COIN-KEEPING.
68. It will be seen by reference to the last chapter that our present
task is to examine the relation of holders of store to holders of
currency; and of both to those who hold neither. In order to do this, we
must determine on which side we are to place substances such as gold,
commonly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous definitions the
reader will now be able to understand closer statements than have yet
been possible.
69. _The currency of any country consists of every document
acknowledging debt, which is transferable in the country._[33]
This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility and credit. Its
intelligibility depends chiefly on the difficulty of forging anything
like it;--its credit much on national character, but ultimately _always
on the existence of substantial means of meeting its demand_.[34]
As the degrees of transferableness are variable, (some documents passing
only in certain places, and others passing, if at all, for less than
their inscribed value), both the mass, and, so to speak, fluidity, of
the currency, are variable. True or perfect currency flows freely, like
a pure stream; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in proportion to the
quantity of less transferable matter which mixes with it, adding to its
bulk, but diminishing its purity. [Articles of commercial value, on
which bills are drawn, increase the currency indefinitely; and
substances of intrinsic value if stamped or signed without restriction
so as to become acknowledgments of debt, increase it indefinitely also.]
Every bit of gold found in Australia, so long as it remains uncoined, is
an article offered for sale like any other; but as soon as it is coined
into pounds, it diminishes the value of every pound we have now in our
pockets.
70. Legally authorized or national currency, in its perfect condition,
is a form of public acknowledgment of debt, so regulated and divided
that any person presenting a commodity of tried worth in the public
market, shall, if he please, receive in exchange for it a document
giving him claim to the return of its equivalent, (1) in any place, (2)
at any time, and (3) in any kind.
When currency is quite healthy and vital, the persons entrusted with its
management are always able to give on demand either,
A. The assigning document for the assigned quantity of goods. Or,
B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning document.
If they cannot give document for goods, the national exchange is at
fault.
If they cannot give goods for document, the national credit is at fault.
The nature and power of the document are therefore to be examined under
the three relations it bears to Place, Time, and Kind.
71. (1.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth in any
_Place_. Its use in this function is to save carriage, so that parting
with a bushel of corn in London, we may receive an order for a bushel of
corn at the Antipodes, or elsewhere. To be perfect in this use, the
substance of currency must be to the maximum portable, credible, and
intelligible. Its non-acceptance or discredit results always from some
form of ignorance or dishonour: so far as such interruptions rise out
of differences in denomination, there is no ground for their continuance
among civilized nations. It may be convenient in one country to use
chiefly copper for coinage, in another silver, and in another
gold,--reckoning accordingly in centimes, francs, or zecchins: but that
a franc should be different in weight and value from a shilling, and a
zwanziger vary from both, is wanton loss of commercial power.
72. (2.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent wealth at any
_Time_. In this second use, currency is the exponent of accumulation: it
renders the laying-up of store at the command of individuals unlimitedly
possible;--whereas, but for its intervention, all gathering would be
confined within certain limits by the bulk of property, or by its decay,
or the difficulty of its guardianship. "I will pull down my barns and
build greater," cannot be a daily saying; and all material investment is
enlargement of care. The national currency transfers the guardianship of
the store to many; and preserves to the original producer the right of
re-entering on its possession at any future period.
73. (3.) It gives claim (practical, though not legal) to the return of
equivalent wealth in any _Kind_. It is a transferable right, not merely
to this or that, but to anything; and its power in this function is
proportioned to the range of choice. If you give a child an apple or a
toy, you give him a determinate pleasure, but if you give him a penny,
an indeterminate one, proportioned to the range of selection offered by
the shops in the village. The power of the world's currency is similarly
in proportion to the openness of the world's fair, and, commonly,
enhanced by the brilliancy of external aspect, rather than solidity of
its wares.
74. We have said that the currency consists of orders for equivalent
goods. If equivalent, their quality must be guaranteed. The kinds of
goods chosen for specific claim must, therefore, be capable of test,
while, also, that a store may be kept in hand to meet the call of the
currency, smallness of bulk, with great relative value, is desirable;
and indestructibility, over at least a certain period, essential.
Such indestructibility, and facility of being tested, are united in
gold; its intrinsic value is great, and its imaginary value greater; so
that, partly through indolence, partly through necessity and want of
organization, most nations have agreed to take gold for the only basis
of their currencies;--with this grave disadvantage, that its portability
enabling the metal to become an active part of the medium of exchange,
the stream of the currency itself becomes opaque with gold--half
currency and half commodity, in unison of functions which partly
neutralize, partly enhance each other's force.
75. They partly neutralize, since in so far as the gold is commodity, it
is bad currency, because liable to sale; and in so far as it is
currency, it is bad commodity, because its exchange value interferes
with its practical use. Especially its employment in the higher branches
of the arts becomes unsafe on account of its liability to be melted down
for exchange.
Again. They partly enhance, since in so far as the gold has acknowledged
intrinsic value, it is good currency, because everywhere acceptable; and
in so far as it has legal exchangeable value, its worth as a commodity
is increased. We want no gold in the form of dust or crystal; but we
seek for it coined, because in that form it will pay baker and butcher.
And this worth in exchange not only absorbs a large quantity in that
use,[35] but greatly increases the effect on the imagination of the
quantity used in the arts. Thus, in brief, the force of the functions is
increased, but their precision blunted, by their unison.
76. These inconveniences, however, attach to gold as a basis of currency
on account of its portability and preciousness. But a far greater
inconvenience attaches to it as the only legal basis of currency.
Imagine gold to be only attainable in masses weighing several pounds
each, and its value, like that of malachite or marble, proportioned to
its largeness of bulk;--it could not then get itself confused with the
currency in daily use, but it might still remain as its basis; and this
second inconvenience would still affect it, namely, that its
significance as an expression of debt varies, as that of every other
article would, with the popular estimate of its desirableness, and with
the quantity offered in the market. My power of obtaining other goods
for gold depends always on the strength of public passion for gold, and
on the limitation of its quantity, so that when either of two things
happen--that the world esteems gold less, or finds it more easily--_my
right of claim is in that degree effaced_; and it has been even gravely
maintained that a discovery of a mountain of gold would cancel the
National Debt; in other words, that men may be paid for what costs much
in what costs nothing. Now, it is true that there is little chance of
sudden convulsion in this respect; the world will not so rapidly
increase in wisdom as to despise gold on a sudden; and perhaps may [for
a little time] desire it more eagerly the more easily it is obtained;
nevertheless, the right of debt ought not to rest on a basis of
imagination; nor should the frame of a national currency vibrate with
every miser's panic, and every merchant's imprudence.
77. There are two methods of avoiding this insecurity, which would have
been fallen upon long ago, if, instead of calculating the conditions of
the supply of gold, men had only considered how the world might live and
manage its affairs without gold at all.[36] One is, to base the currency
on substances of truer intrinsic value; the other, to base it on
several substances instead of one. If I can only claim gold, the
discovery of a golden mountain starves me; but if I can claim bread, the
discovery of a continent of corn-fields need not trouble me. If,
however, I wish to exchange my bread for other things, a good harvest
will for the time limit my power in this respect; but if I can claim
either bread, iron, or silk at pleasure, the standard of value has three
feet instead of one, and will be proportionately firm. Thus, ultimately,
the steadiness of currency depends upon the breadth of its base; but the
difficulty of organization increasing with this breadth, the discovery
of the condition at once safest and most convenient[37] can only be by
long analysis, which must for the present be deferred. Gold or
silver[38] may always be retained in limited use, as a luxury of coinage
and questionless standard, of one weight and alloy among all nations,
varying only in the die. The purity of coinage, when metallic, is
closely indicative of the honesty of the system of revenue, and even of
the general dignity of the State.[39]
78. Whatever the article or articles may be which the national currency
promises to pay, a premium on that article indicates bankruptcy of the
government in that proportion, the division of its assets being
restrained only by the remaining confidence of the holders of notes in
the return of prosperity to the firm. Currencies of forced acceptance,
or of unlimited issue, are merely various modes of disguising taxation,
and delaying its pressure, until it is too late to interfere with the
cause of pressure. To do away with the possibility of such disguise
would have been among the first results of a true economical science,
had any such existed; but there have been too many motives for the
concealment, so long as it could by any artifices be maintained, to
permit hitherto even the founding of such a science.
79. And indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wilfully persisted in,
that there is any embarrassment, either in the theory or working of
currency. No exchequer is ever embarrassed, nor is any financial
question difficult of solution, when people keep their practice honest,
and their heads cool. But when governments lose all office of pilotage,
protection, or scrutiny; and live only in magnificence of authorized
larceny, and polished mendacity; or when the people, choosing
Speculation (the s usually redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil,
visit no dishonesty with chastisement, that each may with impunity take
his dishonest turn;--there are no tricks of financial terminology that
will save them; all signature and mintage do but magnify the ruin they
retard; and even the riches that remain, stagnant or current, change
only from the slime of Avernus to the sand of Phlegethon--_quick_sand at
the embouchure;--land fluently recommended by recent auctioneers as
"eligible for building leases."
80. Finally, then, the power of true currency is fourfold.
(1.) Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion of
the stability and honesty of the issuer.
(2.) Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currency
expressly promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes;
and that the call cannot be met in full. Then the actual worth of the
document would be, and its actual worth at any moment is, therefore to
be defined as, what the division of the assets of the issuer would
produce for it.
(3.) The exchange power, of its base. Granting that we can get five
pounds in gold for our note, it remains a question how much of other
things we can get for five pounds in gold. The more of other things
exist, and the less gold, the greater this power.
(4.) The power over labour, exercised by the given quantity of the base,
or of the things to be got for it. The question in this case is, how
much work, and (question of questions!) _whose_ work, is to be had for
the food which five pounds will buy. This depends on the number of the
population, on their gifts, and on their dispositions, with which, down
to their slightest humours, and up to their strongest impulses, the
power of the currency varies.
81. Such being the main conditions of national currency, we proceed to
examine those of the total currency, under the broad definition,
"transferable acknowledgment of debt;"[40] among the many forms of
which there are in effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, the
acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which will
not. Documents, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those of
good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of
imposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash it clear of
dross), and then range, in their exact quantities, the true currency of
the country on one side, and the store or property of the country on the
other. We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents,
as far as they operate by signature;--on the side of store as far as
they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quantity of debt
in the country, and the store the quantity of its possession. The
ownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currency
and holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency is
at any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of the
store-holders.
82. Farther, as true currency represents by definition debts which will
be paid, it represents either the debtor's wealth, or his ability and
willingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in his hands
transferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at some
time surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing,
has the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency therefore, as
by its increase it represents enlarging debt, represents also enlarging
means; but in this curious way, that a certain quantity of it marks the
deficiency of the wealth of the country from what it would have been if
that currency had not existed.[41] In this respect it is like the
detritus of a mountain; assume that it lies at a fixed angle, and the
more the detritus, the larger must be the mountain; but it would have
been larger still, had there been none.
83. Farther, though, as above stated, every man possessing money has
usually also some property beyond what is necessary for his immediate
wants, and men possessing property usually also hold currency beyond
what is necessary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determines
the class to which they belong, whether in their eyes the money is an
adjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In the first case
the holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his money
subordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In the
second, his pleasure is in his money, and in his possessions only as
representing it. (In the first case the money is as an atmosphere
surrounding the wealth, rising from it and raining back upon it; but in
the second, it is as a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for the
most part perishing in it.[42]) The shortest distinction between the men
is that the one wishes always to buy, and the other to sell.
84. Such being the great relations of the classes, their several
characters are of the highest importance to the nation; for on the
character of the store-holders chiefly depend the preservation, display,
and serviceableness of its wealth; on that of the currency-holders, its
distribution; on that of both, its reproduction.
We shall, therefore, ultimately find it to be of incomparably greater
importance to the nation in whose hands the thing is put, than how much
of it is got; and that the character of the holders may be conjectured
by the quality of the store; for such and such a man always asks for
such and such a thing; nor only asks for it, but if it can be bettered,
betters it: so that possession and possessor reciprocally act on each
other, through the entire sum of national possession. The base nation,
asking for base things, sinks daily to deeper vileness of nature and
weakness in use; while the noble nation, asking for noble things, rises
daily into diviner eminence in both; the tendency to degradation being
surely marked by "[Greek: ataxia];" that is to say, (expanding the Greek
thought), by carelessness as to the hands in which things are put,
consequent dispute for the acquisition of them, disorderliness in the
accumulation of them, inaccuracy in the estimate of them, and bluntness
in conception as to the entire nature of possession.
85. The currency-holders always increase in number and influence in
proportion to the bluntness of nature and clumsiness of the
store-holders; for the less use people can make of things, the more they
want of them, and the sooner weary of them, and want to change them for
something else; and all frequency of change increases the quantity and
power of currency. The large currency-holder himself is essentially a
person who never has been able to make up his mind as to what he will
have, and proceeds, therefore, in vague collection and aggregation, with
more and more infuriate passion, urged by complacency in progress,
vacancy in idea, and pride of conquest.
While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature of possession of
currency, there is a charm in the seclusion of it, which is to some
people very enticing. In the enjoyment of real property, others must
partly share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, and the gardener
of the garden; but the money is, or seems, shut up; it is wholly
enviable. No one else can have part in any complacencies arising from
it.
The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great thing to
unimaginative people. They know always they are so much better than they
were, in money; so much better than others, in money; but wit cannot be
so compared, nor character. My neighbour cannot be convinced that I am
wiser than he is, but he can, that I am worth so much more; and the
universality of the conviction is no less flattering than its clearness.
Only a few can understand,--none measure--and few will willingly adore,
superiorities in other things; but everybody can understand money,
everybody can count it, and most will worship it.
86. Now, these various temptations to accumulation would be politically
harmless if what was vainly accumulated had any fair chance of being
wisely spent. For as accumulation cannot go on for ever, but must some
day end in its reverse--if this reverse were indeed a beneficial
distribution and use, as irrigation from reservoir, the fever of
gathering, though perilous to the gatherer, might be serviceable to the
community. But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may be
stated as a political law having few exceptions), that what is
unreasonably gathered is also unreasonably spent by the persons into
whose hands it finally falls. Very frequently it is spent in war, or
else in a stupefying luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged by
the rich and witnessed by the poor. So that the _mal tener_ and _mal
dare_ are as correlative as complementary colours; and the circulation
of wealth, which ought to be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, and
full of warmth, like the Gulf stream, being narrowed into an eddy, and
concentrated at a point, changes into the alternate suction and
surrender of Charybdis. Which is indeed, I doubt not, the true meaning
of that marvellous fable, "infinite," as Bacon said of it, "in matter of
meditation."[43]
87. It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas only, so
that the highest truths and usefullest laws must be hunted for through
whole picture-galleries of dreams, which to the vulgar seem dreams only.
Thus Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and
Goethe, have hidden all that is chiefly serviceable in their work, and
in all the various literature they absorbed and re-embodied, under types
which have rendered it quite useless to the multitude. What is worse,
the two primal declarers of moral discovery, Homer and Plato, are partly
at issue; for Plato's logical power quenched his imagination, and he
became incapable of understanding the purely imaginative element either
in poetry or painting: he therefore somewhat overrates the pure
discipline of passionate art in song and music, and misses that of
meditative art. There is, however, a deeper reason for his distrust of
Homer. His love of justice, and reverently religious nature, made him
dread, as death, every form of fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy respecting
the world to come (his own myths being only symbolic exponents of a
rational hope). We shall perhaps now every day discover more clearly how
right Plato was in this, and feel ourselves more and more wonderstruck
that men such as Homer and Dante (and, in an inferior sphere, Milton),
not to speak of the great sculptors and painters of every age, have
permitted themselves, though full of all nobleness and wisdom, to coin
idle imaginations of the mysteries of eternity, and guide the faiths of
the families of the earth by the courses of their own vague and
visionary arts: while the indisputable truths of human life and duty,
respecting which they all have but one voice, lie hidden behind these
veils of phantasy, unsought, and often unsuspected. I will gather
carefully, out of Dante and Homer, what, in this kind, bears on our
subject, in its due place; the first broad intention of their symbols
may be sketched at once.
88. The rewards of a worthy use of riches, subordinate to other ends,
are shown by Dante in the fifth and sixth orbs of Paradise; for the
punishment of their unworthy use, three places are assigned; one for the
avaricious and prodigal whose souls are lost, (_Hell_, canto 7); one for
the avaricious and prodigal whose souls are capable of purification,
(_Purgatory_, canto 19); and one for the usurers, of whom _none_ can be
redeemed (_Hell_, canto 17). The first group, the largest in all hell
("gente piu che altrove troppa," compare Virgil's "quae maxima turba"),
meet in contrary currents, _as the_ _waves of Charybdis_, casting
weights at each other from opposite sides. This weariness of contention
is the chief element of their torture; so marked by the beautiful lines
beginning "Or puoi, figliuol," &c.: (but the usurers, who made their
money inactively, _sit_ on the sand, equally without rest, however. "Di
qua, di la, soccorrien," &c.) For it is not avarice, but _contention_
for riches, leading to this double misuse of them, which, in Dante's
light, is the unredeemable sin. The place of its punishment is guarded
by Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fiera crudele," a spirit quite
different from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is not
cruel, and is curable, so as to become far-sighted. ([Greek: ou typhlos
all' oxy blepon].--Plato's epithets in first book of the _Laws_.) Still
more does this Dantesque type differ from the resplendent Plutus of
Goethe in the second part of _Faust_, who is the personified power of
wealth for good or evil--not the passion for wealth; and again from the
Plutus of Spenser, who is the passion of mere aggregation. Dante's
Plutus is specially and definitely the Spirit of Contention and
Competition, or Evil Commerce; because, as I showed before, this kind of
commerce "makes all men strangers;" his speech is therefore
unintelligible, and no single soul of all those ruined by him _has
recognizable features_.
On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and prodigality are,
in Dante's sight, those which are without deliberate or calculated
operation. The lust, or lavishness, of riches can be purged, so long as
there has been no servile consistency of dispute and competition for
them. The sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of earth;
it is purified by deeper humiliation--the souls crawl on their bellies;
their chant is, "my soul cleaveth unto the dust." But the spirits thus
condemned are all recognizable, and even the worst examples of the
thirst for gold, which they are compelled to tell the histories of
during the night, are of men swept by the passion of avarice into
violent crime, but not sold to its steady work.
89. The precept given to each of these spirits for its deliverance
is--Turn thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the Eternal King rolls
with the mighty wheels. Otherwise, the wheels of the "Greater Fortune,"
of which the constellation is ascending when Dante's dream begins.
Compare George Herbert--
"Lift up thy head;
Take stars for money; stars, not to be told
By any art, yet to be purchased."
And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of the _Polity_.--"Tell
them they have divine gold and silver in their souls for ever; that they
need no money stamped of men--neither may they otherwise than impiously
mingle the gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, _for
through that which the law of the multitude has coined, endless crimes
have been done and suffered; but in their's is neither pollution nor
sorrow_."
90. At the entrance of this place of punishment an evil spirit is seen
by Dante, quite other than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyed
knowingly and willingly; but this spirit--feminine--and called a
Siren--is the "_Deceitfulness_ of riches," [Greek: apate ploutou] of the
Gospels, winning obedience by guile. This is the Idol of riches, made
doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing her in a dream. She is lovely to
look upon, and enchants by her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome.
Now, Dante does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more than
he speaks of Charybdis carelessly; and though he had got at the meaning
of the Homeric fable only through Virgil's obscure tradition of it, the
clue he has given us is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the
Sirens, _or pleasures_," which has become universal since his time, is
opposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are not
pleasures, but _Desires_: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain
desire; but in Plato's Vision of Destiny, phantoms of divine desire;
singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff of
Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put
words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was
that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal; (desire of the
eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters of the
Muses. Yet not of the Muses, heavenly or historical but of the Muse of
pleasure; and they are at first winged, because even vain hope excites
and helps when first formed; but afterwards, contending for the
possession of the imagination with the Muses themselves, they are
deprived of their wings.
91. And thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the power of
Circe, who is no daughter of the Muses, but of the strong elements, Sun
and Sea; her power is that of frank, and full vital pleasure, which, if
governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no
"moly," bitterness or delay, mixed with it, turns men into beasts, but
does not slay them,--leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. She
is herself indeed an Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--or
degrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the ship
invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost); even the wild beasts
rejoice and are softened around her cave; the transforming poisons she
gives to men are mixed with no rich feast, but with pure and right
nourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour; that is, wine, milk, and
corn, the three great sustainers of life--it is their own fault if these
make swine of them; (see Appendix V.) and swine are chosen merely as the
type of consumption; as Plato's [Greek: hyon polis], in the second book
of the _Polity_, and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of
the likeness in variety of nourishment, and internal form of body.
"Et quel est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'etre
bati au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"
"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne faudra pas m'en
vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est pas precisement flatteur
pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous la, et si cela vous contrarie par
trop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses
fussent arrangees ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu'a manger,
a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous et c'est toujours une
consolation."--_(Histoire d'une Bouchee de Pain_, Lettre ix.)
92. But the deadly Sirens are in all things opposed to the Circean
power. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in no
wise; but slay by slow death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and
the head, instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery
from their power; they do not tear nor scratch, like Scylla, but the men
who have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that the
Sirens' field is covered, not merely with the bones, but with the
_skins_, of those who have been consumed there. They address themselves,
in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of
Ulysses, but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within
hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who silenced the
vain imaginations by singing the praises of the gods.
93. It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm or
deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that she says it was her song
that deceived Ulysses. Look back to Dante's account of Ulysses' death,
and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that
betrayed him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning: that
the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been first deceived
into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. His
Siren is therefore the Philotime of Spenser, daughter of Mammon--
"Whom all that folk with such contention
Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is--
Honour and dignitie from her alone
Derived are."
By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotime with Dante's of
the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full meaning of both poets; but
that of Homer lies hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens are
indefinite; and they are desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is
not specially indicated by him, until, escaping the 'harmonious danger
of imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical ways of
life, indicated by the two _rocks_ of Scylla and Charybdis. The monsters
that haunt them are quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which,
having many other subordinate significations, are in the main Labour and
Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant monster, or
betraying demon. The rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds,
invisible, and not to be climbed; that of spending is low, but marked by
the cursed fig-tree, which has leaves, but no fruit. We know the type
elsewhere; and there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when
Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion and
committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto degli Agli,
endeavouring to hide himself among them. We shall hereafter examine the
type completely; here I will only give an approximate rendering of
Homer's words, which have been obscured more by translation than even by
tradition.
94. "They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water break
round them; and the blessed Gods call them the Wanderers.
"By one of them no winged thing can pass--not even the wild doves that
bring ambrosia to their father Jove--but the smooth rock seizes its
sacrifice of them." (Not even ambrosia to be had without Labour. The
word is peculiar--as a part of anything is offered for Sacrifice;
especially used of heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with its
top, and a dark blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither does
the clear sky hold it, in summer nor in harvest. Nor can any man climb
it--not if he had twenty feet and hands, for it is smooth as though it
were hewn.
"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of hell. And
therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry, indeed, is no louder
than that of a newly-born whelp: but she herself is an awful thing--nor
can any creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a god that
rose against her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks,
and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of teeth, full of
black death.
"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a bow-shot
distant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree, full of leaves; and
under it the terrible Charybdis sucks down the black water. Thrice in
the day she sucks it down, and thrice; casts it up again: be not thou
there when she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."
[Thus far went my rambling note, in _Fraser's Magazine_. The Editor sent
me a compliment on it--of which I was very proud; what the Publisher
thought of it, I am not informed; only I know that eventually he stopped
the papers. I think a great deal of it myself, now, and have put it all
in large print accordingly, and should like to write more; but will, on
the contrary, self-denyingly, and in gratitude to any reader who has got
through so much, end my chapter.]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Remember this definition: it is of great importance as opposed to
the imperfect ones usually given. When first these essays were
published, I remember one of their reviewers asking contemptuously, "Is
half-a-crown a document?" it never having before occurred to him that a
document might be stamped as well as written, and stamped on silver as
well as on parchment.
[34] I do not mean the demand of the holder of a five-pound note for
five pounds, but the demand of the holder of a pound for a pound's worth
of something good.
[35] [Read and think over, the following note very carefully.] The waste
of labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot be estimated by help
of any existing data, may be understood in its bearing on entire economy
by supposing it limited to transactions between two persons. If two
farmers in Australia have been exchanging corn and cattle with each
other for years, keeping their accounts of reciprocal debt in any simple
way, the sum of the possessions of either would not be diminished,
though the part of it which was lent or borrowed were only reckoned by
marks on a stone, or notches on a tree; and the one counted himself
accordingly, so many scratches, or so many notches, better than the
other. But it would soon be seriously diminished if, discovering gold in
their fields, each resolved only to accept golden counters for a
reckoning; and accordingly, whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a cow,
was obliged to go and wash sand for a week before he could get the means
of giving a receipt for them.
[36] It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of discussions
such as that which lately occupied a section of the British Association,
on the absorption of gold, while no one can produce even the simplest of
the data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first occurring
one,--What means have we of ascertaining the weight of gold employed
this year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to speak of
Asia); and, supposing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight by
which, next year, their fancies, and the changes of style among their
jewellers, will diminish or increase it?
[37] See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the
difficulties and uses of a currency literally "pecuniary"--(consisting
of herds of cattle).
"His Grace will game--to White's a bull be led," &c.
[38] Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found expedient
ultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts. As a means of
reckoning, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been,
entirely ideal.--_See_ Mill's _Political Economy_, book iii. chap. VII.
at beginning.
[39] The purity of the drachma and zecchin were not without significance
of the state of intellect, art, and policy, both in Athens and
Venice;--a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in taking
daguerreotypes at Venice, I found no purchaseable gold pure enough to
gild them with, except that of the old Venetian zecchin.
[40] Under which term, observe, we include all documents of debt, which,
being honest, might be transferable, though they practically are not
transferred; while we exclude all documents which are in reality
worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily, as bad money is. The
document of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency as
gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much confusion
has crept into the reasoning on this subject from the idea that the
withdrawal from circulation is a definable state, whereas it is a
graduated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my pocket is
withdrawn from circulation as long as I choose to keep it there. It is
no otherwise withdrawn if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it,
and others, into a golden cup, and drink out of them; since a rise in
the price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time cause me to
melt the cup and throw it back into currency; and the bullion operates
on the prices of the things in the market as directly, though not as
forcibly, while it is in the form of a cup as it does in the form of a
sovereign. No calculation can be founded on my humour in either case. If
I like to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep a quantity of gold, to
play with, in the form of jointed basaltic columns, it is all one in its
effect on the market as if I kept it in the form of twisted filigree,
or, steadily "amicus lamnae," beat the narrow gold pieces into broad
ones, and dined off them. The probability is greater that I break the
rouleau than that I melt the plate; but the increased probability is not
calculable. Thus, documents are only withdrawn from the currency when
cancelled, and bullion when it is so effectually lost as that the
probability of finding it is no greater than of finding new gold in the
mine.
[41] For example, suppose an active peasant, having got his ground into
good order and built himself a comfortable house, finding time still on
his hands, sees one of his neighbours little able to work, and
ill-lodged, and offers to build him also a house, and to put his land in
order, on condition of receiving for a given period rent for the
building and tithe of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and a document
given promissory of rent and tithe. This note is money. It can only be
good money if the man who has incurred the debt so far recovers his
strength as to be able to take advantage of the help he has received,
and meet the demand of the note; if he lets his house fall to ruin, and
his field to waste, his promissory note will soon be valueless: but the
existence of the note at all is a consequence of his not having worked
so stoutly as the other. Let him gain as much as to be able to pay back
the entire debt; the note is cancelled, and we have two rich
store-holders and no currency.
[42] [You need not trouble yourself to make out the sentence in
parenthesis, unless you like, but do not think it is mere metaphor. It
states a fact which I could not have stated so shortly, _but_ by
metaphor.]
[43] [What follows, to the end of the chapter, was a note only, in the
first printing; but for after service, it is of more value than any
other part of the book, so I have put it into the main text.]