‘As the stars, for ever.’ Perhaps we had better not say that,—modern
science looking pleasantly forward to the extinction of a good many of
them. But it will be well to shine like them, if but for a little
while.
You probably did not understand why, in a former letter, the Squire’s
special duty towards the peasant was said to be “presenting a celestial
appearance to him.”
That is, indeed, his appointed missionary work; and still more
definitely, his wife’s.
The giving of loaves is indeed the lady’s first duty; the first, but
the least.
Next, comes the giving of brooches;—seeing that her people are dressed
charmingly and neatly, as well as herself, and have pretty furniture,
like herself. [57]
But her chief duty of all—is to be, Herself, lovely.
“That through her smocke, wrought with silk,
The flesh be seen as white as milke.” [58]
Flesh, ladies mine, you observe; and not any merely illuminated
resemblance of it, after the fashion of the daughter of Ethbaal. It is
your duty to be lovely, not by candlelight, but sunshine; not out of a
window or opera-box, but on the bare ground.
Which that you may be,—if through the smocke the flesh, then, much
more, through the flesh, the spirit, must be seen “as white as milke.”
I have just been drawing, or trying to draw, Giotto’s ‘Poverty’ (Sancta
Paupertas) at Assisi. You may very likely know the chief symbolism of
the picture: that Poverty is being married to St. Francis, and that
Christ marries them, while her bare feet are entangled in thorns, but
behind her head is a thicket of rose and lily. It is less likely you
should be acquainted with the farther details of the group.
The thorns are of the acacia, which, according to tradition, was used
to weave Christ’s crown. The roses are in two clusters,—palest red,
[59] and deep crimson; the one on her right, the other on her left;
above her head, pure white on the golden ground, rise the Annunciation
Lilies. She is not crowned with them, observe; they are behind her: she
is crowned only with her own hair, wreathed in a tress with which she
had bound her short bridal veil. For dress, she has—her smocke only;
and that torn, and torn again, and patched, diligently; except just at
the shoulders, and a little below the throat, where Giotto has torn it,
too late for her to mend; and the fair flesh is seen through, so white
that one cannot tell where the rents are, except when quite close.
For girdle, she has the Franciscan’s cord; but that also is white, as
if spun of silk; her whole figure, like a statue of snow, seen against
the shade of her purple wings: for she is already one of the angels. A
crowd of them, on each side, attend her; two, her sisters, are her
bridesmaids also. Giotto has written their names above them—Spes;
Karitas;—their sister’s Christian name he has written in the lilies,
for those of us who have truly learned to read. Charity is crowned with
white roses, which burst, as they open, into flames; and she gives the
bride a marriage gift.
“An apple,” say the interpreters.
Not so. It was some one else than Charity who gave the first bride that
gift. It is a heart.
Hope only points upwards; and while Charity has the golden nimbus round
her head circular (infinite), like that of Christ and the eternal
angels, she has her glory set within the lines that limit the cell of
the bee,—hexagonal.
And the bride has hers, also, so restricted: nor, though she and her
bridesmaids are sisters, are they dressed alike; but one in red; and
one in green; and one, robe, flesh and spirit, a statue of Snow.
“La terza parea neve, teste mossa.”
Do you know now, any of you, ladies mine, what Giotto’s lilies mean
between the roses? or how they may also grow among the Sesame of
knightly spears?
Not one of you, maid or mother, though I have besought you these four
years, (except only one or two of my personal friends,) has joined St.
George’s Company. You probably think St. George may advise some
different arrangements in Hanover Square? It is possible; for his own
knight’s cloak is white, and he may wish you to bear such celestial
appearance constantly. You talk often of bearing Christ’s cross; do you
never think of putting on Christ’s robes,—those that He wore on Tabor?
nor know what lamps they were which the wise virgins trimmed for the
marriage feast? You think, perhaps, you can go in to that feast in
gowns made half of silk, and half of cotton, spun in your Lancashire
cotton-mills; and that the Americans have struck oil enough—(lately, I
observe also, native gas,)—to supply any number of belated virgins?
It is not by any means so, fair ladies. It is only your newly adopted
Father who tells you so. Suppose, learning what it is to be generous,
you recover your descent from God, and then weave your household
dresses white with your own fingers? For as no fuller on earth can
white them, but the light of a living faith,—so no demon under the
earth can darken them like the shadow of a dead one. And your modern
English ‘faith without works’ is dead; and would to God she were buried
too, for the stench of her goes up to His throne from a thousand fields
of blood. Weave, I say,—you have trusted far too much lately to the
washing,—your household raiment white; go out in the morning to Ruth’s
field, to sow as well as to glean; sing your Te Deum, at evening,
thankfully, as God’s daughters,—and there shall be no night there, for
your light shall so shine before men that they may see your good works,
and glorify—not Baal the railroad accident—but
“L’Amor che muove il Sole, e l’altre stelle.”