EGYPT. Did not I show you how the thread cuts my fingers? and I
always get cramp, somehow, in my neck, if I sew long.
L. Well, I suppose the Egyptian queens thought everybody got cramp
in their neck, if they sewed long; and that thread always cut
people's fingers. At all events, every kind of manual labor was
despised both by them, and the Greeks; and, while they owned the
real good and fruit of it, they yet held it a degradation to all
who practiced it. Also, knowing the laws of life thoroughly, they
perceived that the special practice necessary to bring any manual
art to perfection strengthened the body distortedly; one energy or
member gaining at the expense of the rest. They especially dreaded
and despised any kind of work that had to be done near fire: yet,
feeling what they owed to it in metal-work, as the basis of all
other work, they expressed this mixed reverence and scorn in the
varied types of the lame Hephaestus, and the lower Pthah.
SIBYL. But what did you mean by making him say "Everything great I
can make small, and everything small great"?
L. I had my own separate meaning in that. We have seen in modern
times the power of the lower Pthah developed in a separate way,
which no Greek nor Egyptian could have conceived. It is the
character of pure and eyeless manual labor to conceive everything
as subjected to it: and, in reality, to disgrace and diminish all
that is so subjected, aggrandizing itself, and the thought of
itself, at the expense of all noble things. I heard an orator, and
a good one too, at the Working Men's College, the other day, make
a great point in a description of our railroads; saying, with
grandly conducted emphasis, "They have made man greater, and the
world less." His working audience were mightily pleased; they
thought it so very fine a thing to be made bigger themselves; and
all the rest of the world less. I should have enjoyed asking them
(but it would have been a pity--they were so pleased), how much
less they would like to have the world made;--and whether, at
present, those of them really felt the biggest men, who lived in
the least houses.
SIBYL. But then, why did you make Pthah say that he could make
weak things strong, and small things great?
L. My dear, he is a boaster and self-assertor, by nature; but it
is so far true. For instance, we used to have a fair in our
neighborhood--a very fine fair we thought it. You never saw such
an one; but if you look at the engraving of Turner's "St.
Catherine's Hill," you will see what it was like. There were
curious booths, carried on poles; and peep-shows; and music, with
plenty of drums and cymbals; and much barley-sugar and
gingerbread, and the like: and in the alleys of this fair the
London populace would enjoy themselves, after their fashion, very
thoroughly. Well, the little Pthah set to work upon it one day; he
made the wooden poles into iron ones, and put them across, like
his own crooked legs, so that you always fall over them if you
don't look where you are going; and he turned all the canvas into
panes of glass, and put it up on his iron cross-poles; and made
all the little booths into one great booth;--and people said it
was very fine, and a new style of architecture; and Mr. Dickens
said nothing was ever like it in Fairy-land, which was very true.
And then the little Pthah set to work to put fine fairings in it;
and he painted the Nineveh bulls afresh, with the blackest eyes he
could paint (because he had none himself), and he got the angels
down from Lincoln choir, and gilded their wings like his
gingerbread of old times; and he sent for everything else he could
think of, and put it in his booth. There are the casts of Niobe
and her children; and the Chimpanzee; and the wooden Caffres and
New-Zealanders; and the Shakespeare House; and Le Grand Blondin,
and Le Petit Blondin; and Handel; and Mozart; and no end of shops,
and buns, and beer; and all the little-Pthah-worshippers say,
never was anything so sublime!
SIBYL. Now, do you mean to say you never go to these Crystal
Palace concerts? they're as good as good can be.
L. I don't go to the thundering things with a million of bad
voices in them. When I want a song, I get Julia Mannering and Lucy
Bertram and Counselor Pleydell to sing "We be three poor Mariners"
to me; then I've no headache next morning. But I do go to the
smaller concerts, when I can; for they are very good, as you say,
Sibyl: and I always get a reserved seat somewhere near the
orchestra, where I am sure I can see the kettle-drummer drum.
SIBYL. Now DO be serious, for one minute.
L. I am serious--never was more so. You know one can't see the
modulation of violinists' fingers, but one can see the vibration
of the drummer's hand; and it's lovely.
SIBYL. But fancy going to a concert, not to hear, but to see!
L. Yes, it is very absurd. The quite right thing, I believe, is to
go there to talk. I confess, however, that in most music, when
very well done, the doing of it is to me the chiefly interesting
part of the business. I'm always thinking how good it would be for
the fat, supercilious people, who care so little for their half-
crown's worth, to be set to try and do a half-crown's worth of
anything like it.
MARY. But surely that Crystal Palace is a great good and help to
the people of London?
L. The fresh air of the Norwood hills is, or was, my dear; but
they are spoiling that with smoke as fast as they can. And the
palace (as they call it) is a better place for them, by much, than
the old fair; and it is always there, instead of for three days
only; and it shuts up at proper hours of night. And good use may
be made of the things in it, if you know how: but as for its
teaching the people, it will teach them nothing but the lowest of
the lower Pthah's work--nothing but hammer and tongs. I saw a
wonderful piece, of his doing, in the place, only the other day.
Some unhappy metal-worker--I am not sure if it was not a metal-
working firm--had taken three years to make a Golden eagle.
SIBYL. Of real gold?
L. No; of bronze, or copper, or some of their foul patent metals--
it is no matter what. I meant a model of our chief British eagle.
Every feather was made separately; and every filament of every
feather separately, and so joined on; and all the quills modeled
of the right length and right section, and at last the whole
cluster of them fastened together. You know, children, I don't
think much of my own drawing; but take my proud word for once,
that when I go to the Zoological Gardens, and happen to have a bit
of chalk in my pocket, and the Gray Harpy will sit, without
screwing his head round, for thirty seconds,--I can do a better
thing of him in that time than the three years' work of this
industrious firm. For, during the thirty seconds, the eagle is my
object,--not myself; and during the three years, the firm's
object, in every fiber of bronze it made, was itself, and not the
eagle. That is the true meaning of the little Pthah's having no
eyes--he can see only himself. The Egyptian beetle was not quite
the full type of him; our northern ground beetle is a truer one.
It is beautiful to see it at work, gathering its treasures (such
as they are) into little round balls; and pushing them home with
the strong wrong end of it,--head downmost all the way,--like a
modern political economist with his ball of capital, declaring
that a nation can stand on its vices better than on its virtues.
But away with you, children, now, for I'm getting cross.
DORA. I'm going downstairs; I shall take care, at any rate, that
there are no little Pthahs in the kitchen cupboards.