DISCUSSION.
Week after week the steward sent reports from Weston of the beauty of
the place, and the high order it was kept in for its lady’s approval,
and the impatience of the tenants and the villagers for my lord and
lady’s arrival. Week after week did friends and acquaintance leave town,
till it became what the inhabitants of Westminster call a desert, though
it would still puzzle a child to perceive the resemblance between it and
the solitary places where lions await the lonely wayfarer. Week by week
did Mrs. Philips expatiate on the delights of watering-places, and the
charms of the country, and the intolerableness of town in the
summer,—and still neither master nor mistress seemed to dream of
stirring. “A few weeks in the autumn! Was that all the change they were
to have? And how were they to exist till the autumn, she should like to
know?” Lady F—— was so far from wishing that Philips should not exist,
that on learning her discontents, she took immediate measures for
forwarding her to her dear lady Frances, more than half of whose
pleasure at Brighton had been spoiled by her having no one to manage her
toilet on whose taste she could rely as a corroboration of her own. The
day which saw Philips deposited in a Brighton coach brought ease not
only to herself, but to those who lost, and her who gained her. Philips
was certainly right. Her talents were not appreciated in her new home;
and she would indeed never be able to make anything of her new lady.
Like other persons of genius, mere kindness was not enough for Philips;
she pined for sympathy, congeniality, and applause, for which London
affords no scope in the summer season.
How Thérèse sang as she watered her lady’s plants, that day! How many
confessions had she to pour forth to her old priest of feelings in which
he traced incipient envy and jealousy, but in which she acknowledged
only fear and dislike! How long a letter did she write to her father to
inform him of her promotion to Mrs. Philips’s place, and consequent
increase of salary;—of her intention to take a few lessons in
hair-dressing, now that she could afford it, and felt it to be due to
her mistress; and how happy she should be, when this duty to madame was
provided for, to send money enough to put Annette to school, and perhaps
even to place a new hot-bed at her father’s disposal!—How charming a
variety was made in the household by a passing visit from the earl! And
how pleased he looked when, on popping his head in at the library-door,
late one evening, he found Letitia acting as secretary to her husband,
looking over books, making notes, and preparing materials for a reply to
a deputation which was to wait on him the next morning.
“I hope you like hard work as well as you thought you should,” said he,
laughing. “Have you begun to think yet of petitioning for a more equal
division of it,—for a multiplication of places?”
“Heaven forbid!” exclaimed Letitia. “A multiplication of places now,
when there is such an outcry against places and placemen! It would be as
much as our lives are worth.”
“And, what is more to the purpose,” said lord F——, “it is unnecessary.
It matters little that it is the fashion to mix up in ignorant minds the
odium of holding a sinecure, and the honour of filling a laborious
office;—it matters little that all the people have not yet learned to
distinguish the caterpillars from the silk-worms of the state; for they
will soon learn to hold the servants of the nation in due honour.
Meanwhile, all that we want is a more equal distribution of the toils of
government.”
“All that we want, son! It is much to want. What an absurdity it seems
that a nobleman should, from having merely his private affairs to
manage, be suddenly burdened with the responsibilities of an empire;—a
burden, under which how many have been crushed! Again, there is your old
school-fellow, lord H——, yawning half the day on the pier at Brighton,
and airing his horses the other half, while you are sitting here, pen in
hand, from morning till night.”
“I have no objection to it, sir. It has been a serious grievance to me,
ever since I returned from my travels, that I had nothing better to do
than what I have been doing.”
“Studying, growing accomplished, falling in love, and marrying,” replied
the earl, laughing. “What would you have been doing more?”
“As it happens, sir, all this proves an excellent preparation for my
present business. But I did not know that it would; and I was
perpetually asking myself,—moreover, Letitia was perpetually asking
me,—the end and aim of my employments.”
“That was the secret, I dare say,” said the earl, “of your difficulty in
winning her. Eh, Letitia?”
“Indeed it was,” replied Letitia, blushing. “God knows what difficulty I
found in making it a difficulty; but I dared not at once give up the
calling which nature had sanctified to me, without providing for my race
being served in an equal proportion in some other way. If there be one
note sooner than another to which conscience awakes in these times, it
is to the cry of unserved humanity; and mine, having been once thus
awakened, could not be lulled asleep again; and even your son could not
soothe it till he began to promise that we should labour together for
all, as well as for each other.”
“So you married to be useful;—for no other reason on earth, my dear?”
“No, no, no. I was useful before. I married ... for the same reason as
your son. But this reason did not make me forget my responsibilities;
that is all.”
“Ah, my dear: you do not know,—highly as you rate your art,—what you
have deprived society of by shutting yourself up here. Why,—I saw that
sot, colonel Bibber, turned into a patriot for full three hours under
your influence; and poor little lord H. that we were speaking of just
now, grew almost magnanimous for the same space of time. These, and
hundreds more, owe to you, my dear, the greater part of whatever virtue
has visited them for the last five years.”
“If so,” said lord F——, “what was the effect on better people?”
“The effect that the fine arts are ordained to produce,” said Letitia.
“They have much to answer for who defame them,—who perceive nothing in
them besides colours, and sounds, and motion,—who put a kaleidoscope and
Raphael’s Transfiguration on a level, and recognize nothing more in a
symphony of Mozart than in an Eolian harp, and see no matter of choice
between a merry Andrew and Kean in Hamlet. They who perceive not that
the fine arts are the fittest embodiments of truth and beauty are
unconscious of the vastness of the department in which they would have
man remain unserved. Such would wonder or laugh at my view of my
profession, and discredit my hesitating to leave it for lord F——.”
“You were satisfied that you held a commission to serve man, by means of
the fine arts; you were right, my dear, as is proved by your having made
the colonel a patriot, and the little lord a hero.”
“That it was only for three hours at a time,” said Letitia, “was not my
fault, but that of the arrangements by which means and ends are
sometimes separated as far asunder as if the world would be perilled by
their coming together. In this, we might wisely copy from man in his
state of nature. Indian savages have their songs and dances immediately
before their battles; and, as long as prayers imply devotion, they are
everywhere used in senates as a prelude to the business of the nation.
But we go straight from an oratorio to dinner, from a tragedy to sleep,
from the Elgin marbles to shopping in Regent-street; while, on the other
hand, if a great national question has to be debated, a mighty national
achievement to be wrought, the last thing its conductors would think of
would be to spiritualise the passions, and elevate the emotions, and
animate the faculties by the most appropriate means which Providence has
given for that end.—I know that this union can be only partially
effected yet. I know that the passage of the Reform Bill would have been
but little helped by any such appliances as we can at present exhibit;
but it will be different hereafter, when men have learned the true
office of the fine arts, and the ultimate objects of political reforms.
Then, hundreds of years hence, it may be,—if a new question of national
renovation should be brought forward, the senate to whom it is committed
may lay hold, with one accord, on whatever prior observance may best
soothe down their animosities, and banish their petty self-regards, and
establish their minds in that state of lofty tranquillity which alone
beseems the master-spirits of an empire.”
“In those days,” said lord F——, “there will be an end of the absurdity
of admitting the ennobling influence of the fine arts, and at the same
time holding its professors in contempt.”
“Is it, even now, anything more than a nominal contempt?” asked Letitia.
“Do not people mix up the profession and the vices of its professors
together, and then talk of contempt?”
“But those very vices are caused by the treatment of the profession.”
“True; like all other professional vices,—like all the peculiar failings
of certain classes,—like the avarice of Jews, the romancing of
travellers, the spiritual pride of sectaries, the vanity of authors.
When prejudices are so far surmounted as that no class shall be regarded
with factitious deference or contempt, there will be an end of all
occasion to reproach painters, musicians and actors with their tendency
to self-indulgence, at the same time that proverbs and by-words against
Jews, methodists, travellers, and poets, will fall into oblivion.”
“In those days,” said lord F——, “perhaps our peerage may honour itself
by taking up the profession of the fine arts. The time is coming when no
class of society may be idle; and if the aristocracy plumes itself upon
its refinement, this seems to be the pursuit most congenial to its
constitution.”
“If you preach your doctrine,—that all must work,—to those of your own
condition,” said the earl, “they will ask you where you got the
notion,—whether you are intimidated by the clamours of the lower
classes.”
“Not intimidated by their clamours, but moved by their condition, I
would tell them, sir; and that I derive my notion from the nature of man
and of society, and not from the dictation of any class whatever. It is
enough to melt a heart of stone to read and hear of such distresses as
have come to my knowledge since I entered office; but I am convinced
that many of the sufferers look in the wrong direction for the causes.”
“Yet there must be much cause for complaint,” said Letitia, “when our
institutions lead to such an opposition of interests as there now is
between different ranks. They should surely work together....”
“The present opposition of interests, my dear, arises from a scarcity of
the prime necessaries of life. If there were food enough for our people,
their occupations and interests, be they as various as the minds that
adopt them, would assist and promote each other from end to end of
society. If there be a scarcity of food, men will snatch from one
another’s mouths, be they huddled together in our manufacturing cities,
or duly distributed in a Moravian settlement. Where there is plenty,
there will be a harmony,—where there is want, there will be an
opposition of interests; and it is folly to assign co-operation and
competition as the remedy and cause of distress.”
“Nay; but can it be right that starving thousands should bid their
labour against one another for bread? Can it be right that whole
families should, at this moment, be crouching down supperless in their
litter of straw, while we.... O, I am ashamed of our luxuries!... our
mirrors, and harps, and lamps,—and my very dress. I am ashamed of them
all.”
“If we gave them all away this moment, my dear, they would not be food;
and if exchanged for bread, they would only take food from the mouths of
some who want it, to give to those who cannot want it more. Believe me,
the inequality of condition we are complaining of is rather checked than
promoted by competition. Competition equalizes the profits of industry,
and increases instead of lessening its productiveness.”
“Whence, then, comes all this misery? all this tremendous inequality?”
“The misery arises from a deficiency of food....”
“Well; whence this deficiency of food?”
“From the tendency of eaters to increase faster than the supply of
food.”
“But if we can raise more food by co-operation than without it....”
“Even supposing we could,—unless co-operation also checked the increase
of numbers, it could prove no more than a temporary alleviation of our
grievances. In my opinion, it would, if it included equality of
condition, leave us in a worse state than it found us, in as far as it
would relax the springs of enterprise and industry, and, in time, bring
the community down into a deplorable state of sameness; it would, if
persevered in, make us into a nation of half-naked potatoe eaters, and
water-drinkers.”
The earl inquired whether anything had been heard lately of the
co-operative society formed in the neighbourhood of Weston.
“O yes!” replied lord F——. “They are enjoying the benefits of
competition to the utmost. They ascribe their prosperity to their
co-operation; but they are, in fact, a large partnership in competition
with smaller ones. They do not see how their relative position would be
altered by their absorbing all their competitors into their firm, with
no check to their numbers, while nature has imposed perpetual checks
upon the growth of their capital.”
“But cannot numbers be checked,—cannot the checks upon the growth of
capital be evaded, while we have such a wide world to move about in?”
“Certainly, my dear: but there is no need of equality of condition to
help us to do this. Competition is more likely than co-operation to
induce prudence and foresight; and it will quicken our activity in
carrying our surplus numbers to distant fertile lands, or in bringing
the produce of distant fertile lands among our own people, instead of
tempting us to waste more and more of our capital continually in turning
up inferior lands at home, as the co-operatives would have us do.”
“But were not you telling me that your rent-roll becomes more valuable
as time passes? Are not landholders’ incomes increasing perpetually
under the present system?”
“They are; but this is the consequence, not of competition, but of the
varying qualities of the land, the tillage of every new grade of which
tends to lower profits and raise rents. No plan for the distribution of
home produce can affect the law by which the returns to capital are
perpetually diminished.”
“But what will be the end of it under the present system?”
“There are two extremes to which the systems of equality and inequality
of distribution respectively tend, in as far as they involve restriction
upon food by using only the produce of our own lands. Under the equality
system, there would be an ultimate scramble for potatoes, or a worse
diet still, if there were such a thing. Under our present system, the
whole produce must in time be in the hands of the land-owners and
tax-takers. Of course, we must change our system; not, however, by
discouraging competition, or abolishing private property, but by
removing all artificial restrictions upon food, and by regulating our
numbers according to our resources. The way to bring down landlords’
rents, and to increase the profits of cultivators, is to procure food
from some better source than our own inferior lands; and this I will
prove to you by figures, the next time my steward brings me the accounts
of my farms.”
“O, that Moravian village!” exclaimed Letitia. “How often I think of the
day we spent there! There was comfort, there was abundance, there was
mutual assistance and agreement.”
“Are you quite sure, Letitia, that there was nothing in the situation
and peculiarities of the place which called off your attention from the
principle on which the society was constituted? Remember the sunset,
that evening; the golden light on the green hill side, above the rows of
Moravian dwellings. Remember your admiration of the internal
regulations,—of the women’s uniform, of the music in their church, of
the simplicity of their way of life. Remember that all this has nothing
to do with their principle of association.”
“You must no more set the accomplishments of the Moravians to the
account of community of goods, than the absurdities of the Shakers,”
observed the earl. “That some sing beautifully, and others dance
ridiculously, has nothing to do with the distribution of their wealth.”
“No more than the ordinances of the Harmonites,” continued lord F——.
“Mr. Owen’s followers very properly refuse to be mixed up with
Moravians, Shakers, and Harmonites. Superstition has no part in their
system, either under the form of ritual observance or celibacy. Yet they
are apt to incorporate extraneous matters with their system, which serve
as allurements to a greater extent, I doubt not, than they intend. They
owe more converts than they suppose to their promises of mansions,
pleasure-grounds, coffee, alabaster lamps, and so on. My wonder is that
more are not enticed by descriptions like these, accompanied with
promises of ease, and leisure, and many other things to be obtained in a
short time, which the poor man now sees little chance of his children’s
children ever enjoying.”
“There might be alabaster lamps and damask furniture in every house
under the present system,” observed the earl, “if food enough could be
got to keep the production of capital going at its natural rate; aye,
and ease and leisure too, if our numbers were kept within bounds. It is
not so very long since shoes and stockings were worn only in courts; and
that they are now worn by peasants proves that our capital has grown
under a system of competition. That multitudes have little ease and no
leisure is the fault of over-population, which would be rather
aggravated than lessened under a system whose very essence it is to cast
each man’s burdens upon all. No man need scruple to have twenty of his
children gracing the dinner-table of a co-operative establishment, till
he should find, too late, that not all the savings caused by extensive
association can compensate for the falling off in the produce of
inferior lands, and for the new impulse given to population. His sons
and his sons’ sons must add more and more labour to the common stock;
must give up, first, damask and alabaster, then broadcloth and glass;
then descend to sackcloth and wooden trenchers, then to tatters,
potatoes and water, and then....”
“Then would ensue a scramble; if anything should be left, competition
would come into play again; society would rise by its means, and might
possibly attain once more to a state in which they might speculate on
the universality of damask and alabaster.”
“Well!” exclaimed Letitia, “I shall ask to look at your steward’s
accounts, and to have an explanation of them; for I do not at all like
our present position. We must reach the extreme, you say, of having our
whole produce in the hands of land-owners and tax-takers, unless we
change our system.”
“Yes, my dear: but by change of system, I do not mean convulsion. All
might be set on a safe footing by timely care, the removal of
restrictions, the diffusion of intelligence. There is nothing in all
this, threatening to public dignity or private safety. There is nothing
to lessen the security of property, or to endanger the rights of any
class; but quite the contrary: for property is never so secure as when
it most abounds; and rights are never so well respected as in the
absence of temptation to infringe upon them.”
“By change, then, you mean progression, without fear of subversion.”
“Just so; the progression of society from an advanced into a higher
state. What is there in such progression that is not as beautiful in
theory as it is found to be necessary in practice?”
From this hour, the progression of society, of which Letitia had long
dreamed, on which she had often speculated, began to assume distinctness
in her mind, and to form a large part of her conversation when she
happened to be with those to whom she could speak most of what was most
in her thoughts. Whenever she heard of misery and crime on a large
scale, she satisfied herself that the national demand of progression had
not yet been sufficiently attended to. When she heard that her lord’s
rents ought to be more, but were, from the difficulty of collecting
them, less than formerly, she sighed for the time when an unrestricted
provision of food (unrestricted by state-laws) should check the rise of
rents. Whenever she sat down by her husband’s side to hear curious tales
of the doings of large speculators or eminent merchants, or of the
sufferings of large classes of agricultural or manufacturing labourers,
she learned something that made her wonder and lament, that, while the
natural laws of production and distribution work out evenly their
balance of results, the tendency of legislation thus far seems to be to
clog and thwart them, and delay the progression in intelligence and
comfort which must arise out of their unobstructed operation. She saw
that, if the universal interest of society was allowed to be the moving
spring of the social economy, all would be served; and that if many yet
remain unserved, it is on account of other movements being made to
interfere with it—the petty springs of narrow and mistaken interests; so
that partial protection brings on general hardship, and arbitrary
stimulus, a condition of general suffering.
Before going down to Weston, Letitia had become prepared to make her way
with the steward, the co-operating workmen in the village, and all who
could throw light on the past and present state of property in the
place. Many a conversation and calculation had she also gone through
with Thérèse on the subject of shop-keeping in Paris; and all that Maria
told of Waldie’s business went to the same account of information. It
made poor Maria smile sometimes in the midst of a fit of anxiety to find
that her children’s babble savoured of political economy, when they had
been spending a morning with their aunt. They were more ready then than
at other times to wonder why they had dolls in the nursery, and
picture-books in the parlour, and a shell-grotto in the garden, when
many other little children had no playthings; and why poor Ned who swept
the crossing was so much more ragged than their errand boy, when Ned
worked the hardest of the two, and was often out in the cold and the
rain besides. Almost babies as they were, they could sometimes find out
very sage little reasons for these things, when put on the right scent
by aunt Letitia or her pupil Thérèse.
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