Oh, ye women of England! from the Princess of that Wales to the simplest

of you, do not think your own children can be brought into their true

fold of rest, while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having no

shepherd. And do not think your daughters can be trained to the truth of

their own human beauty, while the pleasant places, which God made at once

for their schoolroom and their playground, lie desolate and defiled. You

cannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you

baptize them also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes

forth for ever from the rocks of your native land—waters which a Pagan

would have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only with

pollution. You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow

axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in

heaven—the mountains that sustain your island throne,—mountains on which

a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed

cloud—remain for you without inscription; altars built, not to, but by an

Unknown God.

(III.) Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of

woman, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. We now come to

our last, our widest question.—What is her queenly office with respect to

the state?

Generally, we are under an impression that a man’s duties are public, and

a woman’s private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a personal

work or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or duty, which

is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a woman has a

personal work or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work or

duty, which is also the expansion of that.

Now the man’s work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its

maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman’s to secure its order,

comfort, and loveliness.

Expand both these functions. The man’s duty as a member of a

commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the

defence of the state. The woman’s duty, as a member of the commonwealth,

is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful

adornment of the state.

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insult

and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is

to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to

the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there.

And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the

centre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty: that she

is also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress

more imminent, loveliness more rare.

And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all its

real duties,—an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and

corrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose:—as there is the intense

instinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the

sanctities of life, and, misdirected, undermines them; and _must_ do

either the one or the other;—so there is in the human heart an

inextinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed,

maintains all the majesty of law and life, and, misdirected, wrecks them.

Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the heart

of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there.—Vainly, as falsely,

you blame or rebuke the desire of power!—For Heaven’s sake, and for Man’s

sake, desire it all you can. But _what_ power? That is all the

question. Power to destroy? the lion’s limb, and the dragon’s breath?

Not so. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of the

sceptre and shield; the power of the royal hand that heals in

touching,—that binds the fiend, and looses the captive; the throne that

is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by steps of

Mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as

this, and be no more housewives, but queens?

It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a title

which once belonged to nobility only; and, having once been in the habit

of accepting the simple title of gentlewoman as correspondent to that of

gentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the title of “Lady,”

{27} which properly corresponds only to the title of “Lord.”

I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this.

I would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they

claim, not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it.

Lady means “bread-giver” or “loaf-giver,” and Lord means “maintainer of

laws,” and both titles have reference, not to the law which is maintained

in the house, nor to the bread which is given to the household; but to

law maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken among the

multitude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to his title in so far as

he is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of lords; and a Lady has

legal claim to her title only so far as she communicates that help to the

poor representatives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him

of their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and

when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.

And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, or

House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and venerable, not

in the number of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in the

number of those whom it grasps within its sway; it is always regarded

with reverent worship wherever its dynasty is founded on its duty, and

its ambition correlative with its beneficence. Your fancy is pleased

with the thought of being noble ladies, with a train of vassals. Be it

so; you cannot be too noble, and your train cannot be too great; but see

to it that your train is of vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely

of slaves who serve and feed you; and that the multitude which obeys you

is of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed,—whom you have

redeemed, not led into captivity.

And this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is equally

true of the queenly dominion; that highest dignity is open to you, if you

will also accept that highest duty. Rex et Regina—Roi et

Reine—“_Right_-doers;” they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that

their power is supreme over the mind as over the person—that they not

only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether consciously or

not, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned: there is no putting by that

crown; queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your

husbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond,

which bows itself, and will for ever bow, before the myrtle crown and the

stainless sceptre of womanhood. But, alas! you are too often idle and

careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you

abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule and violence to work

their will among men, in defiance of the power which, holding straight in

gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and the

good forget.

“Prince of Peace.” Note that name. When kings rule in that name, and

nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow place,

and mortal measure, receive the power of it. There are no other rulers

than they; other rule than theirs is but _mis_rule; they who govern

verily “Dei Gratiâ” are all princes, yes, or princesses of Peace. There

is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are

answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have

not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight; they will fight

for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose their cause for

them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no suffering,

no injustice, no misery, in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you.

Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men

may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are

feeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel

the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of

trying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut yourselves within your

park walls and garden gates; and you are content to know that there is

beyond them a whole world in wilderness—a world of secrets which you dare

not penetrate; and of suffering which you dare not conceive.

I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the phenomena

of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped from

its honour, that humanity can be degraded. I do not wonder at the

miser’s death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I do not

wonder at the sensualist’s life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet.

I do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by

the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed shadow of the marsh.

I do not even wonder at the myriad-handed murder of multitudes, done

boastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the

immeasurable, unimaginable guilt heaped up from hell to heaven, of their

priests, and kings. But this is wonderful to me—oh, how wonderful!—to

see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her child at her

breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its father,

purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth—nay, a

magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with for all that

earth itself, though it were made of one entire and perfect

chrysolite:—to see her abdicate this majesty to play at precedence with

her next-door neighbour! This is wonderful—oh, wonderful!—to see her,

with every innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the morning into

her garden to play with the fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift

their heads when they are drooping, with her happy smile upon her face,

and no cloud upon her brow, because there is a little wall around her

place of peace: and yet she knows, in her heart, if she would only look

for its knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the

wild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by the agony of men, and beat

level by the drift of their life-blood.

Have you ever considered what a deep under meaning there lies, or at

least may be read, if we choose, in our custom of strewing flowers before

those whom we think most happy? Do you suppose it is merely to deceive

them into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at

their feet?—that wherever they pass they will tread on herbs of sweet

scent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depths

of roses? So surely as they believe that, they will have, instead, to

walk on bitter herbs and thorns; and the only softness to their feet will

be of snow. But it is not thus intended they should believe; there is a

better meaning in that old custom. The path of a good woman is indeed

strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.

“Her feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy.”

You think that only a lover’s fancy;—false and vain! How if it could be

true? You think this also, perhaps, only a poet’s fancy—

“Even the light harebell raised its head

Elastic from her airy tread.”

But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy where

she passes. She should revive; the harebells should bloom, not stoop, as

she passes. You think I am rushing into wild hyperbole! Pardon me, not

a whit—I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in resolute truth. You

have heard it said—(and I believe there is more than fancy even in that

saying, but let it pass for a fanciful one)—that flowers only flourish

rightly in the garden of some one who loves them. I know you would like

that to be true; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush

your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them: nay, more, if

your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard;—if you could

bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare—if you

could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to the south

wind, in frost—“Come, thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the

spices of it may flow out.” This you would think a great thing? And do

you think it not a greater thing, that all this, (and how much more than

this!) you _can_ do, for fairer flowers than these—flowers that could

bless you for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved

them; flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; and

which, once saved, you save for ever? Is this only a little power? Far

among the moorlands and the rocks,—far in the darkness of the terrible

streets,—these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves

torn, and their stems broken: will you never go down to them, nor set

them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their

trembling, from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow morning, for you,

but not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic

Dances of Death; {28} but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks

of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to you, through your

casement—call (not giving you the name of the English poet’s lady, but

the name of Dante’s great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy Lethe,

stood, wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:—

“Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the roses blown”?

Will you not go down among them?—among those sweet living things, whose

new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep colour of heaven upon

it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, washed

from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of promise;—and

still they turn to you, and for you, “The Larkspur listens—I hear, I

hear! And the Lily whispers—I wait.”

Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first stanza;

and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now:—

“Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate, alone.”

Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden

alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but a

Madeleine, who went down to her garden in the dawn, and found One waiting

at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought

Him often;—sought Him in vain, all through the night;—sought Him in vain

at the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set? He is never

there; but at the gate of _this_ garden He is waiting always—waiting to

take your hand—ready to go down to see the fruits of the valley, to see

whether the vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded. There you

shall see with Him the little tendrils of the vines that His hand is

guiding—there you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand cast

the sanguine seed;—more: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers

that, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds from the path-sides

where He has sown, and call to each other between the vineyard rows,

“Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines

have tender grapes.” Oh—you queens—you queens! among the hills and happy

greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the

birds of the air have nests; and in your cities, shall the stones cry out

against you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay

His head?

Lecture III.

The Mystery of Life and its Arts

_Lecture delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Science_,

_Dublin_, 1868.

WHEN I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, I was not aware

of a restriction with respect to the topics of discussion which may be

brought before this Society {29}—a restriction which, though entirely

wise and right under the circumstances contemplated in its introduction,

would necessarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing

any lecture for you on the subject of art in a form which might be

permanently useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must transgress

such limitation; for indeed my infringement will be of the letter—not of

the spirit—of your commands. In whatever I may say touching the religion

which has been the foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed

to its power, if I offend one, I shall offend all; for I shall take no

note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do

I fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving—or at least stating

as capable of positive proof—the connection of all that is best in the

crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the

sincerity of his patriotism.

But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in

frankness of utterance, not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am

never fully aware how far my audiences are disposed to give me credit for

real knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only

because I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist

upon it. For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call the

misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together; not without a

foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was

heavily punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of

the words only, and cared nothing for their meaning. Happily, therefore,

the power of using such pleasant language—if indeed it ever were mine—is

passing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I find

myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts have changed

also, as my words have; and whereas in earlier life, what little

influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the enthusiasm with which

I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their

colours in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be

due to the earnestness with which I am endeavouring to trace the form and

beauty of another kind of cloud than those; the bright cloud of which it

is written—“What is your life? It is even as a vapour that appeareth for

a little time, and then vanisheth away.”

I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age,

without having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the

truth of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the

sunshine from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the

knowledge that the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the

endurance of it as transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even

at such times of melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true

perception that this human life shares in the nature of it, not only the

evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed

in darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than spectral

and obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in

the shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of

ours, that “man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in

vain.”

And least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness of our passions,

or the height of our pride, are we able to understand in its depth the

third and most solemn character in which our life is like those clouds of

heaven; that to it belongs not only their transcience, not only their

mystery, but also their power; that in the cloud of the human soul there

is a fire stronger than the lightning, and a grace more precious than the

rain; and that though of the good and evil it shall one day be said

alike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an

infinite separation between those whose brief presence had there been a

blessing, like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the

garden, and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful

shade, of whom the heavenly sentence is, that they are “wells without

water; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of

darkness is reserved for ever.”

To those among us, however, who have lived long enough to form some just

estimate of the rate of the changes which are, hour by hour in

accelerating catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the laws, the arts,

and the creeds of men, it seems to me, that now at least, if never at any

former time, the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its

powers and responsibilities, should present themselves with absolute

sadness and sternness. And although I know that this feeling is much

deepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by chance, has attended

the greater number of my cherished purposes, I do not for that reason

distrust the feeling itself, though I am on my guard against an

exaggerated degree of it: nay, I rather believe that in periods of new

effort and violent change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine; and

that in the secret of it, as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may

see the colours of things with deeper truth than in the most dazzling

sunshine. And because these truths about the works of men, which I want

to bring to-day before you, are most of them sad ones, though at the same

time helpful; and because also I believe that your kind Irish hearts will

answer more gladly to the truthful expression of a personal feeling, than

to the exposition of an abstract principle, I will permit myself so much

unreserved speaking of my own causes of regret, as may enable you to make

just allowance for what, according to your sympathies, you will call

either the bitterness, or the insight, of a mind which has surrendered

its best hopes, and been foiled in its favourite aims.

I spent the ten strongest years of my life, (from twenty to thirty,) in

endeavouring to show the excellence of the work of the man whom I

believed, and rightly believed, to be the greatest painter of the schools

of England since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in the power of

every great truth of beauty to prevail ultimately, and take its right

place in usefulness and honour; and I strove to bring the painter’s work

into this due place, while the painter was yet alive. But he knew,

better than I, the uselessness of talking about what people could not see

for themselves. He always discouraged me scornfully, even when he

thanked me—and he died before even the superficial effect of my work was

visible. I went on, however, thinking I could at least be of use to the

public, if not to him, in proving his power. My books got talked about a

little. The prices of modern pictures, generally, rose, and I was

beginning to take some pleasure in a sense of gradual victory, when,

fortunately or unfortunately, an opportunity of perfect trial undeceived

me at once, and for ever. The Trustees of the National Gallery

commissioned me to arrange the Turner drawings there, and permitted me to

prepare three hundred examples of his studies from nature, for exhibition

at Kensington. At Kensington they were, and are, placed for exhibition;

but they are not exhibited, for the room in which they hang is always

empty.

Well—this showed me at once, that those ten years of my life had been, in

their chief purpose, lost. For that, I did not so much care; I had, at

least, learned my own business thoroughly, and should be able, as I

fondly supposed, after such a lesson, now to use my knowledge with better

effect. But what I did care for was the—to me frightful—discovery, that

the most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted by Providence to

labour and perish uselessly; that in the very fineness of it there might

be something rendering it invisible to ordinary eyes; but that, with this

strange excellence, faults might be mingled which would be as deadly as

its virtues were vain; that the glory of it was perishable, as well as

invisible, and the gift and grace of it might be to us as snow in summer

and as rain in harvest.

That was the first mystery of life to me. But, while my best energy was

given to the study of painting, I had put collateral effort, more prudent

if less enthusiastic, into that of architecture; and in this I could not

complain of meeting with no sympathy. Among several personal reasons

which caused me to desire that I might give this, my closing lecture on

the subject of art here, in Ireland, one of the chief was, that in

reading it, I should stand near the beautiful building,—the engineer’s

school of your college,—which was the first realization I had the joy to

see, of the principles I had, until then, been endeavouring to teach! but

which, alas, is now, to me, no more than the richly canopied monument of

one of the most earnest souls that ever gave itself to the arts, and one

of my truest and most loving friends, Benjamin Woodward. Nor was it here

in Ireland only that I received the help of Irish sympathy and genius.

When to another friend, Sir Thomas Deane, with Mr. Woodward, was

entrusted the building of the museum at Oxford, the best details of the

work were executed by sculptors who had been born and trained here; and

the first window of the façade of the building, in which was inaugurated

the study of natural science in England, in true fellowship with

literature, was carved from my design by an Irish sculptor.

You may perhaps think that no man ought to speak of disappointment, to

whom, even in one branch of labour, so much success was granted. Had Mr.

Woodward now been beside me, I had not so spoken; but his gentle and

passionate spirit was cut off from the fulfilment of its purposes, and

the work we did together is now become vain. It may not be so in future;

but the architecture we endeavoured to introduce is inconsistent alike

with the reckless luxury, the deforming mechanism, and the squalid misery

of modern cities; among the formative fashions of the day, aided,

especially in England, by ecclesiastical sentiment, it indeed obtained

notoriety; and sometimes behind an engine furnace, or a railroad bank,

you may detect the pathetic discord of its momentary grace, and, with

toil, decipher its floral carvings choked with soot. I felt answerable

to the schools I loved, only for their injury. I perceived that this new

portion of my strength had also been spent in vain; and from amidst

streets of iron, and palaces of crystal, shrank back at last to the

carving of the mountain and colour of the flower.

And still I could tell of failure, and failure repeated, as years went

on; but I have trespassed enough on your patience to show you, in part,

the causes of my discouragement. Now let me more deliberately tell you

its results. You know there is a tendency in the minds of many men, when

they are heavily disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to

feel, and perhaps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life

itself is a vanity. Because it has disappointed them, they think its

nature is of disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be

grasped by imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor

fire within; but is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet

despised. You know how beautifully Pope has expressed this particular

phase of thought:—

“Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays,

These painted clouds that beautify our days;

Each want of happiness by hope supplied,

And each vacuity of sense, by pride.

Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy;

In Folly’s cup, still laughs the bubble joy.

One pleasure past, another still we gain,

And not a vanity is given in vain.”

But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the reverse of

this. The more that my life disappointed me, the more solemn and

wonderful it became to me. It seemed, contrarily to Pope’s saying, that

the vanity of it _was_ indeed given in vain; but that there was something

behind the veil of it, which was not vanity. It became to me not a

painted cloud, but a terrible and impenetrable one: not a mirage, which

vanished as I drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was

forbidden to draw near. For I saw that both my own failure, and such

success in petty things as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than

failure, came from the want of sufficiently earnest effort to understand

the whole law and meaning of existence, and to bring it to noble and due

end; as, on the other hand, I saw more and more clearly that all enduring

success in the arts, or in any other occupation, had come from the ruling

of lower purposes, not by a conviction of their nothingness, but by a

solemn faith in the advancing power of human nature, or in the promise,

however dimly apprehended, that the mortal part of it would one day be

swallowed up in immortality; and that, indeed, the arts themselves never

had reached any vital strength or honour, but in the effort to proclaim

this immortality, and in the service either of great and just religion,

or of some unselfish patriotism, and law of such national life as must be

the foundation of religion.

Nothing that I have ever said is more true or necessary—nothing has been

more misunderstood or misapplied—than my strong assertion that the arts

can never be right themselves, unless their motive is right. It is

misunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never learned their

business, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, crying

out—“Look at this picture of mine; it _must_ be good, I had such a lovely

motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken years to think over

its treatment.” Well, the only answer for these people is—if one had the

cruelty to make it—“Sir, you cannot think over _any_thing in any number

of years,—you haven’t the head to do it; and though you had fine motives,

strong enough to make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you

could paint a picture, you can’t paint one, nor half an inch of one; you

haven’t the hand to do it.”

But, far more decisively we have to say to the men who _do_ know their

business, or may know it if they choose—“Sir, you have this gift, and a

mighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a

greater trust than ships and armies: you might cast _them_ away, if you

were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your

own glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men.

Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect,

once abused, is a curse to the earth for ever.”

This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive. This

also I said respecting them, that they never had prospered, nor could

prosper, but when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to the

proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had

always failed in this proclamation—that poetry, and sculpture, and

painting, though only great when they strove to teach us something about

the gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the gods, but

had always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their

powers at the full reach, became ministers to pride and to lust. And I

felt also, with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in

ourselves and hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that while

the wisdom and rightness of every act and art of life could only be

consistent with a right understanding of the ends of life, we were all

plunged as in a languid dream—our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our

ears closed, lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us—lest

we should see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be

healed.

This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it

stands in the way of every perception, every virtue. There is no making

ourselves feel enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or

pastimes of life should have no motive, is understandable; but—That life

itself should have no motive—that we neither care to find out what it may

lead to, nor to guard against its being for ever taken away from us—here

is a mystery indeed. For just suppose I were able to call at this moment

to any one in this audience by name, and to tell him positively that I

knew a large estate had been lately left to him on some curious

conditions; but that though I knew it was large, I did not know how

large, nor even where it was—whether in the East Indies or the West, or

in England, or at the Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and

that there was a chance of his losing it altogether if he did not soon

find out on what terms it had been left to him. Suppose I were able to

say this positively to any single man in this audience, and he knew that

I did not speak without warrant, do you think that he would rest content

with that vague knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more?

Would he not give every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never

rest till he had ascertained where this place was, and what it was like?

And suppose he were a young man, and all he could discover by his best

endeavour was that the estate was never to be his at all, unless he

persevered, during certain years of probation, in an orderly and

industrious life; but that, according to the rightness of his conduct,

the portion of the estate assigned to him would be greater or less, so

that it literally depended on his behaviour from day to day whether he

got ten thousand a year, or thirty thousand a year, or nothing

whatever—would you not think it strange if the youth never troubled

himself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor even to know what was

required of him, but lived exactly as he chose, and never inquired

whether his chances of the estate were increasing or passing away? Well,

you know that this is actually and literally so with the greater number

of the educated persons now living in Christian countries. Nearly every

man and woman in any company such as this, outwardly professes to

believe—and a large number unquestionably think they believe—much more

than this; not only that a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them

if they please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a

possession—an estate of perpetual misery—is in store for them if they

displease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. And yet

there is not one in a thousand of these human souls that cares to think,

for ten minutes of the day, where this estate is or how beautiful it is,

or what kind of life they are to lead in it, or what kind of life they

must lead to obtain it.

You fancy that you care to know this: so little do you care that,

probably, at this moment many of you are displeased with me for talking

of the matter! You came to hear about the Art of this world, not about

the Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talking of what

you can hear any Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will tell

you something before you go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery,

and what else you would like better to hear of than the other world.

Nay, perhaps you say, “We want you to talk of pictures and pottery,

because we are sure that you know something of them, and you know nothing

of the other world.” Well—I don’t. That is quite true. But the very

strangeness and mystery of which I urge you to take notice, is in

this—that I do not;—nor you either. Can you answer a single bold

question unflinchingly about that other world?—Are you sure there is a

heaven? Sure there is a hell? Sure that men are dropping before your

faces through the pavements of these streets into eternal fire, or sure

that they are not? Sure that at your own death you are going to be

delivered from all sorrow, to be endowed with all virtue, to be gifted

with all felicity, and raised into perpetual companionship with a King,

compared to whom the kings of the earth are as grass-hoppers, and the

nations as the dust of His feet? Are you sure of this? or, if not sure,

do any of us so much as care to make it sure? and, if not, how can

anything that we do be right—how can anything we think be wise? what

honour can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in the

possessions that please?

Is not this a mystery of life?

But farther, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent ordinance for the

generality of men that they do not, with earnestness or anxiety, dwell on

such questions of the future because the business of the day could not be

done if this kind of thought were taken by all of us for the morrow. Be

it so: but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of

us, who were evidently the appointed teachers of the rest, would set

themselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely known of the future

destinies of their race; and to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous

manner, but in the plainest and most severely earnest words.

Now, the highest representatives of men who have thus endeavoured, during

the Christian era, to search out these deep things, and relate them, are

Dante and Milton. There are none who for earnestness of thought, for

mastery of word, can be classed with these. I am not at present, mind

you, speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to

deliver creeds to us, or doctrines; but of men who try to discover and

set forth, as far as by human intellect is possible, the facts of the

other world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to arrive there, but only

these two poets have in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in

any definite words professed to tell, what we shall see and become there;

or how those upper and nether worlds are, and have been, inhabited.

And what have they told us? Milton’s account of the most important event

in his whole system of the universe, the fall of the angels, is evidently

unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly founded on,

and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod’s account of the

decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem

is a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention is visibly

and consciously employed; not a single fact being, for an instant,

conceived as tenable by any living faith. Dante’s conception is far more

intense, and, by himself, for the time, not to be escaped from; it is

indeed a vision, but a vision only, and that one of the wildest that ever

entranced a soul—a dream in which every grotesque type or phantasy of

heathen tradition is renewed, and adorned; and the destinies of the

Christian Church, under their most sacred symbols, become literally

subordinate to the praise, and are only to be understood by the aid, of

one dear Florentine maiden.

I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange lethargy and

trance in myself, and awake to the meaning and power of life, it seems

daily more amazing to me that men such as these should dare to play with

the most precious truths, (or the most deadly untruths,) by which the

whole human race listening to them could be informed, or deceived;—all

the world their audiences for ever, with pleased ear, and passionate

heart;—and yet, to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermore

succeeding and succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do

but play upon sweetly modulated pipes; with pompous nomenclature adorn

the councils of hell; touch a troubadour’s guitar to the courses of the

suns; and fill the openings of eternity, before which prophets have

veiled their faces, and which angels desire to look into, with idle

puppets of their scholastic imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic

faith in their lost mortal love.

Is not this a mystery of life?

But more. We have to remember that these two great teachers were both of

them warped in their temper, and thwarted in their search for truth.

They were men of intellectual war, unable, through darkness of

controversy, or stress of personal grief, to discern where their own

ambition modified their utterances of the moral law; or their own agony

mingled with their anger at its violation. But greater men than these

have been—innocent-hearted—too great for contest. Men, like Homer and

Shakespeare, of so unrecognised personality, that it disappears in future

ages, and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of a lost heathen god.

Men, therefore, to whose unoffended, uncondemning sight, the whole of

human nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness, with which they will

not strive; or in mournful and transitory strength, which they dare not

praise. And all Pagan and Christian Civilization thus becomes subject to

them. It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read,

either of Homer or Shakespeare; everything round us, in substance, or in

thought, has been moulded by them. All Greek gentlemen were educated

under Homer. All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian, and

French, and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its

principles. Of the scope of Shakespeare, I will say only, that the

intellectual measure of every man since born, in the domains of creative

thought, may be assigned to him, according to the degree in which he has

been taught by Shakespeare. Well, what do these two men, centres of

mortal intelligence, deliver to us of conviction respecting what it most

behoves that intelligence to grasp? What is their hope—their crown of

rejoicing? what manner of exhortation have they for us, or of rebuke?

what lies next their own hearts, and dictates their undying words? Have

they any peace to promise to our unrest—any redemption to our misery?

Take Homer first, and think if there is any sadder image of human fate

than the great Homeric story. The main features in the character of

Achilles are its intense desire of justice, and its tenderness of

affection. And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided

continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of

justice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most

unjust of men: and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes

yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense alike

in love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his

friend; for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his

own land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay

down his life for his friend? Yea—even for his _dead_ friend, this

Achilles, though goddess-born, and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom,

his country, and his life—casts alike the innocent and guilty, with

himself, into one gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the

basest of his adversaries.

Is not this a mystery of life?

But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of

hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered

over the graves of men? Are his words more cheerful than the

Heathen’s—is his hope more near—his trust more sure—his reading of fate

more happy? Ah, no! He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in

this—that he recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that,

by petty chance—by momentary folly—by broken message—by fool’s tyranny—or

traitor’s snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their

ruin, and perish without word of hope. He indeed, as part of his

rendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual

devotion to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine is

bright with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by

his few dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike

by many or by few. But observe that from those who with deepest spirit,

meditate, and with deepest passion, mourn, there are no such words as

these; nor in their hearts are any such consolations. Instead of the

perpetual sense of the helpful presence of the Deity, which, through all

heathen tradition, is the source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile,

and in the valley of the shadow of death, we find only in the great

Christian poet, the consciousness of a moral law, through which “the gods

are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us;” and

of the resolved arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into

precision of doom what we feebly and blindly began; and force us, when

our indiscretion serves us, and our deepest plots do pall, to the

confession, that “there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them

how we will.”

Is not this a mystery of life?

Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, or that is, the

wise religious men tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise

contemplative men, nothing that can give us peace. But there is yet a

third class, to whom we may turn—the wise practical men. We have sat at

the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their

dreams. We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have

chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of men

more:—men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of

purpose—practised in business; learned in all that can be, (by handling,)

known. Men, whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world,

from whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present,

conveniently to live in it. What will _they_ say to us, or show us by

example? These kings—these councillors—these statesmen and builders of

kingdoms—these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and

the dust of it, in a balance. They know the world, surely; and what is

the mystery of life to us, is none to them. They can surely show us how

to live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is

best.

I think I can best tell you their answer, by telling you a dream I had

once. For though I am no poet, I have dreams sometimes:—I dreamed I was

at a child’s Mayday party, in which every means of entertainment had been

provided for them, by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately house,

with beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free

in the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their

afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed, know much about what was to

happen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little frightened,

because there was a chance of their being sent to a new school where

there were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their

heads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The

house, I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all

kinds of flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for

play; and pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And

the children were happy for a little while, but presently they separated

themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a

piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have

anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which

pieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys

should do, “practically,” and fought in the flower-beds till there was

hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other’s bits

of the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no

more; and so they all lay down at last breathless in the ruin, and waited

for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening. {30}

Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy

also in their manner. For them, there had been provided every kind of

indoor pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library

was open, with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full

of the most curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a

workshop, with lathes and carpenter’s tools, for the ingenious boys; and

there were pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there

were microscopes, and kaleidoscopes; and whatever toys a child could

fancy; and a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to

eat.

But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more

“practical” children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails

that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out.

Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a

fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly,

were spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails. With

all that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then,

everybody wanted some of somebody else’s. And at last, the really

practical and sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real

consequence, that afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails;

and that the books, and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at

all in themselves, but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads.

And at last they began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for

the bits of garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into

a corner, and tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of

the noise; but all the practical ones thought of nothing else but

counting nail-heads all the afternoon—even though they knew they would

not be allowed to carry so much as one brass knob away with them. But

no—it was—“Who has most nails? I have a hundred, and you have fifty; or,

I have a thousand, and you have two. I must have as many as you before I

leave the house, or I cannot possibly go home in peace.” At last, they

made so much noise that I awoke, and thought to myself, “What a false

dream that is, of _children_!” The child is the father of the man; and

wiser. Children never do such foolish things. Only men do.

But there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated. The wise

religious men we have asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain;

the wise worldly men, in vain. But there is another group yet. In the

midst of this vanity of empty religion—of tragic contemplation—of

wrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one

great group of persons, by whom all these disputers live—the persons who

have determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence determined for

them, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be prepared

for them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve

the food that God gives them by winning it honourably: and that, however

fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry

out the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and

dress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the

garden.

These,—hewers of wood, and drawers of water,—these, bent under burdens,

or torn of scourges—these, that dig and weave—that plant and build;

workers in wood, and in marble, and in iron—by whom all food, clothing,

habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves,

and for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may

be few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and

worthy of honour, be they never so humble;—from these, surely, at least,

we may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an

instant, into the mystery of life, and of its arts.

Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But I grieve to say,

or rather—for that is the deeper truth of the matter—I rejoice to

say—this message of theirs can only be received by joining them—not by

thinking about them.

You sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming.

But the main thing I have to tell you is,—that art must not be talked

about. The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is

ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, or ever has

spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds is

no exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, and was

utterly silent respecting all that he himself did.

The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it.

All words become idle to him—all theories.

Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when

built? All good work is essentially done that way—without hesitation,

without difficulty, without boasting; and in the doers of the best, there

is an inner and involuntary power which approximates literally to the

instinct of an animal—nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human

artists, reason does _not_ supersede instinct, but is added to an

instinct as much more divine than that of the lower animals as the human

body is more beautiful than theirs; that a great singer sings not with

less instinct than the nightingale, but with more—only more various,

applicable, and governable; that a great architect does not build with

less instinct than the beaver or the bee, but with more—with an innate

cunning of proportion that embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of

skill that improvises all construction. But be that as it may—be the

instinct less or more than that of inferior animals—like or unlike

theirs, still the human art is dependent on that first, and then upon an

amount of practice, of science,—and of imagination disciplined by

thought, which the true possessor of it knows to be incommunicable, and

the true critic of it, inexplicable, except through long process of

laborious’ years. That journey of life’s conquest, in which hills over

hills, and Alps on Alps arose, and sank,—do you think you can make

another trace it painlessly, by talking? Why, you cannot even carry us

up an Alp, by talking. You can guide us up it, step by step, no

otherwise—even so, best silently. You girls, who have been among the

hills, know how the bad guide chatters and gesticulates, and it is “Put

your foot here;” and “Mind how you balance yourself there;” but the good

guide walks on quietly, without a word, only with his eyes on you when

need is, and his arm like an iron bar, if need be.

In that slow way, also, art can be taught—if you have faith in your

guide, and will let his arm be to you as an iron bar when need is. But

in what teacher of art have you such faith? Certainly not in me; for, as

I told you at first, I know well enough it is only because you think I

can talk, not because you think I know my business, that you let me speak

to you at all. If I were to tell you anything that seemed to you strange

you would not believe it, and yet it would only be in telling you strange

things that I could be of use to you. I could be of great use to

you—infinite use—with brief saying, if you would believe it; but you

would not, just because the thing that would be of real use would

displease you. You are all wild, for instance, with admiration of

Gustave Doré. Well, suppose I were to tell you, in the strongest terms I

could use, that Gustave Doré’s art was bad—bad, not in weakness,—not in

failure,—but bad with dreadful power—the power of the Furies and the

Harpies mingled, enraging, and polluting; that so long as you looked at

it, no perception of pure or beautiful art was possible for you. Suppose

I were to tell you that! What would be the use? Would you look at

Gustave Doré less? Rather, more, I fancy. On the other hand, I could

soon put you into good humour with me, if I chose. I know well enough

what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk

to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn

leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of

Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and

the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a

tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither you nor I

should be a bit the better or wiser; or, if we were, our increased wisdom

could be of no practical effect. For, indeed, the arts, as regards

teachableness, differ from the sciences also in this, that their power is

founded not merely on facts which can be communicated, but on

dispositions which require to be created. Art is neither to be achieved

by effort of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking. It is the

instinctive and necessary result of power, which can only be developed

through the mind of successive generations, and which finally burst into

life under social conditions as slow of growth as the faculties they

regulate. Whole æras of mighty history are summed, and the passions of

dead myriads are concentrated, in the existence of a noble art, and if

that noble art were among us, we should feel it and rejoice; not caring

in the least to hear lectures on it; and since it is not among us, be

assured we have to go back to the root of it, or, at least, to the place

where the stock of it is yet alive, and the branches began to die.

And now, may I have your pardon for pointing out, partly with reference

to matters which are at this time of greater moment than the arts—that if

we undertook such recession to the vital germ of national arts that have

decayed, we should find a more singular arrest of their power in Ireland

than in any other European country? For in the eighth century Ireland

possessed a school of art in her manuscripts and sculpture, which, in

many of its qualities—apparently in all essential qualities of decorative

invention—was quite without rival; seeming as if it might have advanced

to the highest triumphs in architecture and in painting. But there was

one fatal flaw in its nature, by which it was stayed, and stayed with a

conspicuousness of pause to which there is no parallel: so that, long

ago, in tracing the progress of European schools from infancy to

strength, I chose for the students of Kensington, in a lecture since

published, two characteristic examples of early art, of equal skill; but

in the one case, skill which was progressive—in the other, skill which

was at pause. In the one case, it was work receptive of

correction—hungry for correction; and in the other, work which inherently

rejected correction. I chose for them a corrigible Eve, and an

incorrigible Angel, and I grieve to say that the incorrigible Angel was

also an Irish Angel! {31}

And the fatal difference lay wholly in this. In both pieces of art there

was an equal falling short of the needs of fact; but the Lombardic Eve

knew she was in the wrong, and the Irish Angel thought himself all right.

The eager Lombardic sculptor, though firmly insisting on his childish

idea, yet showed in the irregular broken touches of the features, and the

imperfect struggle for softer lines in the form, a perception of beauty

and law that he could not render; there was the strain of effort, under

conscious imperfection, in every line. But the Irish missal-painter had

drawn his angel with no sense of failure, in happy complacency, and put

red dots into the palm of each hand, and rounded the eyes into perfect

circles, and, I regret to say, left the mouth out altogether, with

perfect satisfaction to himself.

May I without offence ask you to consider whether this mode of arrest in

ancient Irish art may not be indicative of points of character which even

yet, in some measure, arrest your national power? I have seen much of

Irish character, and have watched it closely, for I have also much loved

it. And I think the form of failure to which it is most liable is

this,—that being generous-hearted, and wholly intending always to do

right, it does not attend to the external laws of right, but thinks it

must necessarily do right because it means to do so, and therefore does

wrong without finding it out; and then, when the consequences of its

wrong come upon it, or upon others connected with it, it cannot conceive

that the wrong is in anywise of its causing or of its doing, but flies

into wrath, and a strange agony of desire for justice, as feeling itself

wholly innocent, which leads it farther astray, until there is nothing

that it is not capable of doing with a good conscience.

But mind, I do not mean to say that, in past or present relations between

Ireland and England, you have been wrong, and we right. Far from that, I

believe that in all great questions of principle, and in all details of

administration of law, you have been usually right, and we wrong;

sometimes in misunderstanding you, sometimes in resolute iniquity to you.

Nevertheless, in all disputes between states, though the stronger is

nearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is often so in a minor

degree; and I think we sometimes admit the possibility of our being in

error, and you never do.

And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labours

of life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their

lessons—that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the

work of people who _feel themselves wrong_;—who are striving for the

fulfilment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not

yet attained, which they feel even farther and farther from attaining the

more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work

of people who know also that they are right. The very sense of

inevitable error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that

purpose, and the continued sense of failure arises from the continued

opening of the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth.

This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and greatly precious

one: namely—that whenever the arts and labours of life are fulfilled in

this spirit of striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have to

do, honourably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as

seems possible to the nature of man. In all other paths by which that

happiness is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction: for

ambition and for passion there is no rest—no fruition; the fairest

pleasures of youth perish in a darkness greater than their past light:

and the loftiest and purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of

life with endless fire of pain. But, ascending from lowest to highest,

through every scale of human industry, that industry worthily followed,

gives peace. Ask the labourer in the field, at the forge, or in the

mine; ask the patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed,

fiery-hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with the colours of

light; and none of these, who are true workmen, will ever tell you, that

they have found the law of heaven an unkind one—that in the sweat of

their face they should eat bread, till they return to the ground; nor

that they ever found it an unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was

rendered faithfully to the command—“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do—do

it with thy might.”

These are the two great and constant lessons which our labourers teach us

of the mystery of life. But there is another, and a sadder one, which

they cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones.

“Do it with thy might.” There have been myriads upon myriads of human

creatures who have obeyed this law—who have put every breath and nerve of

their being into its toil—who have devoted every hour, and exhausted

every faculty—who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at

death—who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and

strength of example. And, at last, what has all this “Might” of humanity

accomplished, in six thousand years of labour and sorrow? What has it

_done_? Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one,

and count their achievements. Begin with the first—the lord of them

all—Agriculture. Six thousand years have passed since we were set to

till the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is tilled?

How much of that which is, wisely or well? In the very centre and chief

garden of Europe—where the two forms of parent Christianity have had

their fortresses—where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the

noble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless

ages, their faiths and liberties—there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet

run wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could

redeem with a year’s labour, still blast their helpless inhabitants into

fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe! While, on the

near coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman,

but a few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the

treasures of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not

find a few grains of rice, for a people that asked of us no more; but

stood by, and saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger.

Then, after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human

arts—Weaving; the art of queens, honoured of all noble Heathen women, in

the person of their virgin goddess—honoured of all Hebrew women, by the

word of their wisest king—“She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her

hands hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is

not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are

clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her

clothing is silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and

delivereth girdles to the merchant.” What have we done in all these

thousands of years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian

matron? Six thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave?

Might not every naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every

feeble breast fenced with sweet colours from the cold? What have we

done? Our fingers are too few, it seems, to twist together some poor

covering for our bodies. We set our streams to work for us, and choke

the air with fire, to turn our spinning-wheels—and,—_are we yet clothed_?

Are not the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast

clouts and rotten rags? Is not the beauty of your sweet children left in

wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honour, nature clothes the

brood of the bird in its nest, and the suckling of the wolf in her den?

And does not every winter’s snow robe what you have not robed, and shroud

what you have not shrouded; and every winter’s wind bear up to heaven its

wasted souls, to witness against you hereafter, by the voice of their

Christ,—“I was naked, and ye clothed me not”?

Lastly—take the Art of Building—the strongest—proudest—most orderly—most

enduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in the surest

manner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced; but if once

well done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced rocks—more

prevalently than the crumbling hills. The art which is associated with

all civic pride and sacred principle; with which men record their

power—satisfy their enthusiasm—make sure their defence—define and make

dear their habitation. And in six thousand years of building, what have

we done? Of the greater part of all that skill and strength, _no_

vestige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the fields and impede

the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of time, and of rage,

what _is_ left to us? Constructive and progressive creatures, that we

are, with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of fellowship, and

thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with the insects of

the forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea? The white surf

rages in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of scarcely

nascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places where once

dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth have cells for each

of their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in homes that

consume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners of our

streets, rises up the cry of the homeless—“I was a stranger, and ye took

me not in.”

Must it be always thus? Is our life for ever to be without

profit—without possession? Shall the strength of its generations be as

barren as death; or cast away their labour, as the wild fig-tree casts

her untimely figs? Is it all a dream then—the desire of the eyes and the

pride of life—or, if it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this?

The poets and prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have

told us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the life

that is now. They have had—they also,—their dreams, and we have laughed

at them. They have dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed

of peace and good-will; they have dreamed of labour undisappointed, and

of rest undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and

overflowing in store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of

providence in law; of gladness of parents, and strength of children, and

glory of grey hairs. And at these visions of theirs we have mocked, and

held them for idle and vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What have we

accomplished with our realities? Is this what has come of our worldly

wisdom, tried against their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against

their impotent ideal? or, have we only wandered among the spectra of a

baser felicity, and chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions of

the Almighty; and walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts,

instead of after the counsels of Eternity, until our lives—not in the

likeness of the cloud of heaven, but of the smoke of hell—have become “as

a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away”?

_Does_ it vanish then? Are you sure of that?—sure, that the nothingness

of the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the

coiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the

smoke of the torment that ascends for ever? Will any answer that they

_are_ sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor

labour, whither they go? Be it so: will you not, then, make as sure of

the Life that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come? Your

hearts are wholly in this world—will you not give them to it wisely, as

well as perfectly? And see, first of all, that you _have_ hearts, and

sound hearts, too, to give. Because you have no heaven to look for, is

that any reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and

infinite earth, which is firmly and instantly given you in possession?

Although your days are numbered, and the following darkness sure, is it

necessary that you should share the degradation of the brute, because you

are condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the

worm, because you are to companion them in the dust? Not so; we may have

but a few thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only—perhaps tens;

nay, the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a

moment, as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are

living spirits, not passing clouds. “He maketh the winds His messengers;

the momentary fire, His minister;” and shall we do less than _these_?

Let us do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we

snatch our narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow

inheritance of passion out of Immortality—even though our lives _be_ as a

vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

But there are some of you who believe not this—who think this cloud of

life has no such close—that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon

the floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every eye

shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or

twenty years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books

opened. If that be true, far more than that must be true. Is there but

one day of judgment? Why, for us every day is a day of judgment—every

day is a Dies Iræ, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its

West. Think you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are

opened? It waits at the doors of your houses—it waits at the corners of

your streets; we are in the midst of judgment—the insects that we crush

are our judges—the moments we fret away are our judges—the elements that

feed us, judge, as they minister—and the pleasures that deceive us,

judge, as they indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while

we bear the form of them, if indeed those lives are _Not_ as a vapour,

and do _Not_ vanish away.

“The work of men”—and what is that? Well, we may any of us know very

quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us

are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we

are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it

is a mortal one—we want to keep back part of the price; and we

continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross

was the _weight_ of it—as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead

of to be—crucified upon. “They that are His have crucified the flesh,

with the affections and lusts.” Does that mean, think you, that in time

of national distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest

and hope of humanity—none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling,

none put themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of

lace off their footmen’s coats, to save the world? Or does it rather

mean, that they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds—yes, and

life, if need be? Life!—some of us are ready enough to throw that away,

joyless as we have made it. But “_station_ in Life”—how many of us are

ready to quit _that_? Is it not always the great objection, where there

is question of finding something useful to do—“We cannot leave our

stations in Life”?

Those of us who really cannot—that is to say, who can only maintain

themselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have

already something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that they

do it honestly and with all their might. But with most people who use

that apology, “remaining in the station of life to which Providence has

called them” means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and

large houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if

ever Providence _did_ put them into stations of that sort—which is not at

all a matter of certainty—Providence is just now very distinctly calling

them out again. Levi’s station in life was the receipt of custom; and

Peter’s, the shore of Galilee; and Paul’s, the antechambers of the High

Priest,—which “station in life” each had to leave, with brief notice.

And, whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who

mean to fulfil our duty ought first to live on as little as we can; and,

secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we

can spare in doing all the sure good we can.

And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then

in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or

sciences, or any other subject of thought.

I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be

deceived by any of the common talk of “indiscriminate charity.” The

order to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious

hungry, nor the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed

the hungry. It is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not

work, neither should he eat—think of that, and every time you sit down to

your dinner, ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask a

blessing, “How much work have I done to-day for my dinner?” But the

proper way to enforce that order on those below you, as well as on

yourselves, is not to leave vagabonds and honest people to starve

together, but very distinctly to discern and seize your vagabond; and

shut your vagabond up out of honest people’s way, and very sternly then

see that, until he has worked, he does _not_ eat. But the first thing is

to be sure you have the food to give; and, therefore, to enforce the

organization of vast activities in agriculture and in commerce, for the

production of the wholesomest food, and proper storing and distribution

of it, so that no famine shall any more be possible among civilized

beings. There is plenty of work in this business alone, and at once, for

any number of people who like to engage in it.

Secondly, dressing people—that is to say, urging every one, within reach

of your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them means of

being so. In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must give up the

effort with respect to them, only taking care that no children within

your sphere of influence shall any more be brought up with such habits;

and that every person who is willing to dress with propriety shall have

encouragement to do so. And the first absolutely necessary step towards

this is the gradual adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks of

persons, so that their rank shall be known by their dress; and the

restriction of the changes of fashion within certain limits. All which

appears for the present quite impossible; but it is only so far even

difficult as it is difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire

to appear what we are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of

mine, that these mean and shallow vices are unconquerable by Christian

women.

And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have been

put first, but I put it third, because we must feed and clothe people

where we find them, and lodge them afterwards. And providing lodgment

for them means a great deal of vigorous legislature, and cutting down of

vested interests that stand in the way, and after that, or before that,

so far as we can get it, thorough sanitary and remedial action in the

houses that we have; and then the building of more, strongly,

beautifully, and in groups of limited extent, kept in proportion to their

streams, and walled round, so that there may be no festering and wretched

suburb anywhere, but clean and busy street within, and the open country

without, with a belt of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so

that from any part of the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight

of far horizon, might be reachable in a few minutes’ walk. This the

final aim; but in immediate action every minor and possible good to be

instantly done, when, and as, we can; roofs mended that have holes in

them—fences patched that have gaps in them—walls’ buttressed that

totter—and floors propped that shake; cleanliness and order enforced with

our own hands and eyes, till we are breathless, every day. And all the

fine arts will healthily follow. I myself have washed a flight of stone

stairs all down, with bucket and broom, in a Savoy inn, where they hadn’t

washed their stairs since they first went up them; and I never made a

better sketch than that afternoon.

These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the law for

every Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in direct service

towards one of these three needs, as far as is consistent with their own

special occupation, and if they have no special business, then wholly in

one of these services. And out of such exertion in plain duty all other

good will come; for in this direct contention with material evil, you

will find out the real nature of all evil; you will discern by the

various kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism

to good; also you will find the most unexpected helps and profound

lessons given, and truths will come thus down to us which the speculation

of all our lives would never have raised us up to. You will find nearly

every educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do

something; everybody will become of use in their own fittest way, and

will learn what is best for them to know in that use. Competitive

examination will then, and not till then, be wholesome, because it will

be daily, and calm, and in practice; and on these familiar arts, and

minute, but certain and serviceable knowledges, will be surely edified

and sustained the greater arts and splendid theoretical sciences.

But much more than this. On such holy and simple practice will be

founded, indeed, at last, an infallible religion. The greatest of all

the mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even

the sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational,

effective, humble, and helpful action. Helpful action, observe! for

there is just one law, which, obeyed, keeps all religions pure—forgotten,

makes them all false. Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright,

we allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ from other

people, we are wrong, and in the devil’s power. That is the essence of

the Pharisee’s thanksgiving—“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other

men are.” At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out,

not in what we differ from other people, but in what we agree with them;

and the moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done,

kind or good, (and who but fools couldn’t?) then do it; push at it

together: you can’t quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that

even the best men stop pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their

pugnacity for piety, and it’s all over. I will not speak of the crimes

which in past times have been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the

follies which are at this hour held to be consistent with obedience to

Him; but I _will_ speak of the morbid corruption and waste of vital power

in religious sentiment, by which the pure strength of that which should

be the guiding soul of every nation, the splendour of its youthful

manhood, and spotless light of its maidenhood, is averted or cast away.

You may see continually girls who have never been taught to do a single

useful thing thoroughly; who cannot sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast

an account, nor prepare a medicine, whose whole life has been passed

either in play or in pride; you will find girls like these, when they are

earnest-hearted, cast all their innate passion of religious spirit, which

was meant by God to support them through the irksomeness of daily toil,

into grievous and vain meditation over the meaning of the great Book, of

which no syllable was ever yet to be understood but through a deed; all

the instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made vain, and the

glory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless agony concerning

questions which the laws of common serviceable life would have either

solved for them in an instant, or kept out of their way. Give such a

girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at

night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been

the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will

transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace.

So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin verses, and called

them educated; now we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a

bat, and call them educated. Can they plough, can they sow, can they

plant at the right time, or build with a steady hand? Is it the effort

of their lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely

in word and deed? Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the

strength of England is in them, and the hope; but we have to turn their

courage from the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect

from dispute of words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from

the errantry of adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power.

And then, indeed, shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible

felicity, and an infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more

to be assailed by temptation, no more to be defended by wrath and by

fear;—shall abide with us Hope, no more to be quenched by the years that

overwhelm, or made ashamed by the shadows that betray:—shall abide for

us, and with us, the greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding

name of our Father. For the greatest of these is Charity.

Footnotes.

{1} The paragraph that begins “I think I can best tell you their answer . . .”

{2} The paragraph that begins “Does a bird . . .”

{3} The paragraphs beginning:

79—“I believe, then, with this exception . . .”

75—“Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy . . .”

19—“Now, in order to deal with words rightly, . . .”

79—“Then, in art, keep the finest models . . .”

{4} _φίλη_.

{5} Note this sentence carefully, and compare the ‘Queen of the Air,’

paragraph “Nothing that I ever said is more . . .”

{6} 2 Peter iii. 5–7.

{7} Compare the 13th Letter in ‘Time and Tide.’

{8} Modern “Education” for the most part signifies giving people the

faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to

them.

{9} Inf. xxiii. 125, 126; xix. 49. 50.

{10} Compare with paragraph “This, then, is what you have to do . . .”

{11} See note at end of lecture. I have put it in large type, because

the course of matters since it was written has made it perhaps better

worth attention.

{12} Respecting the increase of rent by the deaths of the poor, for

evidence of which see the preface to the Medical Officer’s report to the

Privy Council, just published, there are suggestions in its preface which

will make some stir among us, I fancy, respecting which let me note these

points following:—

There are two theories on the subject of land now abroad, and in

contention; both false.

The first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must

continue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily sacred persons to

whom the earth, air, and water of the world belong, as personal property;

of which earth, air, and water, these persons may, at their pleasure,

permit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, to breathe, or to

drink. This theory is not for many years longer tenable. The adverse

theory is that a division of the land of the world among the mob of the

world would immediately elevate the said mob into sacred personages; that

houses would then build themselves, and corn grow of itself; and that

everybody would be able to live, without doing any work for his living.

This theory would also be found highly untenable in practice.

It will, however, require some rough experiments and rougher

catastrophes, before the generality of persons will be convinced that no

law concerning anything—least of all concerning land, for either holding

or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low—would be of the

smallest ultimate use to the people, so long as the general contest for

life, and for the means of life, remains one of mere brutal competition.

That contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one deadly form or

another, whatever laws you make against it. For instance, it would be an

entirely wholesome law for England, if it could be carried, that maximum

limits should be assigned to incomes according to classes; and that every

nobleman’s income should be paid to him as a fixed salary or pension by

the nation; and not squeezed by him in variable sums, at discretion, out

of the tenants of his land. But if you could get such a law passed

to-morrow, and if, which would be farther necessary, you could fix the

value of the assigned incomes by making a given weight of pure bread for

a given sum, a twelvemonth would not pass before another currency would

have been tacitly established, and the power of accumulated wealth would

have re-asserted itself in some other article, or some other imaginary

sign. There is only one cure for public distress—and that is public

education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. There

are, indeed, many laws conceivable which would gradually better and

strengthen the national temper; but, for the most part, they are such as

the national temper must be much bettered before it would bear. A nation

in its youth may be helped by laws, as a weak child by backboards, but

when it is old it cannot that way strengthen its crooked spine.

And besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute

the earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable,—Who is

to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work

for the rest, and for what pay? Who is to do the pleasant and clean

work, and for what pay? Who is do no work, and for what pay? And there

are curious moral and religious questions connected with these. How far

is it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of a great many persons,

in order to put the abstracted psychical quantities together and make one

very beautiful or ideal soul? If we had to deal with mere blood instead

of spirit, (and the thing might literally be done—as it has been done

with infants before now)—so that it were possible, by taking a certain

quantity of blood from the arms of a given number of the mob, and putting

it all into one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentleman of him,

the thing would of course be managed; but secretly, I should conceive.

But now, because it is brain and soul that we abstract, not visible

blood, it can be done quite openly, and we live, we gentlemen, on

delicatest prey, after the manner of weasels; that is to say, we keep a

certain number of clowns digging and ditching, and generally stupefied,

in order that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling

to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal to be said for this. A

highly-bred and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman

(much more a lady), is a great production,—a better production than most

statues; being beautifully coloured as well as shaped, and plus all the

brains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; and

you cannot have it, any more than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice

of much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to build a

beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple—and more

delightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than to a

wall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to do in

return—duties of living belfry and rampart—of which presently.

{13} Since this was written, the answer has become definitely—No; we

having surrendered the field of Arctic discovery to the Continental

nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships.

{14} I state this fact without Professor Owen’s permission: which of

course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I

consider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact,

that I do what seems to me right, though rude.

{15} That was our real idea of “Free Trade”—“All the trade to myself.”

You find now that by “competition” other people can manage to sell

something as well as you—and now we call for Protection again. Wretches!

{16} I meant that the beautiful places of the world—Switzerland, Italy,

South Germany, and so on—are, indeed, the truest cathedrals—places to be

reverent in, and to worship in; and that we only care to drive through

them: and to eat and drink at their most sacred places.

{17} I was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the river

shore at Richmond, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the mere drift

of soot-laden air from places many miles away.

{18} One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the

good of all classes, in our future arrangements, must be that they wear

no “translated” articles of dress. See the preface.

{19} This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labour is curiously

coincident in verbal form with a certain passage which some of us may

remember. It may perhaps be well to preserve beside this paragraph

another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the ‘Morning Post,’ of about

a parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:—“The _salons_ of Mme. C—, who

did the honours with clever imitative grace and elegance, were crowded

with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts—in fact, with the same _male_

company as one meets at the parties of the Princess Metternich and Madame

Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English peers and members of Parliament were

present, and appeared to enjoy the animated and dazzlingly improper

scene. On the second floor the supper tables were loaded with every

delicacy of the season. That your readers may form some idea of the

dainty fare of the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper,

which was served to all the guests (about 200) seated at four o’clock.

Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Laffitte, Tokay, and champagne of the finest

vintages were served most lavishly throughout the morning. After supper

dancing was resumed with increased animation, and the ball terminated

with a _chaîne diabolique_ and a _cancan d’enfer_ at seven in the

morning. (Morning service—‘Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the

opening eyelids of the Morn.—’) Here is the menu:—‘Consommé de volaille

à la Bagration: 16 hors-d’œuvres variés. Bouchées à la Talleyrand.

Saumons froids, sauce Ravigote. Filets de bœuf en Bellevue, timbales

milanaises, chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffées. Pâtés de foies gras,

buissons d’écrevisses, salades vénétiennes, gelées blanches aux fruits,

gâteaux mancini, parisiens et parisiennes. Fromages glacés. Ananas.

Dessert.’”

{20} Please observe this statement, and think of it, and consider how it

happens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a shilling a week

from the country—but no one is ashamed to take a pension of a thousand a

year.

{21} I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’

established; for the power of the press in the hands of highly educated

men, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may indeed become

all that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor will

therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my respect

for the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its third

number, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the intense

wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a false turn

of thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of

consequences. It contained at the end this notable passage:—

“The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction,—aye, and the

bedsteads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law

ought to give to _outcasts merely as outcasts_.” I merely put beside

this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a part of the

message which Isaiah was ordered to “lift up his voice like a trumpet” in

declaring to the gentlemen of his day: “Ye fast for strife, and to smite

with the fist of wickedness. Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to

deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor _that are cast

out_ (margin, ‘afflicted’) to _thy_ house?” The falsehood on which the

writer had mentally founded himself, as previously stated by him, was

this: “To confound the functions of the dispensers of the poor-rates with

those of the dispensers of a charitable institution is a great and

pernicious error.” This sentence is so accurately and exquisitely wrong,

that its substance must be thus reversed in our minds before we can deal

with any existing problem of national distress. “To understand that the

dispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and should

distribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as much greater

and franker than that possible to individual charity, as the collective

national wisdom and power may be supposed greater than those of any

single person, is the foundation of all law respecting pauperism.”

(Since this was written the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ has become a mere party

paper—like the rest; but it writes well, and does more good than mischief

on the whole.)

{22} “_τὸ δὲ πρόνημα τοῡ πνεύματος ζωή καὶ εὶρήνη_.”

{23} I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have

noted the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great

characters of men in the Waverley novels—the selfishness and narrowness

of thought in Redgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in Edward

Glendinning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed that there are

several quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in the backgrounds;

three—let us accept joyously this courtesy to England and her

soldiers—are English officers: Colonel Gardiner, Colonel Talbot, and

Colonel Mannering.

{24} Coventry Patmore. You cannot read him too often or too carefully;

as far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and

purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and

discourage, the imagination they deeply seize.

{25} Observe, it is “Nature” who is speaking throughout, and who says,

“while she and I together live.”

{26} “Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet’s ‘History of France.’”

De Quincey’s Works. Vol. iii. p. 217.

{27} I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our

English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should

receive, at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title;

attainable only by certain probation and trial both of character and

accomplishment; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of

any dishonourable act. Such an institution would be entirely, and with

all noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honour. That it

would not be possible among us, is not to the discredit of the scheme.

{28} See note {19}

{29} That no reference should be made to religious questions.

{30} I have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it to set

forth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and what follows

to set forth their wisdom in peace, contending for wealth.

{31} See “The Two Paths,”—paragraph beginning “You know I said of that

great and pure . . .”