A. Letting in light where there was darkness; as especially into poor
rooms and back streets; and generally guiding and administering the
sunshine wherever we can, by all the means in our power.
And the correspondent Diabolic work is putting a tax on windows, and
blocking out the sun’s light with smoke.
B. Disciplining the falling waters. In the Divine work, this is the
ordinance of clouds; [62] in the human it is properly putting the
clouds to service; and first stopping the rain where they carry it from
the sea, and then keeping it pure as it goes back to the sea again.
And the correspondent Diabolic work is the arrangement of land so as to
throw all the water back to the sea as fast as we can; [63] and putting
every sort of filth into the stream as it runs.
C. The separation of earth from water, and planting it with trees. The
correspondent human work is especially clearing morasses, and planting
desert ground.
The Dutch, in a small way, in their own country, have done a good deal
with sand and tulips; also the North Germans. But the most beautiful
type of the literal ordinance of dry land in water is the State of
Venice, with her sea-canals, restrained, traversed by their bridges,
and especially bridges of the Rivo Alto, or High Bank, which are, or
were till a few years since, symbols of the work of a true
Pontifex,—the Pontine Marshes being the opposite symbol.
The correspondent Diabolic work is turning good land and water into
mud; and cutting down trees that we may drive steam ploughs, etc., etc.
D. The establishment of times and seasons. The correspondent human work
is a due watching of the rise and set of stars, and course of the sun;
and due administration and forethought of our own annual labours,
preparing for them in hope, and concluding them in joyfulness,
according to the laws and gifts of Heaven. Which beautiful order is set
forth in symbols on all lordly human buildings round the semicircular
arches which are types of the rise and fall of days and years.
And the correspondent Diabolic work is turning night into day with
candles, so that we never see the stars; and mixing the seasons up one
with another, and having early strawberries, and green pease and the
like.
E. Filling the waters with fish, and air with birds. The correspondent
human work is Mr. Frank Buckland’s and the like,—of which ‘like’ I am
thankful to have been permitted to do a small piece near Croydon, in
the streams to which my mother took me when a child, to play beside.
There were more than a dozen of the fattest, shiniest, spottiest, and
tamest trout I ever saw in my life, in the pond at Carshalton, the last
time I saw it this spring.
The correspondent Diabolic work is poisoning fish, as is done at
Coniston, with copper-mining; and catching them for ministerial and
other fashionable dinners when they ought not to be caught; and
treating birds—as birds are treated, Ministerially and otherwise.
F. Filling the earth with beasts, properly known and cared for by their
master, Man; but chiefly breathing into the clayey and brutal nature of
Man himself, the Soul, or Love, of God.
The correspondent Diabolic work is shooting and tormenting beasts; and
grinding out the soul of man from his flesh, with machine labour; and
then grinding down the flesh of him, when nothing else is left, into
clay, with machines for that purpose—mitrailleuses, Woolwich infants,
and the like.
These are the six main heads of God’s and the Devil’s work.
And as Wisdom, or Prudentia, is with God, and with His children in the
doing,—“There I was by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily
His delight,”—so Folly, or Stultitia, saying, There is No God, is with
the Devil and his children, in the undoing. “There she is with them as
one brought up with them, and she is daily their delight.”
And so comes the great reverse of Creation, and wrath of God,
accomplished on the earth by the fiends, and by men their ministers,
seen by Jeremy the Prophet: “For my people is foolish, they have not
known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding:
they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. [Now
note the reversed creation.] I beheld the Earth, and, lo, it was
without form, and void; and the Heavens, and they had no light. I
beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved
lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the
heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a
wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence
of the Lord, and by His fierce anger.”
And so, finally, as the joy and honour of the ancient and divine Man
and Woman were in their children, so the grief and dishonour of the
modern and diabolic Man and Woman are in their children; and as the
Rachel of Bethlehem weeps for her children, and will not be comforted,
because they are not, the Rachel of England weeps for her children, and
will not be comforted—because they are.
Now, whoever you may be, and how little your power may be, and whatever
sort of creature you may be,—man, woman, or child,—you can, according
to what discretion of years you may have reached, do something of this
Divine work, or undo something of this Devil’s work, every day. Even if
you are a slave, forced to labour at some abominable and murderous
trade for bread,—as iron-forging, for instance, or
gunpowder-making,—you can resolve to deliver yourself, and your
children after you, from the chains of that hell, and from the dominion
of its slave-masters, or to die. That is Patriotism; and true desire of
Freedom, or Franchise. What Egyptian bondage, do you suppose—(painted
by Mr. Poynter as if it were a thing of the past!)—was ever so cruel as
a modern English iron forge, with its steam hammers? What Egyptian
worship of garlic or crocodile ever so damnable as modern English
worship of money? Israel—even by the fleshpots—was sorry to have to
cast out her children,—would fain stealthily keep her little Moses,—if
Nile were propitious; and roasted her passover anxiously. But English
Mr. P., satisfied with his fleshpot, and the broth of it, will not be
over-hasty about his roast. If the Angel, perchance, should not pass
by, it would be no such matter, thinks Mr. P.
Or, again, if you are a slave to Society, and must do what the people
next door bid you,—you can resolve, with any vestige of human energy
left in you, that you will indeed put a few things into God’s fashion,
instead of the fashion of next door. Merely fix that on your mind as a
thing to be done; to have things—dress, for instance,—according to
God’s taste, (and I can tell you He is likely to have some, as good as
any modiste you know of); or dinner, according to God’s taste instead
of the Russians’; or supper, or picnic, with guests of God’s inviting,
occasionally, mixed among the more respectable company.
By the way, I wrote a letter to one of my lady friends, who gives
rather frequent dinners, the other day, which may perhaps be useful to
others: it was to this effect mainly, though I add and alter a little
to make it more general:—
“You probably will be having a dinner-party to-day; now, please do
this, and remember I am quite serious in what I ask you. We all of us,
who have any belief in Christianity at all, wish that Christ were alive
now. Suppose, then, that He is. I think it very likely that if He were
in London, you would be one of the people whom He would take some
notice of. Now, suppose He has sent you word that He is coming to dine
with you to-day; but that you are not to make any change in your guests
on His account; that He wants to meet exactly the party you have; and
no other. Suppose you have just received this message, and that St.
John has also left word, in passing, with the butler, that his Master
will come alone; so that you won’t have any trouble with the Apostles.
Now this is what I want you to do. First, determine what you will have
for dinner. You are not ordered, observe, to make no changes in your
bill of fare. Take a piece of paper, and absolutely write fresh orders
to your cook,—you can’t realize the thing enough without writing. That
done, consider how you will arrange your guests—who is to sit next
Christ on the other side—who opposite, and so on; finally, consider a
little what you will talk about, supposing, which is just possible,
that Christ should tell you to go on talking as if He were not there,
and never to mind Him. You couldn’t, you will tell me? Then, my dear
lady, how can you in general? Don’t you profess—nay, don’t you much
more than profess—to believe that Christ is always there, whether you
see Him or not? Why should the seeing make such a difference?”
But you are no master nor mistress of household? You are only a boy, or
a girl. What can you do?
We will take the work of the third day, for its range is at once lower
and wider than that of the others: Can you do nothing in that kind? Is
there no garden near you where you can get from some generous person
leave to weed the beds, or sweep up the dead leaves? (I once allowed an
eager little girl of ten years old to weed my garden; and now, though
it is long ago, she always speaks as if the favour had been done to
her, and not to the garden and me.) Is there no dusty place that you
can water?—if it be only the road before your door, the traveller will
thank you. No roadside ditch that you can clean of its clogged rubbish,
to let the water run clear? No scattered heap of brickbats that you can
make an ordinary pile of? You are ashamed? Yes; that false shame is the
Devil’s pet weapon. He does more work with it even than with false
pride. For with false pride, he only goads evil; but with false shame,
paralyzes good.
But you have no ground of your own; you are a girl, and can’t work on
other people’s? At least you have a window of your own, or one in which
you have a part interest. With very little help from the carpenter, you
can arrange a safe box outside of it, that will hold earth enough to
root something in. If you have any favour from Fortune at all, you can
train a rose, or a honeysuckle, or a convolvulus, or a nasturtium,
round your window—a quiet branch of ivy—or if for the sake of its
leaves only, a tendril or two of vine. Only, be sure all your
plant-pets are kept well outside of the window. Don’t come to having
pots in the room, unless you are sick.
I got a nice letter from a young girl, not long since, asking why I had
said in my answers to former questions that young ladies were “to have
nothing to do with greenhouses, still less with hothouses.” The new
inquirer has been sent me by Fors, just when it was time to explain
what I meant.
First, then—The primal object of your gardening, for yourself, is to
keep you at work in the open air, whenever it is possible. The
greenhouse will always be a refuge to you from the wind; which, on the
contrary, you ought to be able to bear; and will tempt you into
clippings and pottings and pettings, and mere standing dilettantism in
a damp and over-scented room, instead of true labour in fresh air.
Secondly.—It will not only itself involve unnecessary expense—(for the
greenhouse is sure to turn into a hothouse in the end; and even if not,
is always having its panes broken, or its blinds going wrong, or its
stands getting rickety); but it will tempt you into buying nursery
plants, and waste your time in anxiety about them.
Thirdly.—The use of your garden to the household ought to be mainly in
the vegetables you can raise in it. And, for these, your proper
observance of season, and of the authority of the stars, is a vital
duty. Every climate gives its vegetable food to its living creatures at
the right time; your business is to know that time, and be prepared for
it, and to take the healthy luxury which nature appoints you, in the
rare annual taste of the thing given in those its due days. The vile
and gluttonous modern habit of forcing never allows people properly to
taste anything.
Lastly, and chiefly.—Your garden is to enable you to obtain such
knowledge of plants as you may best use in the country in which you
live, by communicating it to others; and teaching them to take pleasure
in the green herb, given for meat, and the coloured flower, given for
joy. And your business is not to make the greenhouse or hothouse
rejoice and blossom like the rose, but the wilderness and solitary
place. And it is, therefore, (look back to Letter 26th, p. 15,) not at
all of camellias and air-plants that the devil is afraid; on the
contrary, the Dame aux Camellias is a very especial servant of his; and
the Fly-God of Ekron himself superintends—as you may gather from Mr.
Darwin’s recent investigations—the birth and parentage of the
orchidaceæ. But he is mortally afraid of roses and crocuses.
Of roses, that is to say, growing wild;—(what lovely hedges of them
there were, in the lane leading from Dulwich College up to Windmill (or
Gipsy) Hill, in my aunt’s time!)—but of the massy horticultural-prize
rose,—fifty pounds weight of it on a propped bush—he stands in no awe
whatever; not even when they are cut afterwards and made familiar to
the poor in the form of bouquets, so that poor Peggy may hawk them from
street to street—and hate the smell of them, as his own imps do. For
Mephistopheles knows there are poorer Margarets yet than Peggy.
Hear this, you fine ladies of the houses of York and Lancaster, and
you, new-gilded Miss Kilmanseggs, with your gardens of Gul,—you, also,
evangelical expounders of the beauty of the Rose of Sharon;—it is a bit
of a letter just come to me from a girl of good position in the
manufacturing districts:—
“The other day I was coming through a nasty part of the road, carrying
a big bunch of flowers, and met two dirty, ragged girls, who looked
eagerly at my flowers. Then one of them said, ‘Give us a flower!’ I
hesitated, for she looked and spoke rudely; but when she ran after me,
I stopped; and pulled out a large rose, and asked the other girl which
she would like. ‘A red one, the same as hers,’ she answered. They
actually did not know its name. Poor girls! they promised to take care
of them, and went away looking rather softened and pleased, I thought;
but perhaps they would pull them to pieces, and laugh at the success of
their boldness. At all events, they made me very sad and thoughtful for
the rest of my walk.”
And, I hope, a little so, even when you got home again, young lady.
Meantime, are you quite sure of your fact; and that there was no white
rose in your bouquet, from which the “red one” might be distinguished,
without naming? In any case, my readers have enough to think of, for
this time, I believe.