AFTER the reading in the last chapter, my friends walked homewards with
me as far as Durley Wood, which is about half-way between Worth-Ashton
and my house. As we rested here, we bethought ourselves that it would be
a pleasant spot for us to come to sometimes and read our essays. So we
agreed to name a day for meeting there. The day was favourable, we met
as we had appointed, and finding some beech logs lying very opportunely,
took possession of them for our council. We seated Ellesmere on one that
we called the woolsack, but which he said he felt himself unworthy to
occupy in the presence of King Log, pointing to mine. These nice points
of etiquette being at last settled, Milverton drew out his papers and was
about to begin reading, when Ellesmere thus interrupted him:—
_Ellesmere_. You were not in earnest, Milverton, about giving us an
essay on population? Because if so, I think I shall leave this place to
you and Dunsford and the ants.
_Milverton_. I certainly have been meditating something of the sort; but
have not been able to make much of it.
_Ellesmere_. If I had been living in those days when it first beamed
upon mankind that the earth was round, I am sure I should have said, “We
know now the bounds of the earth: there are no interminable plains joined
to the regions of the sun, allowing of indefinite sketchy outlines at the
edges of maps. That little creature man will immediately begin to think
that his world is too small for him.”
_Milverton_. There has probably been as much folly uttered by political
economy as against it, which is saying something. The danger as regards
theories of political economy is the obvious one of their abstract
conclusions being applied to concrete things.
_Ellesmere_. As if we were to expect mathematical lines to bear weights.
_Milverton_. Something like that. With a good system of logic pervading
the public mind, this danger would of course be avoided; but such a state
of mind is not likely to occur in any public that we or our grandchildren
are likely to have to deal with. As it is, an ordinary man hears some
conclusion of political economy, showing some particular tendency of
things, which in real life meets with many counteractions of all kinds:
but he, perhaps, adopts the conclusion without the least abatement, and
would work it into life, as if all went on there like a rule-of-three
sum.
_Ellesmere_. After all, this error arises from the man’s not having
enough political economy. It is not that a theory is good on paper, but
unsound in real life. It is only that in real life you cannot get at the
simple state of things to which the theory would rightly apply. You want
many other theories and the just composition of them all to be able to
work the whole problem. That being done (which, however, scarcely can be
done), the result on paper might be read off as applicable at once to
life. But now, touching the essay; since we are not to have population,
what is it to be?
_Milverton_. Public improvements.
_Ellesmere_. Nearly as bad; but as this is a favourite subject of yours,
I suppose it will not be polite to go away.
_Milverton_. No; you must listen.
PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS.
What are possessions? To an individual, the stores of his own heart and
mind pre-eminently. His truth and valour are amongst the first. His
contentedness, or his resignation may be put next. Then his sense of
beauty, surely a possession of great moment to him. Then all those mixed
possessions which result from the social affections—great possessions,
unspeakable delights, much greater than the gift last mentioned in the
former class, but held on more uncertain tenure. Lastly, what are
generally called possessions? However often we have heard of the vanity,
uncertainty, and vexation that beset these last, we must not let this
repetition deaden our minds to the fact.
Now, national possessions must be estimated by the same gradation that we
have applied to individual possessions. If we consider national luxury,
we shall see how small a part it may add to national happiness. Men of
deserved renown, and peerless women, lived upon what we should now call
the coarsest fare, and paced the rushes in their rooms with as high, or
as contented thoughts, as their better-fed and better-clothed descendants
can boast of. Man is limited in this direction; I mean, in the things
that concern his personal gratification; but when you come to the higher
enjoyments, the expansive power both in him and them is greater. As
Keats says,
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”
What then are a nation’s possessions? The great words that have been
said in it; the great deeds that have been done in it; the great
buildings, and the great works of art, that have been made in it. A man
says a noble saying: it is a possession, first to his own race, then to
mankind. A people get a noble building built for them: it is an honour
to them, also a daily delight and instruction. It perishes. The
remembrance of it is still a possession. If it was indeed pre-eminent,
there will be more pleasure in thinking of it than in being with others
of inferior order and design.
* * * * *
On the other hand, a thing of ugliness is potent for evil. It deforms
the taste of the thoughtless: it frets the man who knows how bad it is:
it is a disgrace to the nation who raised it; an example and an occasion
for more monstrosities. If it is a great building in a great city,
thousands of people pass it daily, and are the worse for it, or at least
not the better. It must be done away with. Next to the folly of doing a
bad thing is that of fearing to undo it. We must not look at what it has
cost, but at what it is. Millions may be spent upon some foolish device
which will not the more make it into a possession, but only a more
noticeable detriment.
* * * * *
It must not be supposed that works of art are the only, or the chief,
public improvements needed in any country. Wherever men congregate, the
elements become scarce. The supply of air, light, and water is then a
matter of the highest public importance: and the magnificent
utilitarianism of the Romans should precede the nice sense of beauty of
the Greeks. Or rather, the former should be worked out in the latter.
Sanitary improvements, like most good works, may be made to fulfil many
of the best human objects. Charity, social order, conveniency of living,
and the love of the beautiful, may all be furthered by such improvements.
A people is seldom so well employed as when, not suffering their
attention to be absorbed by foreign quarrels and domestic broils, they
bethink themselves of winning back those blessings of Nature which
assemblages of men mostly vitiate, exclude, or destroy.
* * * * *
Public improvements are sometimes most difficult in free countries. The
origination of them is difficult there, many diverse minds having to be
persuaded. The individual, or class, resistance to the public good is
harder to conquer than in despotic states. And, what is most
embarrassing, perhaps, individual progress in the same direction, or
individual doings in some other way, form a great hindrance, sometimes,
to public enterprise. On the other hand, the energy of a free people is
a mine of public welfare; and individual effort brings many good things
to bear in much shorter time than any government could be expected to
move in. A judicious statesman considers these things; and sets himself
especially to overcome those peculiar obstacles to public improvement
which belong to the institutions of his country. Adventure in a despotic
state, combined action in a free state, are the objects which peculiarly
demand his attention.
To return to works of art. In this also the genius of the people is to
be heeded. There may have been, there may be, nations requiring to be
diverted from the love of art to stern labour and industrial conquests.
But certainly it is not so with the Anglo-Saxon race, or with the
Northern races generally. Money may enslave them; logic may enslave
them; art never will. The chief men, therefore, in these races will do
well sometimes to contend against the popular current, and to convince
their people that there are other sources of delight, and other objects
worthy of human endeavour, than severe money-getting or more material
successes of any kind.
In fine, the substantial improvement, and even the embellishment of
towns, is a work which both the central and local governing bodies in a
country should keep a steady hand upon. It especially concerns them.
What are they there for but to do that which individuals cannot do? It
concerns them, too, as it tells upon the health, morals, education, and
refined pleasures of the people they govern. In doing it, they should
avoid pedantry, parsimony, and favouritism; and their mode of action
should be large, considerate, and foreseeing. Large; inasmuch as they
must not easily be contented with the second best in any of their
projects. Considerate; inasmuch as they have to think what their people
need most, not what will make most show. And therefore, they should be
contented, for instance, at their work going on underground for a time,
or in byways, if needful; the best charity in public works, as in
private, being often that which courts least notice. Lastly, their work
should be with foresight, recollecting that cities grow up about us like
young people, before we are aware of it.
* * * * *
_Ellesmere_. Another very merciful essay! When we had once got upon the
subject of sanitary improvements, I thought we should soon be five fathom
deep in blue-books, reports, interminable questions of sewerage, and
horrors of all kinds.
_Milverton_. I am glad you own that I have been very tender of your
impatience in this essay. People, I trust, are now so fully aware of the
immense importance of sanitary improvements, that we do not want the
elementary talking about such things that was formerly necessary. It is
difficult, though, to say too much about sanitary matters, that is, if by
saying much one could gain attention. I am convinced that the most
fruitful source of physical evil to mankind has been impure air, arising
from circumstances which might have been obviated. Plagues and
pestilences of all kinds, cretinism too, and all scrofulous disorders,
are probably mere questions of ventilation. A district may require
ventilation as well as a house.
_Ellesmere_. Seriously speaking, I quite agree with you. And what
delights me in sanitary improvements is, that they can hardly do harm.
Give a poor man good air, and you do not diminish his self-reliance. You
only add to his health and vigour—make more of a man of him. But now
that the public mind, as it is facetiously called, has got hold of the
idea of these improvements, everybody will be chattering about them.
_Milverton_. The very time when those who really do care for these
matters should be watchful to make the most of the tide in their favour,
and should not suffer themselves to relax their efforts because there is
no originality now about such things.
_Dunsford_. Custom soon melts off the wings which Novelty alone has lent
to Benevolence.
_Ellesmere_. And down comes the charitable Icarus. A very good simile,
my dear Dunsford, but rather of the Latin-verse order. I almost see it
worked into an hexameter and pentameter, and delighting the heart of an
Eton boy.
_Dunsford_. Ellesmere is more than usually vicious to-day, Milverton. A
great “public improvement” would be to clip the tongues of some of these
lawyers.
_Ellesmere_. Possibly. I have just been looking again at that part of
the essay, Milverton, where you talk of the little gained by national
luxury. I think with you. There is an immensity of nonsense uttered
about making people happy, which is to be done, according to
happiness-mongers, by quantities of sugar and tea, and such-like things.
One knows the importance of food, but there is no Elysium to be got out
of it.
_Milverton_. I know what you mean. There is a kind of pity for the
people now in vogue which is most effeminate. It is a sugared sort of
Robespierre talk about “The poor but virtuous People.” To address such
stuff to the people is not to give them anything, but to take away what
they have. Suppose you could give them oceans of tea and mountains of
sugar, and abundance of any luxury that you choose to imagine, but at the
same time you inserted a hungry, envious spirit in them, what have you
done? Then, again, this envious spirit, when it is turned to difference
of station, what good can it do? Can you give station according to
merit? Is life long enough for it?
_Ellesmere_. Of course we cannot always be weighing men with nicety, and
saying, “Here is your place, here yours.”
_Milverton_. Then, again, what happiness do you confer on men by
teaching them to disrespect their superiors in rank, by turning all the
embellishments which adorn various stations wrong side out, putting
everything in its lowest form, and then saying, “What do you see to
admire here?” You do not know what injury you may do a man when you
destroy all reverence in him. It will be found out some day that men
derive more pleasure and profit from having superiors than from having
inferiors.
_Dunsford_. It is seldom that I bring you back to your subject, but we
are really a long way off at present; and I want to know, Milverton, what
you would do specifically in the way of public improvements. Of course
you cannot say in an essay what you would do in such matters, but amongst
ourselves. In London, for instance.
_Milverton_. The first thing for Government to do, Dunsford, in London,
or any other great town, is to secure open spaces in it and about it.
Trafalgar Square may be dotted with hideous absurdities, but it is an
open space. They may collect together there specimens of every variety
of meanness and bad taste; but they cannot prevent its being a better
thing than if it were covered with houses. Public money is scarcely ever
so well employed as in securing bits of waste ground and keeping them as
open spaces. Then, as under the most favourable circumstances, we are
likely to have too much carbon in the air of any town, we should plant
trees to restore the just proportions of the air as far as we can. {161}
Trees are also what the heart and the eye desire most in towns. The
Boulevards in Paris show the excellent effect of trees against buildings.
There are many parts of London where rows of trees might be planted along
the streets. The weighty dulness of Portland Place, for instance, might
be thus relieved. Of course, in any scheme of public improvements, the
getting rid of smoke is one of the first objects.
_Ellesmere_. Yes, smoke is a great abuse; but then there is something
ludicrous about it, just as there is about sewerage. I believe, myself,
that for one person that the Corn Laws have injured, a dozen have had
their lives shortened and their happiness abridged in every way by these
less palpable nuisances. But there is no grandeur in opposing them—no
“good cry” to be raised. And so, as abuses cannot be met in our days but
by agitation—a committee, secretaries, clerks, newspapers, and a
review—and as agitation in this case holds out fewer inducements than
usual, we have gone on year after year being poisoned by these various
nuisances, at an incalculable expense of life and money.
_Milverton_. There is something in what you say, I think, but you press
it too far; for of late these sanitary subjects have worked themselves
into notice, as you yourself admit.
_Ellesmere_. Late indeed.
_Milverton_. Well, but to go on with schemes for improving London. Open
spaces, trees—then comes the supply of water. This is one of the first
things to be done. Philadelphia has given an example which all towns
ought to imitate. It is a matter requiring great thought, and the
various plans should be thoroughly canvassed before the choice is made.
Great beauty and the highest utility may be combined in supplying a town
like London with water. By the way, how much water do you think London
requires daily?
_Ellesmere_. As much as the Serpentine and the water in St. James’s
Park.
_Milverton_. You are not so far out.
Well, then, having gone through the largest things that must be attended
to, we come to minor matters. It is a great pity that the system of
building upon leases should be so commonly adopted. Nobody expects to
live out the leasehold term which he takes to build upon. But things
would be better done if people were more averse to having anything to do
with leasehold property. C. always says that the modern lath-and-plaster
system is a wickedness, and upon my word I think he is right. It is
inconceivable to me how a man can make up his mind to build, or to do
anything else, in a temporary, slight, insincere fashion. What has a man
to say for himself who must sum up the doings of his life in this way, “I
chiefly employed myself in making or selling things which seemed to be
good and were not, and nobody has occasion to bless me for anything I
have done.”
_Ellesmere_. Humph! you put it mildly. But the man has made perhaps
seven per cent. off his money; or, if he has made no per cent., has
ruined several men of his own trade, which is not to go for nothing when
a man is taking stock of his good deeds.
_Milverton_. There is one thing I forgot to say, that we want more
individual will in building, I think. As it is at present, a great
builder takes a plot of ground and turns out innumerable houses, all
alike, the same faults and merits running through each, thus adding to
the general dulness of things.
_Ellesmere_. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she came from abroad,
remarked that all her friends seemed to have got into drawing-rooms which
were like a grand piano, first a large square or oblong room, and then a
small one. Quite Georgian, this style of architecture. But now I think
we are improving immensely—at any rate in the outside of houses. By the
way, Milverton, I want to ask you one thing: How is it that Governments
and Committees, and the bodies that manage matters of taste, seem to be
more tasteless than the average run of people? I will wager anything
that the cabmen round Trafalgar Square would have made a better thing of
it than it is. If you had put before them several prints of fountains,
they would not have chosen those.
_Milverton_. I think with you, but I have no theory to account for it.
I suppose that these committees are frequently hampered by other
considerations than those which come before the public when they are
looking at the work done; and this may be some excuse. There was a
custom which I have heard prevailed in former days in some of the Italian
cities, of making large models of the works of art that were to adorn the
city, and putting them up in the places intended for the works when
finished, and then inviting criticism. It would really be a very good
plan in some cases.
_Ellesmere_. Now, Milverton, would you not forthwith pull down such
things as Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery? Dunsford looks at
me as if I were going to pull down the Constitution.
_Milverton_. I would pull them down to a certainty, or some parts of
them at any rate; but whether “forthwith” is another question. There are
greater things, perhaps, to be done first. We must consider, too,
“That eternal want of pence
Which vexes public men.”
Still, I think we ought always to look upon such buildings as temporary
arrangements, and they vex one less then. The Palace ought to be in the
higher part of the Park, perhaps on that slope opposite Piccadilly.
_Dunsford_. Well, it does amuse me the way in which you youngsters go
on, pulling down, in your industrious imaginations, palaces and national
galleries, building aqueducts and cloacæ maximæ, forming parks,
destroying smoke (so large a part of every Londoner’s diet), and
abridging plaster, without fear of Chancellors of the Exchequer, and the
resistance of mankind in general.
_Milverton_. We must begin by thinking boldly about things. That is a
larger part of any undertaking than it seems, perhaps.
_Dunsford_. We must, I am afraid, break off our pleasant employment of
projecting public improvements, unless we mean to be dinnerless.
_Ellesmere_. A frequent fate of great projectors, I fear.
_Milverton_. Now then, homewards.