Denmark Hill, 15th March, 1872.
My Friends,
The meditation I asked you to give to the facts put before you in
my last letter, if given, should have convinced you, for one thing,
quite sufficiently for all your future needs, of the unimportance of
momentary public opinion respecting the characters of men; and for
another thing, of the preciousness of confirmed public opinion, when
it happens to be right;--preciousness both to the person opined of,
and the opiners;--as, for instance, to Sir Roger de Coverley, the
opinion formed of him by his tenants and club: and for third thing,
it might have properly led you to consider, though it was scarcely
probable your thoughts should have turned that way, what an evil
trick of human creatures it was to reserve the expression of these
opinions--or even the examination of them, until the persons to be
opined of are dead; and then to endeavour to put all right by setting
their coffins on baptistery fonts--or hanging them up at Tyburn. Let
me very strongly advise you to make up your minds concerning people,
while they are with you; to honour and obey those whom you consider
good ones; to dishonour and disobey those whom you consider bad ones;
and when good and bad ones die, to make no violent or expressive
demonstrations of the feelings which have now become entirely useless
to the persons concerned, and are only, as they are true or false,
serviceable, or the contrary, to yourselves; but to take care that some
memorial is kept of men who deserve memory, in a distinct statement
on the stone or brass of their tombs, either that they were true men,
or rascals,--wise men, or fools.
How beautiful the variety of sepulchral architecture might be, in
any extensive place of burial, if the public would meet the small
expense of thus expressing its opinions, in a verily instructive
manner; and if some of the tombstones accordingly terminated
in fools' caps; and others, instead of crosses or cherubs, bore
engravings of cats-of-nine-tails, as typical of the probable methods
of entertainment, in the next world, of the persons, not, it is to
be hoped, reposing, below.
But the particular subject led up to in my last letter, and which,
in this special month of April, I think it appropriate for you to
take to heart, is the way in which you spend your money, or allow it
to be spent for you. Colonel Hawkwood and Colonel Fiske both passed
their whole lives in getting possession, by various means, of other
people's money; (in the final fact, of working-men's money,--yours,
that is to say), and everybody praises and crowns them for doing
so. Colonel Cromwell passes his life in fighting for, what in the gist
of it meant, not freedom, but freedom from unjust taxation;--and you
hang his coffin up at Tyburn.
"Not Freedom, but deliverance from unjust taxation." You call me
unpractical. Suppose you became practical enough yourselves to take
that for a watchword for a little while, and see how near you can
come to its realization.
For, I very positively can inform you, the considerablest part of
the misery of the world comes of the tricks of unjust taxation. All
its evil passions--pride, lust, revenge, malice, and sloth,--derive
their main deadliness from the facilities of getting hold of other
people's money open to the persons they influence. Pay every man
for his work,--pay nobody but for his work,--and see that the work
be sound; and you will find pride, lust, and sloth have little room
left for themselves.
Observe, however, very carefully, that by unjust taxation, I do not
mean merely Chancellor of Exchequer's business, but a great part
of what really very wise and worthy gentlemen, but, unfortunately,
proud also, suppose to be their business.
For instance, before beginning my letter to you this morning, (the
last I shall ever date from Denmark Hill, [13]) I put out of my sight,
carefully, under a large book, a legal document, which disturbed me
by its barbarous black lettering. This is an R
[Corrupted handwritten R.]
in it, for instance, which is ugly enough, as such; but how ugly is
the significance of it, and reasons of its being written that way,
instead of in a properly intelligible way, there is hardly vituperation
enough in language justly to express to you. This said document is to
release the sole remaining executor of my father's will from further
responsibility for the execution of it. And all that there is really
need for, of English scripture on the occasion, would be as follows:--
I, having received this 15th of March, 1822, from A. B., Esq.,
all the property which my father left, hereby release A. B., Esq.,
from future responsibility, respecting either my father's property,
or mine, or my father's business, or mine. Signed, J. R., before such
and such two witnesses.
This document, on properly cured calf-skin, (not cleaned by acids),
and written as plainly as, after having contracted some careless
literary habits, I could manage to write it, ought to answer the
purpose required, before any court of law on earth.
In order to effect it in a manner pleasing to the present legal
mind of England, I receive eighty-seven lines of close writing,
containing from fourteen to sixteen words each, (one thousand two
hundred and eighteen words in all, at the minimum); thirteen of them
in black letters of the lovely kind above imitated, but produced with
much pains by the scrivener. Of the manner in which this overplus
of one thousand one hundred and seventy-eight words is accomplished,
(my suggested form containing forty only), the following example--the
last clause of the document--may suffice.
"And the said J. R. doth hereby for himself his heirs executors
and administrators covenant and agree with and to the said A. B. his
executors and administrators that he the said J. R. his heirs executors
administrators or assigns shall and will from time to time and at all
times hereafter save harmless and keep indemnified the said A. B. his
heirs executors administrators and assigns from and in respect of all
claims and demands whatsoever which may be made upon him or them or
any of them for or in respect of the real or personal estate of the
said J. R. and from all suits costs charges and damages and expenses
whatsoever which the said A. B. his heirs executors administrators
or assigns shall be involved in or put unto for or in respect of the
said real or personal estate or any part thereof."
Now, what reason do you suppose there is for all this barbarism and
bad grammar, and tax upon my eyes and time, for very often one has
actually to read these things, or hear them read, all through? The
reason is simply and wholly that I may be charged so much per word,
that the lawyer and his clerk may live. But do you not see how
infinitely advantageous it would be for me, (if only I could get the
other sufferers under this black literature to be of my mind), to clap
the lawyer and his clerk, once for all, fairly out of the way in a
dignified almshouse, with parchment unlimited, and ink turned on at a
tap, and maintenance for life, on the mere condition of their never
troubling humanity more, with either their scriptures or opinions
on any subject; and to have this release of mine, as above worded,
simply confirmed by the signature of any person whom the Queen might
appoint for that purpose, (say the squire of the parish), and there
an end? How is it, do you think, that other sufferers under the black
literature do not come to be of my mind, which was Cicero's mind also,
and has been the mind of every sane person before Cicero and since
Cicero,--so that we might indeed get it ended thus summarily?
Well, at the root of all these follies and iniquities, there lies
always one tacit, but infinitely strong persuasion in the British mind,
namely, that somehow money grows out of nothing, if one can only find
some expedient to produce an article that must be paid for. "Here,"
the practical Englishman says to himself, "I produce, being capable
of nothing better, an entirely worthless piece of parchment, with one
thousand two hundred entirely foolish words upon it, written in an
entirely abominable hand; and by this production of mine, I conjure
out of the vacant air, the substance of ten pounds, or the like. What
an infinitely profitable transaction to me and to the world! Creation,
out of a chaos of words, and a dead beast's hide, of this beautiful
and omnipotent ten pounds. Do I not see with my own eyes that this
is very good?"
That is the real impression on the existing popular mind; silent,
but deep, and for the present unconquerable. That by due parchment,
calligraphy, and ingenious stratagem, money may be conjured out of
the vacant air. Alchemy is, indeed, no longer included in our list of
sciences, for alchemy proposed,--irrational science that it was,--to
make money of something;--gold of lead, or the like. But to make
money of nothing,--this appears to be manifoldly possible, to the
modern Anglo-Saxon practical person,--instructed by Mr. John Stuart
Mill. Sometimes, with rare intelligence, he is capable of carrying
the inquiry one step farther. Pushed hard to assign a Providential
cause for such legal documents as this we are talking of, an English
gentleman would say: "Well, of course, where property needs legal
forms to transfer it, it must be in quantity enough to bear a moderate
tax without inconvenience; and this tax on its transfer enables many
well-educated and agreeable persons to live."
Yes, that is so, and I (speaking for the nonce in the name of
the working-man, maker of property) am willing enough to be taxed,
straightforwardly, for the maintenance of these most agreeable persons;
but not to be taxed obliquely for it, nor teased, either obliquely
or otherwise, for it. I greatly and truly admire (as aforesaid, in my
first letter,) these educated persons in wigs; and when I go into my
kitchen-garden in spring time, to see the dew on my early sprouts,
I often mentally acknowledge the fitness, yet singularity, of the
arrangement by which I am appointed to grow mute Broccoli for the
maintenance of that talking Broccoli. All that I want of it is to let
itself be kept for a show, and not to tax my time as well as my money.
Kept for a show, of heads; or, to some better purpose, for writing
on fair parchment, with really well-trained hands, what might be
desirable of literature. Suppose every existing lawyer's clerk was
trained, in a good drawing school, to write red and blue letters as
well as black ones, in a loving and delicate manner; here for instance
is an R and a number eleven, which begin the eleventh chapter of Job
in one of my thirteenth-century Bibles. There is as good a letter and
as good a number--every one different in design,--to every chapter,
and beautifully gilded and painted ones to the beginning of books; all
done for love, and teasing nobody. Now suppose the lawyer's clerks,
thus instructed to write decently, were appointed to write for us,
for their present pay, words really worth setting down--Nursery Songs,
Grimm's Popular Stories, and the like, we should have again, not,
perhaps, a cheap literature; but at least an innocent one. Dante's
words might then be taken up literally by relieved mankind. "Più
ridon le carte." "The papers smile more," they might say, of such
transfigured legal documents.
Not a cheap literature, even then; nor pleasing to my friend the
'Glasgow Herald,' who writes to me indignantly, but very civilly,
(and I am obliged to him,) to declare that he is a Herald, and not a
Chronicle. I am delighted to hear it; for my lectures on heraldry are
just beginning at Oxford, and a Glaswegian opinion may be useful to
me, when I am not sure of my blazon. Also he tells me good leather
may be had in Glasgow. Let Glasgow flourish, and I will assuredly
make trial of the same: but touching this cheap literature question,
I cannot speak much in this letter, for I must keep to our especial
subject of April--this Fools' Paradise of Cloud-begotten Gold.
Cloud-begotten--and self-begotten--as some would have it. But it is
not so, friends.
Do you remember the questioning to Job? The pretty letter R
stopped me just now at the Response of Zophar; but look on to the
thirty-eighth chapter, and read down to the question concerning this
April time:--"Hath the rain a Father--and who hath begotten the drops
of dew,--the hoary Frost of Heaven--who hath gendered it?"
That rain and frost of heaven; and the earth which they loose and
bind: these, and the labour of your hands to divide them, and subdue,
are your wealth, for ever--unincreasable. The fruit of Earth, and
its waters, and its light--such as the strength of the pure rock can
grow--such as the unthwarted sun in his season brings--these are your
inheritance. You can diminish it, but cannot increase: that your barns
should be filled with plenty--your presses burst with new wine,--is
your blessing; and every year--when it is full--it must be new;
and every year, no more.
And this money, which you think so multipliable, is only to be
increased in the hands of some, by the loss of others. The sum of it,
in the end, represents, and can represent, only what is in the barn
and winepress. It may represent less, but cannot more.
These ten pounds, for instance, which I am grumbling at having to
pay my lawyer--what are they? whence came they?
They were once, (and could be nothing now, unless they had been) so
many skins of Xeres wine--grown and mellowed by pure chalk rock and
unafflicted sunshine. Wine drunk, indeed, long ago--but the drinkers
gave the vineyard dressers these tokens, which we call pounds,
signifying, that having had so much good from them they would return
them as much, in future time. And, indeed, for my ten pounds, if my
lawyer didn't take it, I could still get my Xeres, if Xeres wine exists
anywhere. But, if not, what matters it how many pounds I have, or
think I have, or you either? It is meat and drink we want--not pounds.
As you are beginning to discover--I fancy too many of you, in this
rich country. If you only would discover it a little faster, and
demand dinners, instead of Liberty! For what possible liberty do
you want, which does not depend on dinner? Tell me, once for all,
what is it you want to do, that you can't do? Dinner being provided,
do you think the Queen will interfere with the way you choose to spend
your afternoons, if only you knock nobody down, and break nobody's
windows? But the need of dinner enslaves you to purpose!
On reading the letter spoken of in my last correspondence sheet,
I find that it represents this modern form of slavery with an
unconscious clearness, which is very interesting. I have, therefore,
requested the writer's permission to print it, and, with a passage
or two omitted, and briefest comment, here it is in full type, for
it is worth careful reading:--
Glasgow, 12th February, 1872.
"Sir,
"You say in your 'Fors' that you do not want any one to buy your
books who will not give a 'doctor's fee' per volume, which you
rate at 10s. 6d.; now, as the 'Herald' remarks, you are clearly
placing yourself in a wrong position, as you arbitrarily fix your
doctor's fee far too high; indeed, while you express a desire,
no doubt quite sincerely, to elevate the working-man, morally,
mentally, and physically, you in the meantime absolutely preclude
him from purchasing your books at all, and so almost completely
bar his way from the enjoyment and elevating influence of perhaps
the most" [etc., complimentary terms--omitted].
"Permit me a personal remark:--I am myself a poorly paid clerk,
with a salary not much over the income-tax minimum; now no doctor,
here at least, would ever think of charging me a fee of 10s. 6d.,
and so you see it is as much out of my power to purchase your books
as any working-man. While Mr. Carlyle is just now issuing a cheap
edition of his Works at 2s. per volume, which I can purchase,
here, quite easily for 1s. 6d.;" [Presumably, therefore, to be
had, as far north as Inverness, for a shilling, and for sixpence
in Orkney,] "I must say it is a great pity that a Writer so much,
and, in my poor opinion, justly, appreciated as yourself, should as
it were inaugurate with your own hands a system which thoroughly
barriers your productions from the great majority of the middle
and working classes. I take leave, however, to remark that I by no
means shut my eyes to the anomalies of the Bookselling Trade, but
I can't see that it can be remedied by an Author becoming his own
Bookseller, and, at the same time, putting an unusually high price
on his books. Of course, I would like to see an Author remunerated
as highly as possible for his labours." [You ought not to like any
such thing: you ought to like an author to get what he deserves,
like other people, not more, nor less.] "I would also crave to
remark, following up your unfortunate analogy of the doctor's
fee, that doctors who have acquired, either professionally or
otherwise, a competence, often, nay very often, give their advice
gratis to nearly every class, except that which is really wealthy;
at least, I speak from my own experience, having known, nay even
been attended by such a benevolent physician in a little town
in Kirkcudbrightshire, who, when offered payment, and I was both
quite able and willing to do so, and he was in no way indebted or
obliged to me or mine, positively declined to receive any fee. So
much for the benevolent physician and his fees.
"Here am I, possessed of a passionate love of nature in all her
aspects, cooped up in this fearfully crammed mass of population,
with its filthy Clyde, which would naturally have been a noble
river, but, under the curse of our much belauded civilization,
forsooth, turned into an almost stagnant loathsome ditch,
pestilence-breathing, be-lorded over by hundreds upon hundreds
of tall brick chimney-stacks vomiting up smoke unceasingly;
and from the way I am situated, there are only one day and a
half in the week in which I can manage a walk into the country;
now, if I wished to foster my taste for the beautiful in nature
and art, even while living a life of almost servile red-taped
routine beneath the too frequently horror-breathing atmosphere
of a huge overgrown plutocratic city like Glasgow, I cannot have
your Works" [complimentary terms again] "as, after providing for
my necessaries, I cannot indulge in books at 10s. 6d. a volume. Of
course, as you may say" [My dear sir, the very last thing I should
say], "I can get them from a library. Assuredly, but one (at
least I would) wishes to have actual and ever-present possession
of productions such as yours" [more compliments]. "You will be
aware, no doubt, that 'Geo. Eliot' has adopted a 'new system'
in publishing her new novel by issuing it in 5s. 'parts,' with
the laudable view of enabling and encouraging readers to buy the
work for themselves, and not trusting to get it from 'some Mudie'
or another for a week, then galloping through the three volumes
and immediately forgetting the whole matter. When I possess a
book worth having I always recur to it now and again. Your 'new
system,' however, tends to prevent the real reading public from
ever possessing your books, and the wealthy classes who could
afford to buy books at 10s. 6d. a volume, as a rule, I opine,
don't drive themselves insane by much reading of any kind.
"I beg a last remark and I've done. Glasgow, for instance, has
no splendid public buildings. She has increased in wealth till
I believe there are some of the greatest merchants in the world
trading in her Exchange; but except her grand old Cathedral,
founded by an almost-forgotten bishop in the twelfth century,
in what we in our vain folly are pleased to call the dark ages,
when we ourselves are about as really dark as need be; having
no 'high calling' to strive for, except by hook or by crook to
make money--a fortune--retire at thirty-five by some stroke of
gambling of a highly questionable kind on the Share market or
otherwise, to a suburban or country villa with Turkey carpets, a
wine-cellar and a carriage and pair; as no man now-a-days is ever
content with making a decent and honest livelihood. Truly a very
'high calling!' Our old Cathedral, thank God, was not built by
contract or stock-jobbing: there was, surely, a higher calling
of some sort in those quiet, old, unhurrying days. Our local
plutocratic friends put their hands into their pockets to the
extent of 150,000l. to help to build our new University buildings
after a design by G. Gilbert Scott, which has turned out a very
imposing pile of masonry; at least, it is placed on an imposing
and magnificent site. I am no prophet, but I should not wonder if
old St. Mungo's Cathedral, erected nearly six hundred years ago to
the honour and glory of God, will be standing a noble ruin when our
new spick-and-span College is a total wreck after all. Such being
the difference between the work of really earnest God-fearing men,
and that done by contract and Trades' Unions. The Steam Engine,
one of the demons of our mad, restless, headlong civilization, is
screaming its unearthly whistle in the very quadrangles of the now
deserted, but still venerable College buildings in our High Street,
almost on the very spot where the philosophic Professors of that
day, to their eternal honour, gave a harbourage to James Watt,
when the narrow-minded guild-brethren of Glasgow expelled him from
their town as a stranger craftsman hailing from Greenock. Such
is the irony of events! Excuse the presumption of this rather
rambling letter, and apologizing for addressing you at such length,
"I am, very faithfully yours."
I have only time, just now, to remark on this letter, first, that
I don't believe any of Mr. Scott's work is badly done, or will come
down soon; and that Trades' Unions are quite right when honest and
kind: but the frantic mistake of the Glaswegians, in thinking that
they can import learning into their town safely in a Gothic case,
and have 180,000 pounds' worth of it at command, while they have
banished for ever from their eyes the sight of all that mankind have
to learn anything about, is,--Well--as the rest of our enlightened
public opinion. They might as well put a pyx into a pigsty, to make
the pigs pious.
In the second place, as to my correspondent's wish to read my books,
I am entirely pleased by it; but, putting the question of fee aside
for the nonce, I am not in the least minded, as matters stand,
to prescribe my books for him. Nay, so far as in me lies, he shall
neither read them, nor learn to trust in any such poor qualifications
and partial comforts of the entirely wrong and dreadful condition
of life he is in, with millions of others. If a child in a muddy
ditch asked me for a picture-book, I should not give it him; but say,
"Come out of that first; or, if you cannot, I must go and get help;
but picture-books, there, you shall have none!"
Only a day and a half in the week on which one can get a walk in
the country, (and how few have as much, or anything like it!) just
bread enough earned to keep one alive, on those terms--one's
daily work asking not so much as a lucifer match's worth of human
intelligence;--unwholesome besides--one's chest, shoulders, and stomach
getting hourly more useless. Smoke above for sky, mud beneath for
water; and the pleasant consciousness of spending one's weary life in
the pure service of the devil! And the blacks are emancipated over
the water there--and this is what you call "having your own way,"
here, is it?
Very solemnly, my good clerk-friend, there is something to be done
in this matter; not merely to be read. Do you know any honest men who
have a will of their own, among your neighbours? If none, set yourself
to seek for such; if any, commune with them on this one subject, how
a man may have sight of the Earth he was made of, and his bread out of
the dust of it--and peace! And find out what it is that hinders you now
from having these, and resolve that you will fight it, and put end to
it. If you cannot find out for yourselves, tell me your difficulties,
briefly, and I will deal with them for you, as the Second Fors may
teach me. Bring you the First with you, and the Third will help us.
And believe me, faithfully yours,