I am to-day to begin explaining to you the meaning of my own books,
which, some people will tell you, is an egotistical and impertinent
thing for an author to do. My own view of the matter is, that it is
generally more egotistical and impertinent to explain the meaning of
other people's books,--which, nevertheless, at this day in England,
many young and inexperienced persons are paid for pretending
to do. What intents I have had, myself, therefore, in this 'Fors
Clavigera,' and some other lately published writings, I will take on
me to tell you, without more preamble.
And first, for their little vignette stamp of roses on title-page. It
is copied from the clearest bit of the pattern of the petticoat
of Spring, where it is drawn tight over her thigh, in Sandro
Botticelli's picture of her, at Florence. I drew it on the wood
myself, and Mr. Burgess cut it; and it is on all my title-pages,
because whatever I now write is meant to help in founding the society
called of 'Monte Rosa;'--see page sixth of the seventeenth of these
letters. Such reference hereafter, observe, is only thus printed,
(XVII. 6).
And I copied this vignette from Sandro Botticelli, for two reasons:
first, that no man has ever yet drawn, and none is likely to draw for
many a day, roses as well as Sandro has drawn them; secondly, because
he was the only painter of Italy who thoroughly felt and understood
Dante; and the only one also who understood the thoughts of Heathens
and Christians equally, and could in a measure paint both Aphrodite
and the Madonna. So that he is, on the whole, the most universal of
painters; and, take him all in all, the greatest Florentine workman:
and I wish you to know with Dante's opinions, his, also, on all
subjects of importance to you, of which Florentines could judge.
And of his life, it is proper for you immediately to know thus much:
or at least, that so much was current gossip about it in Vasari's
time,--that, when he was a boy, he obstinately refused to learn either
to read, write, or sum; (and I heartily wish all boys would and could
do the same, till they were at least as old as the illiterate Alfred,)
whereupon his father, "disturbed by these eccentric habits of his son,
turned him over in despair to a gossip of his, called Botticello,
who was a goldsmith."
And on this, note two things: the first, that all the great early
Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without exception, began
by being goldsmiths' apprentices: the second, that they all felt
themselves so indebted to, and formed by the master-craftsman who had
mainly disciplined their fingers, whether in work on gold or marble,
that they practically considered him their father, and took his name
rather than their own; so that most of the great Italian workmen are
now known, not by their own names, but by those of their masters,
[24] the master being himself often entirely forgotten by the public,
and eclipsed by his pupil; but immortal in his pupil, and named in
his name. Thus, our Sandro, Alessandro, or Alexander's own name was
Filipepi; which name you never heard of, I suppose, till now: nor I,
often, but his master's was Botticello; of which master we nevertheless
know only that he so formed, and informed, this boy, that thenceforward
the boy thought it right to be called "Botticello's Sandro," and
nobody else's. Which in Italian is Sandro di Botticello; and that is
abbreviated into Sandro Botticelli. So, Francesco Francia is short for
Francesco di Francia, or "Francia's Francis," though nobody ever heard,
except thus, of his master the goldsmith, Francia. But his own name was
Raibolini. So, Philip Brunelleschi is short for Brunellesco's Philip,
Brunellesco being his father's Christian name, to show how much he owed
to his father's careful training; (the family name was Lippo;) and,
which is the prettiest instance of all, "Piero della Francesca," means
'Francesca's Peter;' because he was chiefly trained by his mother,
Francesca. All of which I beg you to take to heart, and meditate on,
concerning Mastership and Pupilage.
But to return to Sandro.
Having learned prosperously how to manage gold, he takes a fancy to
know how to manage colour; and is put by his good father under, as it
chanced, the best master in Florence, or the world, at that time--the
Monk Lippi, whose work is the finest, out and out, that ever monk did;
which I attribute, myself, to what is usually considered faultful in
him,--his having run away with a pretty novice out of a convent. I
am not jesting, I assure you, in the least; but how can I possibly
help the nature of things, when that chances to be laughable? Nay,
if you think of it, perhaps you will not find it so laughable that
Lippi should be the only monk (if this be a fact), who ever did good
painter's work.
Be that as it may, Lippi and his pupil were happy in each other; and
the boy soon became a smiter of colour, or colour-smith, no less than
a gold-smith; and eventually an "Alexander the Coppersmith," also,
not inimical to St. Paul, and for whom Christian people may wish, not
revengefully, "the Lord reward him according to his works," though he
was fain, Demetrius-like, sometimes to shrine Diana. And he painted,
for a beginning, a figure of Fortitude; and then, one of St. Jerome,
and then, one of our Lady, and then, one of Pallas, and then, one
of Venus with the Graces and Zephyrs, and especially the Spring
aforesaid with flowery petticoats; and, finally, the Assumption
of our Lady, with the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the
Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins,
and the Hierarchies. It is to be presumed that by this time he had
learned to read, though we hear nothing of it, (rather the contrary,
for he is taunted late in life with rude scholarship,)--and then paints
under notable circumstances, of which presently, the calling of Moses,
and of Aaron, and of Christ,--all well preserved and wonderful pieces,
which no person now ever thinks of looking at, though they are the
best works of pictorial divinity extant in Europe. And having thus
obtained great honour and reputation, and considerable sums of money,
he squandered all the last away; and then, returning to Florence, set
himself to comment upon and illustrate Dante, engraving some plates for
that purpose which I will try to give you a notion of, some day. And
at this time, Savonarola beginning to make himself heard, and founding
in Florence the company of the Piagnoni, (Mourners, or Grumblers, as
opposed to the men of pleasure,) Sandro made a Grumbler of himself,
being then some forty years old; and,--his new master being burned
in the great square of Florence, a year afterwards (1498),--became
a Grumbler to purpose; and doing what he could to show "che cosa è
la fede," namely, in engraving Savonarola's "Triumph of Faith," fell
sadder, wiser, and poorer, day by day; until he became a poor bedesman
of Lorenzo de' Medici; and having gone some time on crutches, being
unable to stand upright, and received his due share of what I hope we
may call discriminate charity, died peacefully in his fifty-eighth
year, having lived a glorious life; and was buried at Florence,
in the Church of all Saints, three hundred and fifty-seven years ago.
So much for my vignette. For my title, see II. 2, and XIII. 3. I mean
it, as you will see by the latter passage, to be read, in English,
as "Fortune the Nail-bearer," and that the book itself should show
you how to form, or make, this Fortune, see the fifth sentence down
the page, in II. 2; and compare III. 2, 3.
And in the course of the first year's letters, I tried gradually to
illustrate to you certain general propositions, which, if I had set
them down in form at once, might have seemed to you too startling,
or disputable, to be discussed with patience. So I tried to lead you
into some discussion of them first, and now hope that you may endure
the clearer statement of them, as follows:--
Proposition I. (I. 3, 4).--The English nation is beginning another
group of ten years, empty in purse, empty in stomach, and in a state
of terrified hostility to every other nation under the sun.
I assert this very firmly and seriously. But in the course of these
papers every important assertion on the opposite side shall be fairly
inserted; so that you may consider of them at your leisure. Here is
one, for instance, from the 'Morning Post' of Saturday, August 31,
of this year:--"The country is at the present moment in a state of
such unexampled prosperity that it is actually suffering from the very
superabundance of its riches.... Coals and meat are at famine prices,
we are threatened with a strike among the bakers, and there is hardly
a single department of industry in which the cost of production has
not been enhanced."
This is exceedingly true; the 'Morning Post' ought to have
congratulated you further on the fact that the things produced by this
greater cost are now usually good for nothing: Hear on this head, what
Mr. Emerson said of us, even so far back as 1856 (and we have made much
inferior articles since then). "England is aghast at the disclosure of
her fraud in the adulteration of food, of drugs, and of almost every
fabric in her mills and shops; finding that milk will not nourish,
nor sugar sweeten, nor bread satisfy, nor pepper bite the tongue, nor
glue stick. In true England all is false and forged.... It is rare to
find a merchant who knows why a crisis occurs in trade,--why prices
rise or fall, or who knows the mischief of paper money. [25] In the
culmination of National Prosperity, in the annexation of countries;
building of ships, depôts, towns; in the influx of tons of gold and
silver; amid the chuckle of chancellors and financiers, it was found
that bread rose to famine prices, that the yeoman was forced to sell
his cow and pig, his tools, and his acre of land; and the dreadful
barometer of the poor-rates was touching the point of ruin." [26]
Proposition II. (I. 5).--Of such prosperity I, for one, have seen
enough, and will endure it no longer quietly; but will set aside some
part of my income to help, if anybody else will join me, in forming
a National store instead of a National Debt; and will explain to
you as I have time and power, how to avoid such distress in future,
by adhering to the elementary principles of Human Economy, which have
been of late wilfully entombed under pyramids of falsehood.
"Wilfully;" note this grave word in my second proposition; and
invest a shilling in the purchase of 'Bishop Berkeley on Money,'
being extracts from his 'Querist,' by James Harvey, Liverpool. [27]
At the bottom of the twenty-first page you will find this query,
"Whether the continuous efforts on the part of the 'Times,' the
'Telegraph,' [28] the 'Economist,' the 'Daily News,' and the daily
newspaper press, and also of monied men generally, to confound money
and capital, be the result of ignorance or design."
Of ignorance in great part, doubtless, for "monied men, generally," are
ignorant enough to believe and assert anything; but it is noticeable
that their ignorance always tells on their own side; [29] and the
'Times' and 'Economist' are now nothing more than passive instruments
in their hands. But neither they, nor their organs, would long be able
to assert untruths in Political Economy, if the nominal professors
of the science would do their duty in investigation of it. Of whom I
now choose, for direct personal challenge, the Professor at Cambridge;
and, being a Doctor of Laws of his own University, and a Fellow of two
colleges in mine, I charge him with having insufficiently investigated
the principles of the science he is appointed to teach. I charge him
with having advanced in defence of the theory of Interest on Money,
four arguments, every one of them false, and false with such fallacy as
a child ought to have been able to detect. I have exposed one of these
fallacies at page 19 of the first letter, and the three others at page
15 to 18 of the eighteenth letter, in this book, and I now publicly
call on Professor Fawcett either to defend, or retract, the statements
so impugned. And this open challenge cannot be ignored by Professor
Fawcett, on the plea that Political Economy is his province, and not
mine. If any man holding definite position as a scholar in either
University, challenged me publicly and gravely with having falsely
defined an elementary principle of Art, I should hold myself bound
to answer him, and I think public opinion would ratify my decision.
Proposition III. (I. 6).--Your redemption from the distress into which
you have fallen is in your own hands, and in nowise depends on forms
of government or modes of election.
But you must make the most of what forms of government you have
got, by choosing honest men to work them (if you choose at all),
and preparatorily, by honestly obeying them, and in all possible
ways, making honest men of yourselves; and if it be indeed, now
impossible--as I heard the clergyman declare at Matlock--(IX. 16) for
any honest man to live by trade in England, amending the methods of
English trade in the necessary particulars, until it becomes possible
for honest men to live by it again. In the meantime resolving that
you, for your part, will do good work, whether you live by it or
die--(II. 21).
Proposition IV. (I. 10-13).--Of present parliaments and governments you
have mainly to enquire what they want with your money when they demand
it. And that you may do this intelligently, you are to remember that
only a certain quantity of money exists at any given time, and that
your first business must be to ascertain the available amount of it,
and what it is available for. Because you do not put more money into
rich people's hands, when you succeed in putting into rich people's
heads that they want something to-day which they had no occasion for
yesterday. What they pay you for one thing, they cannot for another;
and if they now spend their incomes, they can spend no more. Which you
will find they do, and always have done, and can, in fact, neither
spend more, nor less--this income being indeed the quantity of food
their land produces, by which all art and all manufacture must be
supported, and of which no art or manufacture, except such as are
directly and wisely employed on the land, can produce a morsel.
Proposition V. (II. 4).--You had better take care of your
squires. Their land, indeed, only belongs to them, or is said
to belong, because they seized it long since by force of hand,
(compare the quotation from Professor Fawcett at p. xix. of the
preface to 'Munera Pulveris,') and you may think you have precisely
the same right to seize it now, for yourselves, if you can. So you
have,--precisely the same right,--that is to say, none. As they had
no right to seize it then, neither have you now. The land, by divine
right, can be neither theirs nor yours, except under conditions which
you will not ascertain by fighting. In the meantime, by the law of
England, the land is theirs; and your first duty as Englishmen is to
obey the law of England, be it just or unjust, until it is by due
and peaceful deliberation altered, if alteration of it be needful;
and to be sure that you are able and willing to obey good laws,
before you seek to alter unjust ones (II. 21). For you cannot know
whether they are unjust or not until you are just yourselves. Also,
your race of squires, considered merely as an animal one, is very
precious; and you had better see what use you can make of it, before
you let it fall extinct, like the Dodo's. For none other such exists
in any part of this round little world; and, once destroyed, it will
be long before it develops itself again from Mr. Darwin's germ-cells.
Proposition VI. (V. 21).--But, if you can, honestly, you had better
become minute squires yourselves. The law of England nowise forbids
your buying any land which the squires are willing to part with,
for such savings as you may have ready. And the main proposal made
to you in this book is that you should so economize till you can
indeed become diminutive squires, and develope accordingly into some
proportionate fineness of race.
Proposition VII. (II. 5).--But it is perhaps not equally necessary to
take care of your capitalists, or so-called 'Employers.' For your real
employer is the public; and the so-called employer is only a mediator
between the public and you, whose mediation is perhaps more costly
than need be, to you both. So that it will be well for you to consider
how far, without such intervention, you may succeed in employing
yourselves; and my seventh proposition is accordingly that some of
you, and all, in some proportion, should be diminutive capitalists, as
well as diminutive squires, yet under a novel condition, as follows:--
Proposition VIII.--Observe, first, that in the ancient and hitherto
existent condition of things, the squire is essentially an idle
person who has possession of land, and lends it, but does not use it;
and the capitalist is essentially an idle person, who has possession
of tools, and lends them, but does not use them; while the labourer,
by definition, is a laborious person, and by presumption, a penniless
one, who is obliged to borrow both land and tools; and paying, for
rent on the one, and profit on the other, what will maintain the
squire and capitalist, digs finally a remnant of roots, wherewith to
maintain himself.
These may, in so brief form, sound to you very radical and
international definitions. I am glad, therefore, that (though entirely
accurate) they are not mine, but Professor Fawcett's. You will find
them quoted from his 'Manual of Political Economy' at the eleventh
page of my eleventh letter. He does not, indeed, in the passage there
quoted, define the capitalist as the possessor of tools, but he does
so quite clearly at the end of the fable quoted in I. 18,--"The plane
is the symbol of all capital," and the paragraph given in XI. 11,
is, indeed, a most faithful statement of the present condition of
things, which is, practically, that rich people are paid for being
rich, and idle people are paid for being idle, and busy people taxed
for being busy. Which does not appear to me a state of matters much
longer tenable; but rather, and this is my 8th Proposition (XI. 13),
that land should belong to those who can use it, and tools to those who
can use them; or, as a less revolutionary, and instantly practicable,
proposal, that those who have land and tools--should use them.
Proposition IX. and last:--To know the "use" either of land or
tools, you must know what useful things can be grown from the one,
and made with the other. And therefore to know what is useful, and
what useless, and be skilful to provide the one, and wise to scorn
the other, is the first need for all industrious men. Wherefore,
I propose that schools should be established, wherein the use of
land and tools shall be taught conclusively:--in other words, the
sciences of agriculture (with associated river and sea-culture);
and the noble arts and exercises of humanity.
Now you cannot but see how impossible it would have been for me, in
beginning these letters, to have started with a formal announcement of
these their proposed contents, even now startling enough, probably,
to some of my readers, after nearly two years' preparatory talk. You
must see also how in speaking of so wide a subject, it is not possible
to complete the conversation respecting each part of it at once, and
set that aside; but it is necessary to touch on each head by little and
little. Yet in the course of desultory talk, I have been endeavouring
to exhibit to you, essentially, these six following things, namely,--A,
the general character and use of squires; B, the general character
and mischievousness of capitalists; C, the nature of money; D, the
nature of useful things; E, the methods of finance which obtain money;
and F, the methods of work which obtain useful things.
To these "six points" I have indeed directed my own thoughts, and
endeavoured to direct yours, perseveringly, throughout these letters,
though to each point as the Third Fors might dictate; that is to say,
as light was thrown upon it in my mind by what might be publicly taking
place at the time, or by any incident happening to me personally. Only
it chanced that in the course of the first year, 1871, one thing
which publicly took place, namely the siege and burning of Paris, was
of interest so unexpected that it necessarily broke up what little
consistency of plan I had formed, besides putting me into a humour
in which I could only write incoherently; deep domestic vexation
occurring to me at the same time, till I fell ill, and my letters and
vexations had like to have ended together. So I must now patch the
torn web as best I can, by giving you reference to what bears on each
of the above six heads in the detached talk of these twenty months,
(and I hope also a serviceable index at the two years' end); and,
if the work goes on,--But I had better keep all Ifs out of it.
Meantime, with respect to point A, the general character and use
of squires, you will find the meaning of the word 'Squire' given
in II. 4, as being threefold, like that of Fors. First, it means a
rider; or in more full and perfect sense, a master or governor of
beasts; signifying that a squire has fine sympathy with all beasts
of the field, and understanding of their natures complete enough
to enable him to govern them for their good, and be king over all
creatures, subduing the noxious ones, and cherishing the virtuous
ones. Which is the primal meaning of chivalry, the horse, as the
noblest, because trainablest, of wild creatures, being taken for a
type of them all. Read on this point, IX. 11-13, and if you can see
my larger books, at your library, § 205 of 'Aratra Pentelici;' and
the last lecture in 'Eagle's Nest.' [30] And observe farther that it
follows from what is noted in those places, that to be a good squire,
one must have the instincts of animals as well as those of men; but
that the typical squire is apt to err somewhat on the lower side, and
occasionally to have the instincts of animals instead of those of men.
Secondly. The word 'Squire' means a Shield-bearer;--properly, the
bearer of some superior person's shield; but at all events, the
declarer, by legend, of good deserving and good intention, either
others' or his own; with accompanying statement of his resolution to
defend and maintain the same; and that so persistently that, rather
than lose his shield, he is to make it his death-bed: and so honourably
and without thought of vulgar gain, that it is the last blame of base
governments to become 'shield-sellers;' (compare 'Munera Pulveris,'
§ 127). On this part of the Squire's character I have not yet been
able to insist at any length; but you will find partial suggestion of
the manner in which you may thus become yourselves shield-bearers,
in 'Time and Tide,' §§ 72, 73, and I shall soon have the elementary
copies in my Oxford schools published, and you may then learn, if
you will, somewhat of shield-drawing and painting.
And thirdly, the word 'Squire' means a Carver, properly a carver
at some one else's feast; and typically, has reference to the
Squire's duty as a Carver at all men's feasts, being Lord of Land,
and therefore giver of Food; in which function his lady, as you have
heard now often enough, (first from Carlyle,) is properly styled
Loaf-giver; her duty being, however, first of all to find out where
all loaves come from; for, quite retaining his character in the
other two respects, the typical squire is apt to fail in this, and to
become rather a loaf-eater, or consumer, than giver, (compare X. 4,
and X. 16); though even in that capacity the enlightened press of
your day thinks you cannot do without him. (VII. 17.) Therefore, for
analysis of what he has been, and may be, I have already specified to
you certain squires, whose history I wish you to know and think over;
(with many others in due course; but, for the present, those already
specified are enough,) namely, the Theseus of the Elgin Marbles and
Midsummer Night's Dream, (II. 3); the best and unfortunatest [31] of
the Kings of France, 'St. Louis' (III. 8); the best and unfortunatest
of the Kings of England, Henry II. (III. 9); the Lion-heart of
England (III. 11); Edward III. of England and his lion's whelp,
(IV. 14); again and again the two Second Friedrichs, of Germany and
Prussia; Sir John Hawkwood, (I. 6, and XV. 11); Sir Thomas More,
(VII. 4); Sir Francis Drake, (XIII. 11); and Sir Richard Grenville,
(IX. 11). Now all these squires are alike in their high quality of
captainship over man and beast; they were pre-eminently the best men
of their surrounding groups of men; and the guides of their people,
faithfully recognized for such; unless when their people got drunk,
(which sometimes happened, with sorrowful issue,) and all equality with
them seen to be divinely impossible. (Compare XIV. 7.) And that most
of them lived by thieving does not, under the conditions of their day,
in any wise detract from their virtue, or impair their delightfulness,
(any more than it does that of your, on the whole I suppose, favourite,
Englishman, and nomadic Squire of Sherwood, Robin Hode or Hood); the
theft, or piracy, as it might happen, being always effected with a good
conscience, and in an open, honourable, and merciful manner. Thus, in
the account of Sir Francis's third voyage, which was faithfully taken
out of the reports of Mr. Christofer Ceely, Ellis Hixon, and others
who were in the same voyage with him, by Philip Nichols, preacher,
revised and annotated by Sir Francis himself, and set forth by his
nephew, what I told you about his proceedings on the coast of Spanish
America (XIII. 12) is thus summed:--
"There were at this time belonging to Carthagene, Nombre de
Dios, Rio Grand, Santa Martha, Rio de Hacha, Venta Cruz, Veragua,
Nicaragua, the Honduras, Jamaica, &c., about two hundred frigates,
[32] some of a hundred and twenty tunnes, other but of tenne or
twelve tunne, but the most of thirty or forty tunne, which all
had entercourse betweene Carthagene and Nombre de Dios, the most
of which, during our abode in those parts, wee tooke, and some
of them twice or thrice each, yet never burnt nor suncke any,
unless they were made out men-of-warre against us.... Many strange
birds, beastes, and fishes, besides, fruits, trees, plants and
the like were seene and observed of us in this journey, which,
willingly, wee pretermit, as hastening to the end of our voyage,
which from this Cape of St. Anthony wee intended to finish by
sayling the directest and speediest way homeward, and accordingly
even beyonde our owne expectation most happily performed. For
whereas our captaine had purposed to touch at New-found-land,
and there to have watered, which would have been some let unto
us, though wee stood in great want of water, yet God Almighty so
provided for us, by giving us good store of raine water, that
wee were sufficiently furnished; and within twenty-three dayes
wee past from the Cape of Florida to the Iles of Silley, and so
arrived at Plimouth on Sunday, about sermon-time, August the Ninth,
1573, at what time the newes of our captaine's returne brought
unto his" (people?) "did so speedily pass over all the church,
and surpass their mindes with desire and delight to see him, that
very fewe or none remained with the preacher, all hastening to
see the evidence of God's love and blessing towards our gracious
Queene and countrey, by the fruite of our captaine's labour and
successe. Soli Deo gloria."
I am curious to know, and hope to find, that the deserted preacher
was Mr. Philip Nichols, the compiler afterwards of this log-book of
Sir Francis.
Putting out of the question, then, this mode of their livelihood,
you will find all these squires essentially "captaines," head, or
chief persons, occupied in maintaining good order, and putting things
to rights, so that they naturally become chief Lawyers without Wigs,
(otherwise called Kings,) in the districts accessible to them. Of
whom I have named first, the Athenian Theseus, "setter to rights,"
or "settler," his name means; he being both the founder of the
first city whose history you are to know, and the first true Ruler
of beasts: for his mystic contest with the Minotaur is the fable
through which the Greeks taught what they knew of the more terrible
and mysterious relations between the lower creatures and man; and
the desertion of him by Ariadne, (for indeed he never deserted her,
but she him,--involuntarily, poor sweet maid,--Death calling her in
Diana's name,) is the conclusive stroke against him by the Third Fors.
Of this great squire, then, you shall really have some account in next
letter. I have only further time now to tell you that this month's
frontispiece is a facsimile of two separate parts of an engraving
originally executed by Sandro Botticelli. An impression of Sandro's
own plate is said to exist in the Vatican; I have never seen one. The
ordinarily extant impressions are assuredly from an inferior plate,
a copy of Botticelli's. But his manner of engraving has been imitated
by the copyist as far as he understood it, and the important qualities
of the design are so entirely preserved that the work has often been
assigned to the master himself.
It represents the seven works of Mercy, as completed by an eighth
work in the centre of all; namely, lending without interest, from
the Mount of Pity accumulated by generous alms. In the upper part of
the design are seen the shores of Italy, with the cities which first
built Mounts of Pity: Venice, chief of all;--then Florence, Genoa,
and Castruccio's Lucca; in the distance prays the monk of Ancona,
who first thought--inspired of heaven--of such war with usurers;
and an angel crowns him, as you see. The little dashes, which form
the dark background, represent waves of the Adriatic; and they, as
well as all the rest, are rightly and manfully engraved, though you
may not think it; but I have no time to-day to give you a lecture on
engraving, nor to tell you the story of Mounts of Pity, which is too
pretty to be spoiled by haste; but I hope to get something of Theseus
and Frederick the Second, preparatorily, into next letter. Meantime I
must close this one by answering two requests, which, though made to me
privately, I think it right to state my reasons for refusing, publicly.
The first was indeed rather the offer of an honour to me, than a
request, in the proposal that I should contribute to the Maurice
Memorial Fund.
I loved Mr. Maurice, learned much from him, worked under his guidance
and authority, and have deep regard and respect for some persons
whose names I see on the Memorial Committee.
But I must decline joining them: first, because I dislike all
memorials, as such; thinking that no man who deserves them, needs
them: and secondly, because, though I affectionately remember and
honour Mr. Maurice, I have no mind to put his bust in Westminster
Abbey. For I do not think of him as one of the great, or even one of
the leading, men of the England of his day; but only as the centre of
a group of students whom his amiable sentimentalism at once exalted
and stimulated, while it relieved them from any painful necessities of
exact scholarship in divinity. And as he was always honest, (at least
in intention,) and unfailingly earnest and kind, he was harmless and
soothing in error, and vividly helpful when unerring. I have above
referred you, and most thankfully, to his sermon on the relations of
man to inferior creatures; and I can quite understand how pleasant it
was for a disciple panic-struck by the literal aspect of the doctrine
of justification by faith, to be told, in an earlier discourse, that
"We speak of an anticipation as justified by the event. Supposing
that anticipation to be something so inward, so essential to me,
that my own very existence is involved in it, I am justified by
it." But consolatory equivocations of this kind have no enduring
place in literature; nor has Mr. Maurice more real right to a niche in
Westminster Abbey than any other tender-hearted Christian gentleman,
who has successfully, for a time, promoted the charities of his faith,
and parried its discussion.
I have been also asked to contribute to the purchase of the Alexandra
Park; and I will not: and beg you, my working readers, to understand,
once for all, that I wish your homes to be comfortable, and refined;
and that I will resist, to the utmost of my power, all schemes founded
on the vile modern notion that you are to be crowded in kennels till
you are nearly dead, that other people may make money by your work,
and then taken out in squads by tramway and railway, to be revived
and refined by science and art. Your first business is to make your
homes healthy and delightful: then, keep your wives and children there,
and let your return to them be your daily "holy day."
Ever faithfully yours,