead.
+
+"And none of those who dwell there desire to depart thence,--no, not
+even the Sirens; but even they, the seducers, are there themselves
+beguiled, and they who lulled all men, themselves laid to rest--they,
+and all others--such sweet songs doth death know how to sing to them."
+
+So also the Hebrew.
+
+"And desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long home." For you
+know I told you the Sirens were not pleasures, but desires; being
+always represented in old Greek art as having human faces, with birds'
+wings and feet; and sometimes with eyes upon their wings; and there
+are not two more important passages in all literature, respecting the
+laws of labor and of life, than those two great descriptions of the
+Sirens in Homer and Plato,--the Sirens of death, and Sirens of eternal
+life, representing severally the earthly and heavenly desires of men;
+the heavenly desires singing to the motion of circles of the spheres,
+and the earthly on the rocks of fatalest shipwreck. A fact which may
+indeed be regarded "sentimentally," but it is also a profoundly
+important politico-economical one.
+
+And now for Shakespeare's song.
+
+167. You will find, if you look back to the analysis of it, given in
+'Munera Pulveris,' Sec. 134, that the whole play of 'The Tempest' is an
+allegorical representation of the powers of true, and therefore
+spiritual, Liberty, as opposed to true, and therefore carnal and
+brutal Slavery. There is not a sentence nor a rhyme, sung or uttered
+by Ariel or Caliban, throughout the play, which has not this
+under-meaning.
+
+168. Now the fulfilment of all human liberty is in the peaceful
+inheritance of the earth, with its "herb yielding seed, and fruit tree
+yielding fruit" after his kind; the pasture, or arable, land, and the
+blossoming, or wooded and fruited, land uniting the final elements of
+life and peace, for body and soul. Therefore, we have the two great
+Hebrew forms of benediction, "His eyes shall be red with wine, and his
+teeth white with milk," and again, "Butter and honey shall he eat,
+that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good." And as the
+work of war and sin has always been the devastation of this blossoming
+earth, whether by spoil or idleness, so the work of peace and virtue
+is also that of the first day of Paradise, to "Dress it and to keep
+it." And that will always be the song of perfectly accomplished
+Liberty, in her industry, and rest, and shelter from troubled thoughts
+in the calm of the fields, and gaining, by migration, the long
+summer's day from the shortening twilight:--
+
+ "Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;
+ In a cowslip's bell I lie;
+ There I couch when owls do cry.
+ On the bat's back I do fly
+ After summer merrily:
+ Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
+ Under the blossom that hangs on the bough."
+
+And the security of this treasure to all the poor, and not the ravage
+of it down the valleys of the Shenandoah, is indeed the true warrior's
+work. But, that they may be able to restrain vice rightly, soldiers
+must themselves be first in virtue; and that they may be able to
+compel labor sternly, they must themselves be first in toil, and their
+spears, like Jonathan's at Bethaven, enlighteners of the eyes.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV.
+
+OF INEVITABLE DISTINCTION OF RANK, AND NECESSARY SUBMISSION TO
+AUTHORITY. THE MEANING OF PURE-HEARTEDNESS. CONCLUSION.
+
+
+169. I was interrupted yesterday, just as I was going to set my
+soldiers to work; and to-day, here comes the pamphlet you promised me,
+containing the Debates about Church-going, in which I find so
+interesting a text for my concluding letter that I must still let my
+soldiers stand at ease for a little while. Look at its twenty-fifth
+page, and you will find, in the speech of Mr. Thomas, (carpenter,)
+this beautiful explanation of the admitted change in the general
+public mind, of which Mr. Thomas, for his part, highly approves, (the
+getting out of the unreasonable habit of paying respect to anybody.)
+There were many reasons to Mr. Thomas's mind why the working classes
+did not attend places of worship: one was, that "the parson was
+regarded as an object of reverence. In the little town he came from,
+if a poor man did not make a bow to the parson he was a marked man.
+This was no doubt wearing away to a great extent" (the base habit of
+making bows), "because, the poor man was beginning to get education,
+and to think for himself. It was only while the priest kept the press
+from him that he was kept ignorant, and was compelled to bow, as it
+were, to the parson.... It was the case all over England. The
+clergyman seemed to think himself something superior. Now he (Mr.
+Thomas) did not admit there was any inferiority" (laughter, audience
+throughout course of meeting mainly in the right), "except, perhaps,
+on the score of his having received a classical education, which the
+poor man could not get."
+
+Now, my dear friend, here is the element which is the veriest devil of
+all that have got into modern flesh; this infidelity of the nineteenth
+century St. Thomas in there being anything better than himself
+alive;[A] coupled, as it always is, with the farther resolution--if
+unwillingly convinced of the fact,--to seal the Better living thing
+down again out of his way, under the first stone handy. I had not
+intended, till we entered on the second section of our inquiry,
+namely, into the influence of gentleness (having hitherto, you see,
+been wholly concerned with that of justice), to give you the clue out
+of our dilemma about equalities produced by education; but by the
+speech of our superior carpenter, I am driven into it at once, and it
+is perhaps as well.
+
+ [A] Compare 'Crown of Wild Olive,' Sec. 136.
+
+170. The speech is not, observe, without its own root of truth at the
+bottom of it, nor at all, as I think, ill intended by the speaker; but
+you have in it a clear instance of what I was saying in the sixteenth
+of these letters,--that education _was desired by the lower orders
+because they thought it would make them upper orders_, and be a
+leveler and effacer of distinctions. They will be mightily astonished,
+when they really get it, to find that it is, on the contrary, the
+fatalest of all discerners and enforcers of distinctions; piercing,
+even to the division of the joints and marrow, to find out wherein
+your body and soul are less, or greater, than other bodies and souls,
+and to sign deed of separation with unequivocal seal.
+
+171. Education is, indeed, of all differences not divinely appointed,
+an instant effacer and reconciler. Whatever is undivinely poor, it
+will make rich; whatever is undivinely maimed, and halt, and blind, it
+will make whole, and equal, and seeing. The blind and the lame are to
+it as to David at the siege of the Tower of the Kings, "hated of
+David's soul." But there are other divinely-appointed differences,
+eternal as the ranks of the everlasting hills, and as the strength of
+their ceaseless waters. And these, education does _not_ do away with;
+but measures, manifests, and employs.
+
+In the handful of shingle which you gather from the sea-beach, which
+the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal foam, has only
+educated to be, every one, round, you will see little difference
+between the noble and mean stones. But the jeweler's trenchant
+education of them will tell you another story. Even the meanest will
+be better for it, but the noblest so much better that you can class
+the two together no more. The fair veins and colors are all clear now,
+and so stern is nature's intent regarding this, that not only will the
+polish show which is best, but the best will take most polish. You
+shall not merely see they have more virtue than the others, but see
+that more of virtue more clearly; and the less virtue there is, the
+more dimly you shall see what there is of it.
+
+172. And the law about education, which is sorrowfulest to vulgar
+pride, is this--that all its gains are at compound interest; so that,
+as our work proceeds, every hour throws us farther behind the greater
+men with whom we began on equal terms. Two children go to school hand
+in hand, and spell for half an hour over the same page. Through all
+their lives, never shall they spell from the same page more. One is
+presently a page ahead,--two pages, ten pages,--and evermore, though
+each toils equally, the interval enlarges--at birth nothing, at death,
+infinite.
+
+173. And by this you may recognize true education from false. False
+education is a delightful thing, and warms you, and makes you every
+day think more of yourself. And true education is a deadly cold thing
+with a Gorgon's head on her shield, and makes you every day think
+worse of yourself.
+
+Worse in two ways, also, more's the pity. It is perpetually increasing
+the personal sense of ignorance and the personal sense of fault. And
+this last is the truth which is at the bottom of the common
+evangelical notion about conversion, and which the Devil has got hold
+of, and hidden, until, instead of seeing and confessing personal
+ignorance and fault, as compared with the sense and virtue of others,
+people see nothing but corruption in human nature, and shelter their
+own sins under accusation of their race (the worst of all assertions
+of equality and fraternity). And so they avoid the blessed and
+strengthening pain of finding out wherein they are fools, as compared
+with other men, by calling everybody else a fool too; and avoid the
+pain of discerning their own faults, by vociferously claiming their
+share in the great capital of original sin.
+
+I must also, therefore, tell you here what properly ought to have
+begun the next following section of our subject--the point usually
+unnoticed in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
+
+174. First, have you ever observed that all Christ's main teachings,
+by direct order, by earnest parable, and by His own permanent emotion,
+regard the use and misuse of _money_? We might have thought, if we had
+been asked what a divine teacher was most likely to teach, that he
+would have left inferior persons to give directions about money; and
+himself spoken only concerning faith and love, and the discipline of
+the passions, and the guilt of the crimes of soul against soul. But
+not so. He speaks in general terms of these. But He does not speak
+parables about them for all men's memory, nor permit Himself fierce
+indignation against them, in all men's sight. The Pharisees bring Him
+an adulteress. He writes her forgiveness on the dust of which He had
+formed her. Another, despised of all for known sin, He recognized as a
+giver of unknown love. But He acknowledges no love in buyers and
+sellers in His house. One should have thought there were people in
+that house twenty times worse than they;--Caiaphas and his like--false
+priests, false prayer-makers, false leaders of the people--who needed
+putting to silence, or to flight, with darkest wrath. But the scourge
+is only against the _traffickers and thieves_. The two most intense of
+all the parables: the two which lead the rest in love and terror (this
+of the Prodigal, and of Dives), relate, both of them, to management of
+riches. The practical order given to the only seeker of advice, of
+whom it is recorded that Christ "loved him," is briefly about his
+property. "Sell that thou hast."
+
+And the arbitrament of the day of the Last Judgment is made to rest
+wholly, neither on belief in God, nor in any spiritual virtue in man,
+nor on freedom from stress of stormy crime, but on this only, "I was
+an hungered and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me; sick, and
+ye came unto me."
+
+175. Well, then, the first thing I want you to notice in the parable
+of the Prodigal Son (and the last thing which people usually _do_
+notice in it), is--that it is about a Prodigal! He begins by asking
+for his share of his father's goods; he gets it, carries it off, and
+wastes it. It is true that he wastes it in riotous living, but you are
+not asked to notice in what kind of riot; he spends it with
+harlots--but it is not the harlotry which his elder brother accuses
+him of mainly, but of having devoured his father's living. Nay, it is
+not the sensual life which he accuses himself of--or which the manner
+of his punishment accuses him of. But the _wasteful_ life. It is not
+said that he had become debauched in soul, or diseased in body, by his
+vice; but that at last he would fain have filled his belly with husks,
+and could not. It is not said that he was struck with remorse for the
+consequences of his evil passions, but only that he remembered there
+was bread enough and to spare, even for the servants, at home.
+
+Now, my friend, do not think I want to extenuate sins of passion
+(though, in very truth, the sin of Magdalene is a light one compared
+to that of Judas); but observe, sins of passion, if of _real_ passion,
+are often the errors and backfalls of noble souls; but prodigality is
+mere and pure selfishness, and essentially the sin of an ignoble or
+undeveloped creature; and I would rather, ten times rather, hear of a
+youth that (certain degrees of temptation and conditions of resistance
+being understood) he had fallen into any sin you chose to name, of all
+the mortal ones, than that he was in the habit of running bills which
+he could not pay.
+
+Farther, though I hold that the two crowning and most accursed sins of
+the society of this present day are the carelessness with which it
+regards the betrayal of women, and the brutality with which it suffers
+the neglect of children, both these head and chief crimes, and all
+others, are rooted first in abuse of the laws, and neglect of the
+duties concerning wealth. And thus the love of money, with the
+parallel (and, observe, _mathematically commensurate_ looseness in
+management of it), the "mal tener," followed necessarily by the "mal
+dare," is, indeed, the root of all evil.
+
+176. Then, secondly, I want you to note that when the prodigal comes
+to his senses, he complains of nobody but himself, and speaks of no
+unworthiness but his own. He says nothing against any of the women
+who tempted him--nothing against the citizen who left him to feed on
+husks--nothing of the false friends of whom "no man gave unto
+him"--above all, nothing of the "corruption of human nature," or the
+corruption of things in general. He says that _he himself_ is
+unworthy, as distinguished from honorable persons, and that _he
+himself_ has sinned, as distinguished from righteous persons. And
+_that_ is the hard lesson to learn, and the beginning of faithful
+lessons. All right and fruitful humility, and purging of heart, and
+seeing of God, is in that. It is easy to call yourself the chief of
+sinners, expecting every sinner round you to decline--or return--the
+compliment; but learn to measure the real degrees of your own relative
+baseness, and to be ashamed, not in heaven's sight, but in man's
+sight; and redemption is indeed begun. Observe the phrase, I have
+sinned "_against_ heaven," against the great law of that, and _before_
+thee, visibly degraded before my human sire and guide, unworthy any
+more of being esteemed of his blood, and desirous only of taking the
+place I deserve among his servants.
+
+177. Now, I do not doubt but that I shall set many a reader's teeth on
+edge by what he will think my carnal and material rendering of this
+"beautiful" parable. But I am just as ready to spiritualize it as he
+is, provided I am sure first that we understand it. If we want to
+understand the parable of the sower, we must first think of it as of
+literal husbandry; if we want to understand the parable of the
+prodigal, we must first understand it as of literal prodigality. And
+the story has also for us a precious lesson in this literal sense of
+it, namely this, which I have been urging upon you throughout these
+letters, that all redemption must begin in subjection and in the
+recovery of the sense of Fatherhood and authority, as all ruin and
+desolation begin in the loss of that sense. The lost son began by
+claiming his rights. He is found when he resigns them. He is lost by
+flying from his father, when his father's authority was only paternal.
+He is found by returning to his father, and desiring that his
+authority may be absolute, as over a hired stranger.
+
+And this is the practical lesson I want to leave with you, and all
+other working men.
+
+178. You are on the eve of a great political crisis; and every rascal
+with a tongue in his head will try to make his own stock out of you.
+Now this is the test you must try them with. Those that say to you,
+"Stand up for your rights--get your division of living--be sure that
+you are as well off as others, and have what they have!--don't let any
+man dictate to you--have not you all a right to your opinion?--are you
+not all as good as everybody else?--let us have no governors, or
+fathers--let us all be free and alike." Those, I say, who speak thus
+to you, take Nelson's rough order for--and hate them as you do the
+Devil, for they _are_ his ambassadors. But those, the few, who have
+the courage to say to you, "My friends, you and I, and all of us, have
+somehow got very wrong; we've been hardly treated, certainly; but here
+we are in a piggery, mainly by our own fault, hungry enough, and for
+ourselves, anything but respectable: we _must_ get out of this; there
+are certainly laws we may learn to live by, and there are wiser people
+than we are in the world, and kindly ones, if we can find our way to
+them; and an infinitely wise and kind Father, above all of them and
+us, if we can but find our way to _Him_, and ask Him to take us for
+servants, and put us to any work He will, so that we may never leave
+Him more." The people who will say that to you, and (for by _no_
+saying, but by their fruits, only, you shall finally know them) who
+are themselves orderly and kindly, and do their own business
+well,--take _those_ for your guides, and trust them; on ice and rock
+alike, tie yourselves well together with them, and with much scrutiny,
+and cautious walking (perhaps nearly as much back as forward, at
+first), you will verily get off the glacier, and into meadow land, in
+God's time.
+
+179. I meant to have written much to you respecting the meaning of
+that word "hired servants," and to have gone on to the duties of
+soldiers, for you know "Soldier" means a person who is paid to fight
+with regular pay--literally with "soldi" or "sous"--the "penny a day"
+of the vineyard laborers; but I can't now: only just this much, that
+our whole system of work must be based on the nobleness of
+soldiership--so that we shall all be soldiers of either plowshare or
+sword; and literally all our actual and professed soldiers, whether
+professed for a time only, or for life, must be kept to hard work of
+hand, when not in actual war; their honor consisting in being set to
+service of more pain and danger than others; to life-boat service; to
+redeeming of ground from furious rivers or sea--or mountain ruin; to
+subduing wild and unhealthy land, and extending the confines of
+colonies in the front of miasm and famine, and savage races.
+
+And much of our harder home work must be done in a kind of
+soldiership, by bands of trained workers sent from place to place and
+town to town; doing, with strong and sudden hand, what is needed for
+help, and setting all things in more prosperous courses for the
+future.
+
+Of all which I hope to speak in its proper place after we know what
+offices the higher arts of gentleness have among the lower ones of
+force, and how their prevalence may gradually change spear to
+pruning-hook, over the face of all the earth.
+
+180. And now--but one word more--either for you, or any other readers
+who may be startled at what I have been saying, as to the peculiar
+stress laid by the Founder of our religion on right dealing with
+wealth. Let them be assured that it is with no fortuitous choice among
+the attributes or powers of evil, that "Mammon" is assigned for the
+direct adversary of the Master whom they are bound to serve. You
+cannot, by any artifice of reconciliation, be God's soldier, and his.
+Nor while the desire of gain is within your heart, can any true
+knowledge of the Kingdom of God come there. No one shall enter its
+stronghold,--no one receive its blessing, except, "he that hath clean
+hands and a pure heart;" clean hands that have done no cruel
+deed,--pure heart, that knows no base desire. And, therefore, in the
+highest spiritual sense that can be given to words, be assured, not
+respecting the literal temple of stone and gold, but of the living
+temple of your body and soul, that no redemption, nor teaching, nor
+hallowing, will be anywise possible for it, until these two verses
+have been, for it also, fulfilled:--
+
+"And He went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold
+therein, and them that bought. And He taught daily in the temple."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDICES.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX I.
+
+Page 21.--_Expenditure on Science and Art._
+
+
+The following is the passage referred to. The fact it relates is so
+curious, and so illustrative of our national interest in science, that
+I do not apologize for the repetition:--
+
+"Two years ago there was a collection of the fossils of Solenhofen to
+be sold in Bavaria; the best in existence, containing many specimens
+unique for perfectness, and one, unique as an example of a species (a
+whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being announced by that
+fossil). This collection, of which the mere market worth, among
+private buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve
+hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven hundred:
+but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would have
+been in the Munich museum at this moment, if Professor Owen[A] had
+not, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British
+public in the person of its representatives, got leave to give four
+hundred pounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other
+three!--which the said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but
+sulkily, and caring nothing about the matter all the while; only
+always ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of
+you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your annual expenditure for
+public purposes (a third of it for military apparatus) is at least
+fifty millions. Now seven hundred pounds is to fifty million pounds,
+roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose, then, a
+gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was to be conjectured
+from the fact that he spent two thousand a year on his park walls and
+footmen only, professes himself fond of science; and that one of his
+servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique collection of
+fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is to be had for the
+sum of sevenpence sterling; and that the gentleman who is fond of
+science, and spends two thousand a year on his park, answers, after
+keeping his servant waiting several months, 'Well, I'll give you
+fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra threepence
+yourself till next year.'"
+
+ [A] I originally stated this fact without Professor Owen's
+ permission; which, of course, he could not with propriety
+ have granted, had I asked it; but I considered it so
+ important that the public should be aware of the fact, that I
+ did what seemed to me right, though rude.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+Page 33.--_Legislation of Frederick the Great._
+
+
+The following are the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters referred to:--
+
+"Well, I am now busy with Frederick the Great; I am not now astonished
+that Carlyle calls him Great, neither that this work of his should
+have had such a sad effect upon him in producing it, when I see the
+number of volumes he must have had to wade through to produce such a
+clear terse set of utterances; and yet I do not feel the work as a
+book likely to do a reader of it the good that some of his other books
+will do. It is truly awful to read these battles after battles, lies
+after lies, called Diplomacy; it's fearful to read all this, and one
+wonders how he that set himself to this--He, of all men--could have
+the rare patience to produce such a labored, heart-rending piece of
+work. Again, when one reads of the stupidity, the shameful waste of
+our moneys by our forefathers, to see our National Debt (the curse to
+our labor now, the millstone to our commerce, to our fair chance of
+competition in our day) thus created, and for what? Even Carlyle
+cannot tell; then how are we to tell? Now, who will deliver us? that
+is the question; who will help us in these days of _idle or no work_,
+while our foreign neighbors have plenty and are actually selling their
+produce to our men of capital cheaper than we can make it? House-rent
+getting dearer, taxes getting dearer, rates, clothing, food, etc. Sad
+times, my master, do seem to have fallen upon us. And the cause of
+nearly all this lies embedded in that Frederick; and yet, so far as I
+know of it, no critic has yet given an exposition of such laying
+there. For our behoof, is there no one that will take this, that there
+lies so woven in with much other stuff so sad to read, to any man that
+does not believe man was made to fight alone, to be a butcher of his
+fellow-man? Who will do this work, or piece of work, so that all who
+care may know how it is that our debt grew so large, and a great deal
+more that we ought to know?--that clearly is one great reason why the
+book was written and was printed. Well, I hope some day all this will
+be clear to our people, and some man or men will arise and sweep us
+clear of these hindrances, these sad drawbacks to the vitality of our
+work in this world."
+
+
+ "57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 7, 1867.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--
+
+"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of two letters as additions to your
+books, which I have read with deep interest, and shall take care of
+them, and read them over again, so that I may thoroughly comprehend
+them, and be able to think of them for future use. I myself am not
+fully satisfied with our co-operation, and never have been; it is too
+much tinged with the very elements that they complain of in our
+present systems of trade--selfishness. I have for years been trying to
+direct the attention of the editor of the _Co-operator_ to such evils
+that I see in it. Now further, I may state that I find you and Carlyle
+seem to agree quite on the idea of the _Masterhood_ qualification.
+There again I find you both feel and write as all working men consider
+just. I can assure you there is not an honest, noble working man that
+would not by far serve under such _master_-hood, than be the employe
+or workman of a co-operative store. Working men do not as a rule make
+good masters; neither do they treat each other with that courtesy as a
+noble master treats his working man. George Fox shadows forth some
+such treatment that Friends ought to make law and guidance for their
+working men and slaves, such as you speak of in your letters. I will
+look the passage up, as it is quite to the point, so far as I now
+remember it. In Vol. VI. of _Frederick the Great_, I find a great deal
+there that I feel quite certain, if our Queen or Government could make
+law, thousands of English working men would hail it with such a shout
+of joy and gladness as would astonish the Continental world. These
+changes suggested by Carlyle and placed before the thinkers of
+England, are the noblest, the truest utterances on real kinghood, that
+I have ever read; the more I think over them, the more I feel the
+truth, the justness, and also the fitness of them, to our nation's
+present dire necessities; yet this is the man, and these are the
+thoughts of his, that our critics seem never to see, or if seen, don't
+think worth printing or in any way wisely directing the attention of
+the public thereto, alas! All this and much more fills me with such
+sadness that I am driven almost to despair. I see from the newspapers,
+Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other places are sternly endeavoring to
+carry out the short time movement until such times as trade revives,
+and I find the masters and men seem to adopt it with a good grace and
+friendly spirit. I also beg to inform you I see a Mr. Morley, a large
+manufacturer at Nottingham, has been giving pensions to all his old
+workmen. I hope such a noble example will be followed by other wealthy
+masters. It would do more to make a master loved, honored, and cared
+for, than thousands of pounds expended in other ways. The Government
+Savings Banks is one of the wisest acts of late years done by our
+Government. I, myself, often wish the Government held all our banks
+instead of private men; that would put an end to false speculations,
+such as we too often in the provinces suffer so severely by, so I hail
+with pleasure and delight the shadowing forth by you of these noble
+plans for the future: I feel glad and uplifted to think of the good
+that such teaching will do for us all.
+
+ "Yours truly,
+ "THOMAS DIXON."
+
+
+ "57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 24, 1867.
+
+"DEAR SIR,--
+
+"I now give you the references to _Frederick the Great_. Vol. VI.:
+Land Question, 365 page, where he increases the number of small
+farmers to 4,000 (202, 204). English soldiers and T. C.'s remarks on
+our system of purchase, etc. His law, (620, 623, 624). State of Poland
+and how he repaired it, (487, 488, 489, 490). I especially value the
+way he introduced all kinds of industries therein, and so soon changed
+the chaos into order. Again, the school-masters also are given (not
+yet in England, says T. C.). Again the use he made of 15,000_l._
+surplus in Brandenburg; how it was applied to better his staff of
+masters. To me, the Vol. VI. is one of the wisest pieces of modern
+thought in our language. I only wish I had either your power, C.
+Kingsley, Maurice, or some such able pen-generalship, to illustrate
+and show forth all the wise teaching on law, government, and social
+life I see in it, and shining like a star through all its pages.[A] I
+feel also the truth of all you have written, and will do all I can to
+make such men or women that care for such thoughts, see it, or read
+it. I am copying the letters as fast and as well as I can, and will
+use my utmost endeavor to have them done that justice to they merit.
+
+ "Yours truly,
+ "THOMAS DIXON."
+
+ [A] I have endeavored to arrange some of the passages to
+ which Mr. Dixon here refers, in a form enabling the reader to
+ see their bearing on each other more distinctly, as a sequel
+ to the essay on War in the 'Crown of Wild Olive.'
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX III.
+
+Page 33.--_Effect of Modern Entertainments on the Mind of Youth._
+
+
+The letter of the _Times'_ correspondent referred to contained an
+account of one of the most singular cases of depravity ever brought
+before a criminal court; but it is unnecessary to bring any of its
+details under the reader's attention, for nearly every other number of
+our journals has of late contained some instances of atrocities before
+unthought of, and, it might have seemed, impossible to humanity.
+The connection of these with the modern love of excitement in the
+sensational novel and drama may not be generally understood, but it is
+direct and constant; all furious pursuit of pleasure ending in actual
+desire of horror and delight in death. I entered into some fuller
+particulars on this subject in a lecture given in the spring at the
+Royal Institution.
+
+[Any part of the Lecture referred to likely to be of permanent
+interest will be printed, somewhere, in this series.]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX IV.
+
+Page 76.--_Drunkenness as the Cause of Crime._
+
+
+The following portions of Mr. Dixon's letter referred to, will be
+found interesting:--
+
+
+"DEAR SIR,--
+
+"Your last letter, I think, will arouse the attention of thinkers more
+than any of the series, it being on topics they in general feel more
+interested in than the others, especially as in these you do not
+assail their pockets so much as in the former ones. Since you seem
+interested with the notes or rough sketches on gin, G * * * of Dublin
+was the man I alluded to as making his money by drink, and then giving
+the results of such traffic to repair the Cathedral of Dublin. It was
+thousands of pounds. I call such charity robbing Peter to pay Paul!
+Immense fortunes are made in the _Liquor Traffic_, and I will tell you
+why; it is all paid for in cash, at least such as the poor people buy;
+they get credit for clothes, butchers' meat, groceries, etc., while
+they give the gin-palace keeper _cash_; they never begrudge the price
+of a glass of gin or beer, they never haggle over _its_ price, never
+once think of doing that; but in the purchase of almost every other
+article they haggle and begrudge its price. To give you an idea of its
+profits--there are houses here whose average weekly takings in cash at
+their bars is 50_l._, 60_l._, 70_l._, 80_l._, 90l_._, to 150_l._, per
+week. Nearly all the men of intelligence in it, say it is the curse of
+the working classes. Men whose earnings are, say 20_s._ to 30_s._ per
+week, spend on the average 3_s._ to 6_s._ per week (some even 10_s._).
+It's my mode of living to supply these houses with corks that makes me
+see so much of the drunkenness; and that is the cause why I never
+really cared for _my trade_, seeing the misery that was entailed on my
+fellow men and women by the use of this stuff. Again, a house with a
+license to sell spirits, wine, and ale, to be consumed on the
+premises, is worth two to three times more money than any other class
+of property. One house here worth nominally 140_l._ sold the other day
+for 520_l._; another one worth 200_l._ sold for 800_l._ I know
+premises with a license that were sold for 1,300_l._, and then sold
+again two years after for 1,800_l._; another place was rented for
+50_l._, now rents at 100_l._--this last is a house used by working men
+and laborers chiefly! No, I honor men like _Sir W. Trevelyan_, that
+are teetotalers, or total abstainers, as an example to poor men, and,
+to prevent his work-people being tempted, will not allow any
+public-house on his estate. If our land had a few such men it would
+help the cause. We possess one such a man here, a banker. I feel sorry
+to say the progress of temperance is not so great as I would like to
+see it. The only religious body that approaches to your ideas of
+political economy is Quakerism as taught by George Fox. Carlyle seems
+deeply tinged with their teachings. _Silence_ to them is as valuable
+to him. Again, why should people howl and shriek over the law that the
+Alliance is now trying to carry out in our land called the Permissive
+Bill? If we had just laws we then would not be so miserable or so much
+annoyed now and then with cries of Reform and cries of Distress. I
+send you two pamphlets;--one gives the working man's reasons why he
+don't go to church; in it you will see a few opinions expressed very
+much akin to those you have written to me. The other gives an account
+how it is the poor Indians have died of _Famine_, simply because they
+have destroyed the very system of Political Economy, or one having
+some approach to it, that you are now endeavoring to direct the
+attention of thinkers to in our country. The _Sesame and Lilies_ I
+have read as you requested. I feel now fully the aim and object you
+have in view in the Letters, but I cannot help directing your
+attention to that portion where you mention or rather exclaim against
+the Florentines pulling down their _Ancient Walls_ to build a
+_Boulevard_. That passage is one that would gladden the hearts of all
+true _Italians_, especially men that love _Italy and Dante_!"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX V.
+
+Page 78.--_Abuse of Food._
+
+
+Paragraphs cut from 'Manchester Examiner' of March 16, 1867:--
+
+
+"A PARISIAN CHARACTER.--A celebrated character has disappeared from
+the Palais Royal. Rene Lartique was a Swiss, and a man of about sixty.
+He actually spent the last fifteen years in the Palais Royal--that is
+to say, he spent the third of his life at dinner. Every morning at ten
+o'clock he was to be seen going into a restaurant (usually Tissat's),
+and in a few moments was installed in a corner, which he only quitted
+about three o'clock in the afternoon, after having drunk at least six
+or seven bottles of different kinds of wine. He then walked up and
+down the garden till the clock struck five, when he made his
+appearance again at the same restaurant, and always at the same place.
+His second meal, at which he drank quite as much as at the first,
+invariably lasted till half-past nine. Therefore, he devoted nine
+hours a day to eating and drinking. His dress was most wretched--his
+shoes broken, his trousers torn, his paletot without any lining and
+patched, his waistcoat without buttons, his hat a rusty red from old
+age, and the whole surmounted by a dirty white beard. One day he went
+up to the _comptoir_, and asked the presiding divinity there to allow
+him to run in debt for one day's dinner. He perceived some hesitation
+in complying with the request, and immediately called one of the
+waiters, and desired him to follow him. He went into the office,
+unbuttoned a certain indispensable garment, and, taking off a broad
+leather belt, somewhat startled the waiter by displaying two hundred
+gold pieces, each worth one hundred francs. Taking up one of them, he
+tossed it to the waiter, and desired him to pay whatever he owed. He
+never again appeared at that restaurant, and died a few days ago of
+indigestion."
+
+
+"REVENGE IN A BALL-ROOM.--A distressing event lately took place at
+Castellaz, a little commune of the Alpes-Maritimes, near Mentone. All
+the young people of the place being assembled in a dancing-room, one
+of the young men was seen to fall suddenly to the ground, whilst a
+young woman, his partner, brandished a poniard, and was preparing to
+inflict a second blow on him, having already desperately wounded him
+in the stomach. The author of the crime was at once arrested. She
+declared her name to be Marie P----, twenty-one years of age, and
+added that she had acted from a motive of revenge, the young man
+having led her astray formerly with a promise of marriage, which he
+had never fulfilled. In the morning of that day she had summoned him
+to keep his word, and, upon his refusal, had determined on making the
+dancing-room the scene of her revenge. She was at first locked up in
+the prison of Mentone, and afterwards sent on to Nice. The young man
+continues in an alarming state."
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX VI.
+
+Page 94.--_Regulations of Trade._
+
+
+I print portions of two letters of Mr. Dixon's in this place; one
+referring to our former discussion respecting the sale of votes:--
+
+
+ "57, Nile Street, Sunderland, March 21, 1867.
+
+"I only wish I could write in some tolerable good style, so that I
+could idealize, or rather realize to folks, the life and love, and
+marriage of a working man and his wife. It is in my opinion a working
+man that really does know what a true wife is, for his every want, his
+every comfort in life depends on her; and his children's home, their
+daily lives and future lives, are shaped by her. Napoleon wisely said,
+'France needs good mothers more than brave men. Good mothers are the
+makers or shapers of good and brave men.' I cannot say that these are
+the words, but it is the import of his speech on the topic. We have a
+saying amongst us: 'The man may spend and money lend, if his wife be
+_ought_,'--_i. e._ good wife;--'but he may work and try to save, but
+will have _nought_, if his wife be nought,'--_i. e._ bad or thriftless
+wife.
+
+"Now, since you are intending to treat of the working man's parliament
+and its duties, I will just throw out a few suggestions of what I
+consider should be the questions or measures that demand an early
+inquiry into and debate on. That guilds be established in every town,
+where masters and men may meet, so as to avoid the temptations of the
+public-house and _drink_. And then, let it be made law that every lad
+should serve an apprenticeship of not less than seven years to a trade
+or art, before he is allowed to be a member of such guild; also, that
+all wages be based on a rate of so much _per hour_, and not day, as at
+present; and let every man prove his workmanship before such a guild,
+and then allow to him such payment per hour as his craft merits. Let
+there be three grades, and then let there be trials of skill in
+workmanship every year; and then, if the workman of the third grade
+prove that he has made progress in his craft, reward him accordingly.
+Then, before a lad is put to any trade, why not see what he is
+naturally fitted for? Combe's book, entitled _The Constitution of
+Man_, throws a good deal of truth on to these matters. Now, here are
+two branches of the science of life that, so far, have never once been
+given trial of in this way. We certainly use them after a _crime_ has
+been committed, but not till then.
+
+"Next to that, cash, payment for all and everything needed in life.
+_Credit is a curse_ to him that gives it, and that takes it. He that
+lives by credit lives in general carelessly. If there was no credit,
+people then would have to live on what they earned! Then, after that,
+the Statute of Limitations of Fortune you propose. By the hour system,
+not a single man _need be idle_; it would give employment to all, and
+even two hours per day would realize more to a man than _breaking
+stones_. Thus you would make every one self-dependent--also no fear of
+being out of work altogether. Then let there be a Government fund for
+all the savings of the working man. I am afraid you will think this a
+wild, discursive sort of a letter.
+
+ "Yours truly,
+ "THOMAS DIXON."
+
+
+"I have read your references to the _Times_ on 'Bribery.' Well, that
+has long been my own opinion; they simply have a vote to sell, and
+sell it the same way as they sell potatoes, or a coat, or any other
+salable article. Voters generally say, 'What does this gentleman want
+in Parliament? Why, to help himself and his family or friends; he does
+not spend all the money he spends over his election for pure good of
+his country! No: it's to benefit his pocket, to be sure. Why should I
+not make a penny with my vote, as well as he does with his in
+Parliament?' I think that if the system of canvassing or election
+agents were done away with, and all personal canvassing for votes
+entirely abolished, it would help to put down bribery. Let each
+gentleman send to the electors his political opinions in a circular,
+and then let papers be sent, or cards, to each elector, and then let
+them go and record their votes in the same way they do for a
+councillor in the Corporation. It would save a great deal of expense,
+and prevent those scenes of drunkenness so common in our towns during
+elections. _Bewick's opinions_ of these matters are quite to the
+purpose, I think (_see page 201 of Memoir_). Again, respecting the
+Paris matter referred to in your last letter, I have read it. Does it
+not manifest plainly enough that Europeans are also in a measure
+possessed with that same _demoniacal spirit like the Japanese_?"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX VII.
+
+
+The following letter did not form part of the series written to Mr.
+Dixon; but is perhaps worth reprinting. I have not the date of the
+number of the _Gazette_ in which it appeared, but it was during the
+tailors' strike in London.
+
+
+ "TO THE EDITOR OF THE _Pall Mall Gazette_.
+
+"Sir,--
+
+"In your yesterday's article on strikes you have very neatly and
+tersely expressed the primal fallacy of modern political economy--to
+wit, that 'the value of any piece of labor cannot be defined'--and
+that 'all that can be ascertained is simply whether any man can be got
+to do it for a certain sum.' Now, sir, the 'value' of any piece of
+labor, that is to say, the quantity of food and air which will enable
+a man to perform it without losing actually any of his flesh or his
+nervous energy, is as absolutely fixed a quantity as the weight of
+powder necessary to carry a given ball a given distance. And within
+limits varying by exceedingly minor and unimportant circumstances, it
+is an ascertainable quantity. I told the public this five years
+ago--and under pardon of your politico-economical contributors--it is
+not a 'sentimental,' but a chemical fact.
+
+"Let any half-dozen of recognized London physicians state in precise
+terms the quantity and kind of food, and space of lodging, they
+consider approximately necessary for the healthy life of a laborer in
+any given manufacture, and the number of hours he may, without
+shortening his life, work at such business daily, if so sustained.
+
+"And let all masters be bound to give their men a choice between an
+order for that quantity of food and lodging, or such wages as the
+market may offer for that number of hours' work.
+
+"Proper laws for the maintenance of families would require further
+concession--but, in the outset, let but _this_ law of wages be
+established, and if then we have any more strikes you may denounce
+them without one word of remonstrance either from sense or
+sensibility.
+
+ "I am, Sir,
+ "Your obedient servant,
+ "JOHN RUSKIN."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne, by John Ruskin
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