country, and in front of my low window there were, first some beds of
daisies, then a row of gooseberry and currant bushes, and then a low
wall about three feet above the ground, covered with stone-cress.
Outside, a corn-field, with its green ears glistening in the sun, and a
field path through it, just past the garden gate. From my window I
could see every peasant of the village who passed that way, with basket
on arm for market, or spade on shoulder for field. When I was inclined
for society, I could lean over my wall, and talk to anybody; when I was
inclined for science, I could botanize all along the top of my wall--
there were four species of stone-cress alone growing on it; and when I
was inclined for exercise, I could jump over my wall, backwards and
forwards. That's the sort of fence to have in a Christian country; not
a thing which you can't walk inside of without making yourself look
like a wild beast, nor look at out of your window in the morning
without expecting to see somebody impaled upon it in the night.
And yet farther, observe that the iron railing is a useless fence--it
can shelter nothing, and support nothing; you can't nail your peaches
to it, nor protect your flowers with it, nor make anything whatever out
of its costly tyranny; and besides being useless, it is an insolent
fence;--it says plainly to everybody who passes--"You may be an honest
person,--but, also, you may be a thief: honest or not, you shall not
get in here, for I am a respectable person, and much above you; you
shall only see what a grand place I have got to keep you out of--look
here, and depart in humiliation."
This, however, being in the present state of civilization a frequent
manner of discourse, and there being unfortunately many districts where
the iron railing is unavoidable, it yet remains a question whether you
need absolutely make it ugly, no less than significative of evil. You
must have railings round your squares in London, and at the sides of
your areas; but need you therefore have railings so ugly that the
constant sight of them is enough to neutralise the effect of all the
schools of art in the kingdom? You need not. Far from such necessity,
it is even in your power to turn all your police force of iron bars
actually into drawing masters, and natural historians. Not, of course,
without some trouble and some expense; you can do nothing much worth
doing, in this world, without trouble, you can get nothing much worth
having without expense. The main question is only--what is worth doing
and having:--Consider, therefore, if this be not. Here is your iron
railing, as yet, an uneducated monster; a sombre seneschal, incapable
of any words, except his perpetual "Keep out!" and "Away with you!"
Would it not be worth some trouble and cost to turn this ungainly
ruffian porter into a well-educated servant; who, while he was severe
as ever in forbidding entrance to evilly-disposed people, should yet
have a kind word for well-disposed people, and a pleasant look, and a
little useful information at his command, in case he should be asked a
question by the passers-by?
We have not time to-night to look at many examples of ironwork; and
those I happen to have by me are not the best; ironwork is not one of
my special subjects of study; so that I only have memoranda of bits
that happened to come into picturesque subjects which I was drawing for
other reasons. Besides, external ironwork is more difficult to find
good than any other sort of ancient art; for when it gets rusty and
broken, people are sure, if they can afford it, to send it to the old
iron shop, and get a fine new grating instead; and in the great cities
of Italy, the old iron is thus nearly all gone: the best bits I
remember in the open air were at Brescia;--fantastic sprays of laurel-
like foliage rising over the garden gates; and there are a few fine
fragments at Verona, and some good trellis-work enclosing the Scala
tombs; but on the whole, the most interesting pieces, though by no
means the purest in style, are to be found in out-of-the-way provincial
towns, where people do not care, or are unable, to make polite
alterations. The little town of Bellinzona, for instance, on the south
of the Alps, and that of Sion on the north, have both of them complete
schools of ironwork in their balconies and vineyard gates. That of
Bellinzona is the best, though not very old--I suppose most of it of
the seventeenth century; still it is very quaint and beautiful. Here,
for example, are two balconies, from two different houses; one has been
a cardinal's, and the hat is the principal ornament of the balcony; its
tassels being wrought with delightful delicacy and freedom; and
catching the eye clearly even among the mass of rich wreathed leaves.
These tassels and strings are precisely the kind of subject fit for
ironwork--noble in ironwork, they would have been entirely ignoble in
marble, on the grounds above stated. The real plant of oleander
standing in the window enriches the whole group of lines very happily.
The other balcony, from a very ordinary-looking house in the same
street, is much more interesting in its details. It is shown in the
plate as it appeared last summer, with convolvulus twined about the
bars, the arrow-shaped living leaves mingled among the leaves of iron;
but you may see in the centre of these real leaves a cluster of lighter
ones, which are those of the ironwork itself. This cluster is worth
giving a little larger to show its treatment. Fig. 2 (in Appendix V.)
is the front view of it: Fig. 4, its profile. It is composed of a large
tulip in the centre; then two turkscap lilies; then two pinks, a little
conventionalized; then two narcissi; then two nondescripts, or, at
least, flowers I do not know; and then two dark buds, and a few leaves.
I say, dark buds, for all these flowers have been coloured in their
original state. The plan of the group is exceedingly simple: it is all
enclosed in a pointed arch (Fig. 3, Appendix V.): the large mass of the
tulip forming the apex; a six-foiled star on each side; then a jagged
star; then a five-foiled star; then an unjagged star or rose; finally a
small bud, so as to establish relation and cadence through the whole
group. The profile is very free and fine, and the upper bar of the
balcony exceedingly beautiful in effect;--none the less so on account
of the marvellously simple means employed. A thin strip of iron is bent
over a square rod; out of the edge of this strip are cut a series of
triangular openings--widest at top, leaving projecting teeth of iron
(Appendix, Fig. 5); then each of these projecting pieces gets a little
sharp tap with the hammer in front, which beaks its edge inwards,
tearing it a little open at the same time, and the thing is done.
The common forms of Swiss ironwork are less naturalistic than these
Italian balconies, depending more on beautiful arrangements of various
curve; nevertheless, there has been a rich naturalist school at
Fribourg, where a few bell-handles are still left, consisting of rods
branched into laurel and other leafage. At Geneva, modern improvements
have left nothing; but at Annecy, a little good work remains; the
balcony of its old hôtel de ville especially, with a trout of the lake
--presumably the town arms--forming its central ornament.
I might expatiate all night--if you would sit and hear me--on the
treatment of such required subject, or introduction of pleasant caprice
by the old workmen; but we have no more time to spare, and I must quit
this part of our subject--the rather as I could not explain to you the
intrinsic merit of such ironwork without going fully into the theory of
curvilinear design; only let me leave with you this one distinct
assertion--that the quaint beauty and character of many natural
objects, such as intricate branches, grass, foliage (especially thorny
branches and prickly foliage), as well as that of many animals, plumed,
spined, or bristled, is sculpturally expressible in iron only, and in
iron would be majestic and impressive in the highest degree; and that
every piece of metal work you use might be, rightly treated, not only a
superb decoration, but a most valuable abstract of portions of natural
forms, holding in dignity precisely the same relation to the painted
representation of plants, that a statue does to the painted form of
man. It is difficult to give you an idea of the grace and interest
which the simplest objects possess when their forms are thus abstracted
from among the surrounding of rich circumstance which in nature
disturbs the feebleness of our attention. In Plate 2, a few blades of
common green grass, and a wild leaf or two--just as they were thrown by
nature,--are thus abstracted from the associated redundance of the
forms about them, and shown on a dark ground: every cluster of herbage
would furnish fifty such groups, and every such group would work into
iron (fitting it, of course, rightly to its service) with perfect ease,
and endless grandeur of result.
III. IRON in POLICY.--Having thus obtained some idea of the use of iron
in art, as dependent on its ductility, I need not, certainly, say
anything of its uses in manufacture and commerce; we all of us know
enough,--perhaps a little too much--about _them_. So I pass lastly
to consider its uses in policy; dependent chiefly upon its tenacity--
that is to say, on its power of bearing a pull, and receiving an edge.
These powers, which enable it to pierce, to bind, and to smite, render
it fit for the three great instruments, by which its political action
may be simply typified; namely, the Plough, the Fetter, and the Sword.
On our understanding the right use of these three instruments, depend,
of course, all our power as a nation, and all our happiness as
individuals.
I. THE PLOUGH.--I say, first, on our understanding the right use of the
plough, with which, in justice to the fairest of our labourers, we must
always associate that feminine plough--the needle. The first
requirement for the happiness of a nation is that it should understand
the function in this world of these two great instruments: a happy
nation may be defined as one in which the husband's hand is on the
plough, and the housewife's on the needle; so in due time reaping its
golden harvest, and shining in golden vesture: and an unhappy nation is
one which, acknowledging no use of plough nor needle, will assuredly at
last find its storehouse empty in the famine, and its breast naked to
the cold.
Perhaps you think this is a mere truism, which I am wasting your time
in repeating. I wish it were.
By far the greater part of the suffering and crime which exist at this
moment in civilized Europe, arises simply from people not understanding
this truism--not knowing that produce or wealth is eternally connected
by the laws of heaven and earth with resolute labour; but hoping in
some way to cheat or abrogate this everlasting law of life, and to feed
where they have not furrowed, and be warm where they have not woven.
I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result from this one
misapprehension. The law of nature is, that a certain quantity of work
is necessary to produce a certain quantity of good, of any kind
whatever. If you want knowledge, you must toil for it: if food, you
must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. But men do not
acknowledge this law, or strive to evade it, hoping to get their
knowledge, and food, and pleasure for nothing; and in this effort they
either fail of getting them, and remain ignorant and miserable, or they
obtain them by making other men work for their benefit; and then they
are tyrants and robbers. Yes, and worse than robbers. I am not one who
in the least doubts or disputes the progress of this century in many
things useful to mankind; but it seems to me a very dark sign
respecting us that we look with so much indifference upon dishonesty
and cruelty in the pursuit of wealth. In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar it
was only the _feet_ that were part of iron and part of clay; but
many of us are now getting so cruel in our avarice, that it seems as
if, in us, the _heart_ were part of iron, and part of clay.
From what I have heard of the inhabitants of this town, I do not doubt
but that I may be permitted to do here what I have found it usually
thought elsewhere highly improper and absurd to do, namely, trace a few
Bible sentences to their practical result.
You cannot but have noticed how often in those parts of the Bible which
are likely to be oftenest opened when people look for guidance,
comfort, or help in the affairs of daily life, namely, the Psalms and
Proverbs, mention is made of the guilt attaching to the
_Oppression_ of the poor. Observe: not the neglect of them, but
the _Oppression_ of them: the word is as frequent as it is
strange. You can hardly open either of those books, but somewhere in
their pages you will find a description of the wicked man's attempts
against the poor: such as--"He doth ravish the poor when he getteth him
into his net."
"He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages; his eyes are privily
set against the poor."
"In his pride he doth persecute the poor, and blesseth the covetous,
whom God abhorreth."
"His mouth is full of deceit and fraud; in the secret places doth he
murder the innocent. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat
up my people as they eat bread? They have drawn out the sword, and bent
the bow, to cast down the poor and needy."
"They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression."
"Pride compasseth them about as a chain, and violence as a garment."
"Their poison is like the poison of a serpent. Ye weigh the violence of
your hands in the earth."
Yes: "Ye weigh the violence of your hands:"--weigh these words as well.
The last things we ever usually think of weighing are Bible words. We
like to dream and dispute over them; but to weigh them, and see what
their true contents are--anything but that. Yet, weigh these; for I
have purposely taken all these verses, perhaps more striking to you
read in this connection, than separately in their places, out of the
Psalms, because, for all people belonging to the Established Church of
this country these Psalms are appointed lessons, portioned out to them
by their clergy to be read once through every month. Presumably,
therefore, whatever portions of Scripture we may pass by or forget,
these at all events, must be brought continually to our observance as
useful for direction of daily life. Now, do we ever ask ourselves what
the real meaning of these passages may be, and who these wicked people
are, who are "murdering the innocent?" You know it is rather singular
language this!--rather strong language, we might, perhaps, call it--
hearing it for the first time. Murder! and murder of innocent people!--
nay, even a sort of cannibalism. Eating people,--yes, and God's people,
too--eating _My_ people as if they were bread! swords drawn, bows
bent, poison of serpents mixed! violence of hands weighed, measured,
and trafficked with as so much coin! where is all this going on? Do you
suppose it was only going on in the time of David, and that nobody but
Jews ever murder the poor? If so, it would surely be wiser not to
mutter and mumble for our daily lessons what does not concern us; but
if there be any chance that it may concern us, and if this description,
in the Psalms, of human guilt is at all generally applicable, as the
descriptions in the Psalms of human sorrow are, may it not be advisable
to know wherein this guilt is being committed round about us, or by
ourselves? and when we take the words of the Bible into our mouths in a
congregational way, to be sure whether we mean merely to chant a piece
of melodious poetry relating to other people--(we know not exactly to
whom)--or to assert our belief in facts bearing somewhat stringently on
ourselves and our daily business. And if you make up your minds to do
this no longer, and take pains to examine into the matter, you will
find that these strange words, occurring as they do, not in a few
places only, but almost in every alternate psalm and every alternate
chapter of proverb, or prophecy, with tremendous reiteration, were not
written for one nation or one time only; but for all nations and
languages, for all places and all centuries; and it is as true of the
wicked man now as ever it was of Nabal or Dives, that "his eyes are set
against the poor."
Set _against_ the poor, mind you. Not merely set _away_ from
the poor, so as to neglect or lose sight of them, but set against, so
as to afflict and destroy them. This is the main point I want to fix.
your attention upon. You will often hear sermons about neglect or
carelessness of the poor. But neglect and carelessness are not at all
the points. The Bible hardly ever talks about neglect of the poor. It
always talks of _oppression_ of the poor--a very different matter.
It does not merely speak of passing by on the other side, and binding
up no wounds, but of drawing the sword and ourselves smiting the men
down. It does not charge us with being idle in the pest-house, and
giving no medicine, but with being busy in the pest-house, and giving
much poison.
May we not advisedly look into this matter a little, even tonight, and
ask first, Who are these poor?
No country is, or ever will be, without them: that is to say, without
the class which cannot, on the average, do more by its labour than
provide for its subsistence, and which has no accumulations of property
laid by on any considerable scale. Now there are a certain number of
this class whom we cannot oppress with much severity. An able-bodied
and intelligent workman--sober, honest, and industrious, will almost
always command a fair price for his work, and lay by enough in a few
years to enable him to hold his own in the labour market. But all men
are not able-bodied, nor intelligent, nor industrious; and you cannot
expect them to be. Nothing appears to me at once more ludicrous and
more melancholy than the way the people of the present age usually talk
about the morals of labourers. You hardly ever address a labouring man
upon his prospects in life, without quietly assuming that he is to
possess, at starting, as a small moral capital to begin with, the
virtue of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato, and the heroism of
Epaminondas. "Be assured, my good man,"--you say to him,--"that if you
work steadily for ten hours a day all your life long, and if you drink
nothing but water, or the very mildest beer, and live on very plain
food, and never lose your temper, and go to church every Sunday, and
always remain content in the position in which Providence has placed
you, and never grumble nor swear; and always keep your clothes decent,
and rise early, and use every opportunity of improving yourself, you
will get on very well, and never come to the parish."
All this is exceedingly true; but before giving the advice so
confidently, it would be well if we sometimes tried it practically
ourselves, and spent a year or so at some hard manual labour, not of an
entertaining kind--ploughing or digging, for instance, with a very
moderate allowance of beer; nothing hut bread and cheese for dinner; no
papers nor muffins in the morning; no sofas nor magazines at night; one
small room for parlour and kitchen; and a large family of children
always in the middle of the floor. If we think we could, under these
circumstances, enact Socrates or Epaminondas entirely to our own
satisfaction, we shall be somewhat justified in requiring the same
behaviour from our poorer neighbours; but if not, we should surely
consider a little whether among the various forms of the oppression of
the poor, we may not rank as one of the first and likeliest--the
oppression of expecting too much from them.
But let this pass; and let it be admitted that we can never be guilty
of oppression towards the sober, industrious, intelligent, exemplary
labourer. There will always be in the world some who are not
altogether, intelligent and exemplary; we shall, I believe, to the end
of time find the majority somewhat unintelligent, a little inclined to
be idle, and occasionally, on Saturday night, drunk; we must even be
prepared to hear of reprobates who like skittles on Sunday morning
better than prayers; and of unnatural parents who send their children
out to beg instead of to go to school.
Now these are the kind of people whom you _can_ oppress, and whom
you do oppress, and that to purpose,--and with all the more cruelty and
the greater sting, because it is just their own fault that puts them
into your power. You know the words about wicked people are, "He doth
ravish the poor when he getteth him _into his net_." This getting
into the net is constantly the fault or folly of the sufferer--his own
heedlessness or his own indolence; but after he is once in the net, the
oppression of him, and making the most of his distress, are ours. The
nets which we use against the poor are just those worldly
embarrassments which either their ignorance or their improvidence are
almost certain at some time or other to bring them into: then, just at
the time when we ought to hasten to help them, and disentangle them,
and teach them how to manage better in future, we rush forward to
_pillage_ them, and force all we can out of them in their
adversity. For, to take one instance only, remember this is literally
and simply what we do, whenever we buy, or try to buy, cheap goods--
goods offered at a price which we know cannot be remunerative for the
labour involved in them. Whenever we buy such goods, remember we are
stealing somebody's labour. Don't let us mince the matter. I say, in
plain Saxon, STEALING--taking from him the proper reward of his work,
and putting it into our own pocket. You know well enough that the thing
could not have been offered you at that price, unless distress of some
kind had forced the producer to part with it. You take advantage of
this distress, and you force as much out of him as you can under the
circumstances. The old barons of the middle ages used, in general, the
thumbscrew to extort property; we moderns use, in preference, hunger or
domestic affliction: but the fact of extortion remains precisely the
same. Whether we force the man's property from him by pinching his
stomach, or pinching his fingers, makes some difference anatomically;--
morally, none whatsoever: we use a form of torture of some sort in
order to make him give up his property; we use, indeed, the man's own
anxieties, instead of the rack; and his immediate peril of starvation,
instead of the pistol at the head; but otherwise we differ from Front
de Bœuf, or Dick Turpin, merely in being less dexterous, more cowardly,
and more cruel. More cruel, I say, because the fierce baron and the
redoubted highwayman are reported to have robbed, at least by
preference, only the rich; _we_ steal habitually from the poor. We
buy our liveries, and gild our prayer-books, with pilfered pence out of
children's and sick men's wages, and thus ingeniously dispose a given
quantity of Theft, so that it may produce the largest possible measure
of delicately distributed suffering.