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THE COMPLETE WORKS 

OF 

JOHN RUSKIN, LL. D 

IN TWENTY-SIX VOLUMES 

Volume Ten 



FORS CLAV1GERA 



LETTERS 

TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS OF 
GREAT BRITAIN 

VOLUME THE FOURTH 



JOHN RUSKIN 




VKltb Illustrations 



PHILADELPHIA 
RF.UWEF.. WATTI.EY & WALSH 



Strictly limiltd la 550 copies, of «M* 
Ms Is So. 45~ 

696616 

Q>XA.C 

v. \0 




FORS CLAVIGERA 



LETTERS 



TO THE WORKMEN AND LABOURERS OF GREAT BRITAIN 



Volume IV. 



FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



LETTER LXXVI. 



Venice, Sunday, 4th March, 1877. 

" Maxv W?» ^«M*«V, bSdvarSs iorw Jl roiavrr). ttififiax 01 '* ^M** ^« ot T< fv*« 
*al Ikdfxoyts, ^fiffif 8* a£ rr^Aurra 0t c*r <col ScuM^wr, Q$ilp*i 9h iifias it&utia 
teal 9$pis firrk iuppoatrns, a&(*i 9h hucaio<ritin) teal aoxppoaiyTj perk <ppcv4\- 
<rt»Sy 4r rah ritw $*&v iftfyvxois oucovacu Surayicift." 

" Wherefore, our battle is immortal ; and the Gods and 
the Angels fight with us : and we are their possessions. And 
the things that destroy us are injustice, insolence, and foolish 
thoughts ; and the things that save us are justice, self-com- 
mand, and true thought, which things dwell in the living 
powers of the Gods." 

This sentence is the sum of the statement made by PJato, 
in the tenth book of the Laws, respecting the relations of the 
will of man to the Divine creative power. Statement which 
is in all points, and for ever, true ; and ascertainably so by 
every man who honestly endeavours to be just, temperate, 
and true. 

I will translate and explain it throughout, in due time ; * 
but am obliged to refer to it here hastily, because its introduc- 

* For the present, commending only to those of my Oxford readers 
who may be entering on the apostleship of the Gospel of Dirt, this fol- 
lowing sentence, with as much of its context as they have time to read : 

44 5 wpAror ytr*rrm$ gal <f>$opas afriov ctircbrrwK, rovro ou *pwro¥ aAAi ffor«- 
pov av*pJ)yarro tlrai yryorbs 6i tV rutv ctac/Sdr $vx^ v &*<P7<urcUt«uo< \6yot, 
I 8) tiortpor vp6rtpor, 86cr fifiaprjiKairt v*pl 0c£r ttjj force* obviat.*' 



4 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 

tion contains the most beautiful and clear pre-Christian ex- 
pression at present known to me, of the law of Divine life in 
the whole of organic nature, which the myth of St. Theodore 
taught in Christian philosophy. 

I give one passage of it as the best preface to the matters I 
have to lay before you in connection with our beginning of 
real labour on English land, (announced, as you will see, in the 
statement of our affairs for this month). 

" Not, therefore, Man only, but all creatures that live and 
die, are the possessions of the Gods, whose also is the whole 
Heaven. 

" And which of us shall say that anything in the lives of 
these is great, or little, before the Gods ? for it becomes not 
those to whom we belong, best and carefullest of possessors, 
to neglect either this or that. 

" For neither in the hands of physician, pilot, general, or 
householder, will great things prosper if he neglect the 
little ; nay, the stonemason will tell you that the large 
stones lie not well without the small : shall we then think 
God a worse worker than men, who by how much they are 
themselves nobler, by so much the more care for the perfect- 
ness of all they do ; and shall God, the wisest, because it is 
so easy to care for little things, therefore not care for them, 
as if He were indolent or weary?" 

Such preface befits well the serious things I have to say to 
you, my Sheffield men, to-day. I had them well in my mind 
when I rose, but find great difficulty in holding them there, 
because of the rattling of the steam-cranes of the huge 
steamer, Pachino. 

Now, that's curious : I look up to read her name on her 
bow — glittering in the morning sun, within thirty paces of 
me ; and, behold, it has St. George's shield and cross on it ;* 
the first ship's bow I ever saw with a knight's shield for its 
bearing. I must bear with her cranes as best I may. 

It is a right omen, for what I have to say in especial 

* At least, the sharp shield of crusading times, with the simple cross 
on it— St George's in form, but this the Italian bearing, reversed in 
tincture, gules, the cross argent 



6 F0R8 CLAVTGERA. 

Natural to Sheffield,* — joyful to Sheffield, otherwise an en- 
tirely impossible form of poetry there. (Three enormous 
prolonged trumpe tings, or indecent bellowings — audible, I 
should think, ten miles off — from another steamer entering 
the Giudecca, interrupt me again, — and you need not think 
that I am peculiar in sensitiveness : no decent family wor- 
ship, no gentle singing, no connectedly thoughtful reading, 
would be possible to any human being under these condi- 
tions, wholly inevitable now by any person of moderate means 
in Venice. With considerable effort, and loss of nervous 
energy, I force myself back into course of thought.) 

You don't, perhaps, feel distinctly how people can be joy- 
ful in ironwork, or why I call it * poetry ' ? 

Yet the only piece of good part-singing I heard in Italy, for 
a whole summer, was over a blacksmith's forge ; (and there 
has been disciplined music, as you know, made of its sounds 
before now ; and you may, perhaps, have seen and heard Mr. 
G. W. Moore as the Christy Blacksmith). But I speak of 
better harmonies to be got out of your work than Handel's, 
when you come at it with a true heart, fervently, as I hope 
this company of you are like to do, to whom St. George 
has now given thirteen acres of English ground for their 
own : so long as they observe his laws. 

They shall not be held to them at first under any formal 
strictness — for this is mainly their own adventure ; St. 
George merely securing coign of vantage for it, and requir- 
ing of them observance only of his bare first principles — 
good work, and no moving of machinery by fire. But I 
believe they will be glad, in many respects, to act by St. 
George's advice ; and, as I hope, truly begin his active 
work ; of which, therefore, it seems to me now necessary to 
state unambiguously the religious laws which underlie the 

* All the fine work of man must be first instinctive, foi+he is bound 
to be a fine Animal — King of Animals ; then, moral or disciplined, for 
he is bound to be a fine Spirit also, and King of Spirits. The Spirit 
power begins in directing the Animal power to other than egoistic ends. 
Read, in connection with last For*, The Animate of the Bible, by John 
Worcester, Boston, Lockwood and Brooke, 1875. 



KORS CLAVIQERA. 7 

Creed and vow of full Companionship, and of which his re- 
tainers will, I doubt not, soon recognize the outward observ- 
ance to be practically useful. 

You cannot but have noticed — any of you who read atten- 
tively, — that Fors has become much more distinctly Chris- 
tian in its tone, during the last two years ; and those of you 
who know with any care my former works, must feel a yet 
more vivid contrast between the spirit in which the preface 
to T/te Crown of Wild Olive was written, and that in which 
I am now collating for you the Mother Laws of the Trades 
of Venice. 

This is partly because I am every day compelled, with 
increasing amazement, and renewed energy, to contradict 
the idiotic teaching of Atheism which is multiplied in your 
ears ; but it depends far more essentially on two vital 
causes : the first, that since Fors began, " such things have 
befallen me " * personally, which have taught me much, but 
of which I need not at present speak ; the second, that in 
the work I did at Assisi in 1874, I discovered a fallacy 
which had underlain all my art-teaching, (and the teaching 
of Art, as I understand it, is the teaching of all things,) 
since the year 1858. Of which I must be so far tedious to 
you as to give some brief account. For it is continually 
said of me, and I observe has been publicly repeated lately 
by one of my very good friends, that I have " changed my 
opinions " about painting and architecture. And this, like 
all the worst of falsehoods, has one little kernel of distorted 
truth in the heart of it, which it is practically necessary, 
now, that you, my Sheffield essayists of St. George's service, 
should clearly know. 

All my first books, to the end of the Stones of Venice, 
were written in the simple belief I had been taught as a 
child ; and especially the second volume of Modem Painters 
was an outcry of enthusiastic praise of religious painting, in 
which you will find me placing Fra Angelico, (see the clos- 
ing paragraph of the book,) above all other painters. 

* Leviticus x. 19. 



8 FOliS CLAVIGEHA. 

But during my work at Venice, I discovered tiie gigantic 
power of Tin tore t, and found that there was a quite different 
spirit in that from the spirit of Angelico : and, analysing 
Venetian work carefully, I found, — and told fearlessly, in 
spite of my love for the masters, — that there was " no relig- 
ion whatever in any work of Titian's ; and that Tintoret 
only occasionally forgot himself into religion." — I repeat 
now, and reaffirm, this statement ; but must ask the reader 
to add to it, what I partly indeed said in other places at tin; 
lime, that only when Tintoret forgets himself, does he truly 
find himself. 

Now you see that among the four pieces of art I have 
given you for standards to study, only one is said to be 
' perfect,' — Titian's. And ever since the Stonrx of Venice 
were written, Titian was given in all my art-teaching as a 
standard of perfection. Conceive the weight of this prob- 
lem, then, on my inner mind— how the most perfect work 
1 knew, in mv special business, could be done "wholly with- 
out religion"'! 

I set myself to work out that problem thoroughly in lfcija, 

one, and which did indeed alter, from that time forward, the 
tone and method of my teaching, — that human work must be 
done honourably and thoroughly, because we are now Men ; 
— whether we ever expect to be angels, or ever were slugs, 
being practically no matter. We are now Human creat- 
ures, and must, at our peril, do Human — ihat is to say, 
affectionate, honest, and earnest work.* 

Farther, I found, and have always since taught, and do 
teach, and shall teach, I doubt not, till I die, that in resolv- 
ing to do our work well, is the only sound foundation of any 
religion whatsoever ; and that by that resolution only, and 
what we have done, and not by our belief, Christ will judge 

• This ia essentially whnt mv friend Mr. Harrison means (if he knew 
itj by hie RfUtiwii <>f HumanUg,— one which ha will find, when he i» 
slightly more advanced in tho knowledge " of all life and thought, '' 
was known and -icted on in epochs considernlily anteueiieut to that of 
modern Evolution. 



fQBB CLAVIQERA. 9 

us, as lie has plainly told us He will, (though nohody 
believes Him,) in the Resurrection. 

But, beyond this, in the year 1858, I came to another con- 
clusion, which was a false one. 

My work on the Venetians in that year not only convinced 
me of their consummate power, but showed me that there 
was a great, iror/d/;/ harmony running through all they did — 
opposing itself to the fanaticism of the Papacy ; and in this 
worldly harmony of human and artistic power, my own 
special idol, Turner, stood side by side with Tintoret ; so 
also Velasquez, Sir Joshua, anil Gainsborough, stood with 
Titian and Veronese ; and those seven men— quite demon- 
strably and indisputably giants in the domain of Art, of 
whom, in the words of Velasquez himself, " Tiziari z'e quel 
che porta la JJandiera," — stood, as heads of a great Worldly 
Army, worshippers of Worldly visiblo Truth, ttyainat (as k 
seemed then to me), and assuredly distinct from, another 
sacred army, bearing the Rule of the Catholic Church in the 
strictest obedience, and headed by Cimabue, Giotto, and 
Angelico ; worshippers not of a worldly and visible Truth, 
but of a visionary one, which they asserted to be higher ; 
yet under the {as they asserted — supernatural) teaching of 
the Spirit of this Truth, doing loss perfect work than their 
unassisted opposites ! 

All this is entirely so ; fact tremendous it! its unity, and 
difficult enough, as it stands to me even now ; but as it stood 
to nie then, wholly insoluble, for I was stiil in the bonds of 
my old Evangelical faith ; and, in 1858, it was with me, Prot- 
estantism or nothing : the crisis of the whule turn of my 
thoughts being one Sunday morning, at Turin, when, from 
before Paul Veronese's Queen of Sheba, and under quite 



overwhelmed sense of his God-given power, I went 
a Waidensian chapel, where a little squeaking 
preaching to an audience of seventeen old women 
louts,* that they were the only children of God i 

and that nil the people in Turin outside the chape 


and tin 
i Turi 

, and 


* Counted at the time;— I am not quite sure now if s 
ei /litem . 





10 FORS CLAVIOSRA. 

the people in the world out of sight of Monte Vise, would 
be damned. I came out of the chapel, in aum of twentv 
years of thought, a conclusively un-converted man — con- 
verted by this little Piedmontese gentleman, so powerful in 
his organ-grinding 1 , inside-out, as it were. " Here is an end 
to my ' Mother-Law ' of Protestantism anyhow ! — and now — 
what is there left?" You will find what was left, as, in 
much darkness and sorrow of heart I gathered it, variously 
taught in my books, written between 1858 and 1874. It is 
all sound and good, as far as it goes : whereas all that went 
before was so mixed with Protestant egotism and insolence, 
that, as you have probably heard, I won't republish, in their 
first form, any of those former books.* 

Tims then it went with me till 1874, when 1 had lived six- 
teen full years with ' the religion of Humanity,' for rough 
and strong and sure foundation of everything ; but on that, 
building Greek and Arabian superstructure, taught ine at 
Venice, full of sacred colour and melancholy shade. Which 
is the under meaning of my answer to the Capuchin {For*, 
vol. iii., p. i>), that I was 'more a Turk than a Christian.' 
The Capuchin insisted, as you see, nevertheless that I 
might have a bit of St. Francis's cloak : which accepting 
thankfully, I went on to Assist, and there, by the kindness 
of my good friend Padre Tini, and others, I was allowed, 
(and believe I am the first painter who aver was allowed,) to 
have scaffolding erected above the high altar, and therefore 
above the body of St. Francis which lies in the lower chapel 
beneath it ; and thence to draw what I could of the great 
fresco of Giotto, " The marriage of Poverty and Francis." f 

* Not because I am ashamed of tliera, nor because their Art teaching 
is wrong : [it i* precisely [In- Ait ie:u:hing whiob I am now yalh'rririg 
out of the Statu* of Vtnft, and will gather. God willing, out of Minium 
Painter*, and reprint ami reaffirm every riyllalile of ; i hut the Religious 
teaching of those hooka, and all the more fur the sincerity of it. is mis- 
lead iug— BOmeti rata even poisonous ; always, in a manner. ridiculoUH ; 
and shall not stand iu any editions of them republished under my own 
supervision. 

j The drawing I made of the Bride is now in the Oxford schools, mid 
the property of those schools, anil King Alfred. But, 1 will usk the 



FORS CLAVIOERA. 



11 



And while muking this drawing, I discovered the fallacy 
under which I had been tormented for sixteen years. — the 
fallacy that Religious artists were weaker than Irreligious. 
I found that all Giotto's ' weaknesses,' (so called,) were 
merely absences of material science. He did not know, and 
could nor, in his day, so much of perspective as Titian, — so 
much of the laws of light and shade, or so much of technical 
composition. But I found he was in the make of him, and 
ooatenta, a very much stronger and greater man than Titian ; 
that the things I had fancied easy in his work, because they 
were so unpretending and simple, were nevertheless entirely 
inimitable ; that the Religion in him, instead of weakening, 
had solemnized and developed every faculty of his heart and 
hand ; and finally that his work, in all the innocence of it, 
was yet a human achievement and possession, quite above 
evt-rythiiig thai Titian had ever done ! 

' But what is all this about Titian and Angelico to you,' 
»re you thinking ? " We belong to cotton mills— iron mills ; 
—what is Titian to W— and to a.11 men. Ileirs only of 
simial life, what Angelico?" 

Patience — yet for a little while. They shall both be at 
least something to you before St. George's Museum is six 
months older. 

Meantime, don't be afraid that I am going to become a 
Roman Catholic, or that I am one, in disguise. I can no 
more become a Itoman-CalhaUf, than again an Evangelical- 
Protestant. I am a ' Catholic ' of those Catholics, to whom 
the Catholic Epistle of St. James is addressed — " the 
Twelve Tribes which are scattered abroad " — the literally 
or spiritually wandering Israel of all tho Earth. The Si. 
George's creed includes Turks, Jews, infidels, and heretics; 
and I am myself much of a Turk, more of a Jew ; alas, most 
of all, — an infidel ; hut not an atom of a heretic : Catholic, 



Trustees to lend it to tho Sheffield Museum, till I can copy it for Von. 
of which ji.ii are to otiferve. rileaae. that it had to be done in a dark 
plmee, from a fresco on a vanlted roof which cuild du more be literally 
T»n "n a flat surface thi.u the figures on a (!reel( vase. 



12 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

I, of the Catholics ; holding only for sure God's order to his 
scattered Israel, — " He hath shown thee, oh man, what is 
good ; and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but 
to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
Thy God." 

'Humbly.' — Have you the least idea, do you think, my 
Sheffield friends, what humility means,— or have any of your 
dress-coated lecturers ? Is not almost everything you are 
trying to do begun in pride, or in ambition ? And for walk- 
ing humbly with your God ; — (yours, observe, and your 
Fathers', as revealed to you otherwise than a Greek's and 
his Fathers', or an Indian's and his Fathers'), have you ever 
taken the least pains to know what kind of Person the God 
of England once was ? and yet, do you not think yourselves 
the cleverest of human creatures, because you have thrown 
His yoke off, with scorn. You need not crow so loudly 
about your achievement. Any young gutter-bred black- 
guard your police pick up in the streets, can mock your 
Fathers' God, with the best of you. 

" He is My God, and I will prepare Him an habitation, — 
mv Father's God, and I will exalt Him." You will find that 
to be an entirely salutary resolve of true humility ; and I 
have no hope of any prosperity for you in this or any other 
undertaking, but as you set yourselves to recover, and re- 
form, in truest sense, the Christian Faith you have been 
taught to spit on, and defile. 

Which, that you may be able to do, you must learn it 
from the Catholic epistles ; which are written to you Shef- 
fielders as much as to any one else ; — the Pauline epistles 
being only to special persons, and parts of them having no 
more help in them for you, than Jonah's message to 
Nineveh. But the Catholic epistles are directly addressed 
to you — every word vital for you ; and the most vital of 
these is the one that is given in nearly the same words by 
two of the Apostles, Peter and Judas, (not Iscariot ;) name- 
ly, ii. Peter i. 19, to end of epistle, and the epistle of Jude 
entire, comparing it with his question and its answer, John 
xiv. 22. 



FORS CLA VKJICHA. 



ia 



For if you understand those two epistles,* and that ques- 
tion and answer, you will understand the great scientific 
fact respecting, not the origin, but the existence, of species : 
that there is one species of Men on God's side— called to be 
Sums — elect — precious ; (but by no means limited to the 
horizon of Monte Viso) who have everything in Christ ; and 
another on the side of the Prince of this world, whose spot 
is the spot of Ilin Children — who have nothing in Christ. 

And tiiat you must belong, whether knowingly or not, to 
one of these armies ; and are called upon, by St. George, now 
to ascertain which : — the battle being henceforth like to be 
sore between them, and between their Captain Archangels, 
whoBe old quarrel over the body of Moses is by no means 
yet decided. 

And then you will also understand the definition of true 
Religious service, (6/nynttta) by St. James the Bishop, 
(which, if either Archdeacon Denison, or simpleton Tooth, 
or the stout British Protestant beadles of Hatcham, ever 
come to understand — as in God's good time (hey may, in 
Heaven — they will be a greatly astonished group of the 
Blessed, for some while,) — to wit, " Pure service, and unde- 
iil.'.I, (even by its tallow-candlc-ilropping, if the candles 
are lighted for help of widows' eyes — compare Fori, voL i., 
page 82) — before God, and the Father, (God, of the Spirits 
of all Flesh— and our Father, who know Him,) is this, to 
visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction, and to 
l;-. r himeeffwupotted from the lforlii" of whose spots, — 

* I may as well notice, now I nm on the Epimlei. one of the gro- 
tesque miaialii 1 * I hut. cfiiiiinuull y (dip into Fort through my crowding of 
work ; It made two delicious ouea in my Latin lost month, and have 
hail lo cancel the leuf where I could t what are left will lie literary 
i iir.'ip-][n>s in time). I had written, in For; vol. ii., p. 24M, "true 
fact ttated liy St. Jttme*,'' and gave the m rawled page to an assistant, 
to he copied ; who, reading tin) fair ten afterwards to me, it struck me 
tbp passag" wan in Timothy. I hade my acsifctsnt look, and Hading it 
»o. mill rapidly, " Put Timothy instead, then." But the ' Saint' w.ia 
left, and only caught my eye an I corrected the prem, and set mc think- 
ing " why Timothy was never call a saint like other people,'' and 1 let 

it go! 



14 F0R8 CLAVJQERA. 

leopard's, snake's, Ethiopian's, and fine lady's patches, — 
your anatomical Students, though dispensing knowledge 
only skin-deep, are too slightty cognizant ; and even your 
wise Christian scarcely can trace them from skin to clothes, 
so as to hate rightly " even the garment spotted by the 
Flesh." 

Well, I must draw to an end, for I have no more time this 
month. Read, before next Fors time, that epistle of Jude 
with intense care. It sums all the Epistles, coming, by the 
order of the Fors which grouped the Bible books, just be- 
fore the Apocalypse ; and it precisely describes your worst 
— in verity, your only, — Enemies of this day ; the twice 
dead people, — plucked up by t{ie roots, having once been 
rooted in the Holy Faith of Christendom ; but now, filthy 
dreamers, (apostles of the Gospel of Dirt, in perpetual foul 
dream of what man was, instead of reverence for what 
he is ;) carried about of winds of vanity, (pitiful apoth- 
ecaries' apprentices,) speaking evil of things they know 
not ; but in the things they know naturally as brute beasts, 
in these, corrupting themselves ; going in the way of Cain 
— (brother kingdom at war with brother, France and Ger- 
many, Austria and Italy) — running after the error of Balaam 
for reward ; (the Bishop of Manchester — whom I finally chal- 
lenged, personally and formally, through my Oxford Secre- 
tary, two months ago, not daring to answer me a word, — 
knowing that the city he rules over is in every business act 
of it in mortal sin, and conniving, — to keep smooth with it 
— he ! and the Bishop of Peterborough, "neutral," in sleek 
consent to the son of Zippor's prayer — " Neither curse them 
at all, nor bless them at all,") and perishing in the gainsay- 
ing of Kore, going down quick into volcanic petroleum pit, 
in the gathering themselves against Lawgiver and Priest, 
saying, " Wherefore lift ye up yourselves above the congre- 
gation of the Lord ? the days of Kinghood and Priesthood 
are ended ! " 

A notable piece of the Word of God to you, this, if ye 
will receive it : and in this last clause of it, for us of St. 
George's Company, precisely imperative. You see that whole 



FORS CLAVIQERA. 15 

mysterious passage about the contest for the body of Moses, 
(first, I suppose, of our Christian worshipping of relics, though 
old Greek motive of sacredest battle), comes in to enforce the 
not speaking evil of Dignities. And the most fearful prac- 
tical lessons in modern history are that the entire teaching 
of Mazzini, a man wholly upright, pure, and noble, and of 
subtlest intellectual power — Italian of the Italians, was ren- 
dered poisonous to Italy because he set himself against King- 
hood ; and the entire war of Garibaldi, a soldier of ten thou- 
sand, innocent and gentle and true, and of old Roman valour, 
was rendered utterly ruinous to Italy, by his setting himself 
against the Priesthood. For both King and Priest are for 
ever, after the Order of Melchizedek, and none that rise 
against them shall prosper : and this, in your new plannings 
and fancyings, my good Sheffielders, you will please take to 
heart, that though to yourselves, in the first confusion of 
things, St. George leaves ail liberty of conscience consistent 
with the perfect law of liberty, (which, however, you had 
better precisely understand from James the Bishop, who has 
quite other views concerning it than Mr. John Stuart Mill ; 
— James i. 25 ; ii. 12, 13), so soon as you have got yourselves 
settled, and feel the ground well under you, we must have a 
school built on it for your children, with enforced sending of 
them to be schooled ; in earliest course of which schooling 
your old Parish-church golden legend will be written by every 
boy, and stitched by every girl, and engraven with diamond 
point into the hearts of both, — 

" Fear God. Honour the King." 



16 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



I. Affairs of the Company. 

A few of the Sheffield working-men who admit the possibility of St. 
George's notions being just, have asked me to let them rent some ground 
from the Company, whereupon to spend what spare hours they have, of 
morning or evening, in useful labour. I have accordingly authorized 
the sale of £1,200 worth of our stock, to be re-invested on a little estate, 
near Sheffield, of thirteen acres, with good water supply. The work- 
men undertake to St. George for his three per oent. ; and if they get 
tired of the bargain, the land will be always worth our stock. I have 
no knowledge yet of the men's plans in detail ; nor, as I have said in 
the text, shall I much interfere with them, until I see how tbey de- 
velop themselves. But here is at last a little piece of England given into 
the English workman's hand, and heaven's. 

IL Affairs of the Master. 

I am beginning, for the first time in my life, to admit some notion 
into my head that I am a great man. God knows at how little rate I 
value the little that is in me ; but the maintaining myself now quietly 
against the contradiction of every one of my best friends, rising as it 
does into more harmonious murmur of opposition at every new act to 
which I find myself compelled by compassion and justice, requires more 
than ordinary firmness : and the absolute fact that, being entirely at one 
in my views of Nature and life with every great classic author, I am yet 
alone in the midst of a modern crowd which rejects them all, is some- 
thing to plume myself upon, — sorrowfully enough : but haughtily also. 
And now here has Fors reserved a strange piece of —if one's vanity were 
to speak— good fortune for me ; namely, that after being permitted, 
with my friend Mr. Sillar's guidance, to declare again in its full breadth 
the great command against usury, and to explain the intent of Shake- 
speare throughout the Merchant of Venice (see Munera Pulveris), it 
should also have been reserved for me to discover the first recorded 
words of Venice herself, on her Bialto ! — words of the ninth century, * 
inscribed on her first church, St. James of the Bialto ; and entirely un- 
noticed by all historians, hitherto ; yet in letters which he who ran 

* I have the best antiquarian in Venice aa authority for this date— my own placing of 
them would have been in the eleventh. 



FORS CLAVfGERA. 



17 



looked at the church, or at least, 
ir round the corners. When the 
entury, the inscription, iiu morn 
for the old writing, put on 
mii Lnjj a In r ir.- in the way , 
poking about in search of 



might read :— oo!y the historians neve 

looked only at the front of it ami ne< 

church was restored io the sixteenth 

to be obeyed, waa yet (it seei 

tbe gable at the back, where, ao outhi 

nobody noticed it any more till I came 

the picturesque. I found it afterwards recorded in a manuscript cata 

logue of ancient inscriptions in Venice, in St. Marks library (unil as I 

write thi* pa^c, Sunday, .March 1 Itli, 1877, the photograph I have bail 

made of it is brought in to roe— now in the Sheffield Museum). And 

this is the inscription on a -St, Genre's Cross, with a narrow band of 

marble beneath— marble so good that the hue edges of the letters might 

have been cut yesterday. 

On the cross— 

" Be thy Croas. ob Christ, the true safety of this place." (In case of 
mercantile panics, you see.) 

On the band beneath it— 

"Around this temple, let the merchants law be just — Ida weights 
true, and his agreements gailaleas." 

Those, so please yon, are the tirat words of Venice to the mercantile 
world— nor words only, but coupled with such laws as I have set hefore 
you — perfect laws of ' liberty and fraternity,' such as you know not. 
nor yet for many a day, can again learn. 

It is something to be proud of to have deciphered this [or you ; and 
more to have shown yon how you may attain to this honesty through 
Frankneas. For indeed the law of St. George, that our dealing* and 
fortunes are to be openly known, goes deeper even than this law of 
Venice, for it cuts at the ruot, not only of dishonesty, but of avarice 
and pride. Nor am I sorry that in myself submitting to it, my pride 
must be considerably mortified. If all my affairs had been conducted 
with prudence, or if my present position in the world were alt <">'.;<' 1 1 icr 
■tately, it might have been pleasant to unveil the statue of one's econ- 
omy for public applause. Hut I scarcely think even those of my readers 
who least understand me, will now accuse me of ostentation. 

Sly father left all his fortune to my mother and mo ! to my mother, 
thirty-seven th on wind pounds * and the hoime at Denmark Hill for life ; 
to me. a hundred ami twenty thousand, > his lenai s at Heme and Den- 
mark Hills, his freehold pottery at Greenwich, and his pictures, then 
estimated by him as worth ten thousand pounds, but now worth at 
least three times that sum. 

My mother mndo two wills; one immediately after my father's death ; 
the other— tin gentle forget fulness of nil worldly tilings past) — imme- 
diately before ber own. lioth are in the same terms, " I leave all I 
• 1S.I1O0 Bniik ai.uk. 




18 F0R8 CLAVIOERA. 

have to my son." This sentence, expanded somewhat by legal artifice, 
remains yet pathetically clear, as the brief substance of both docu- 
ments. I have therefore to day, in total account of my stewardship, 
to declare what I have done with a hundred and fifty-seven thousand 
pounds ; and certain houses and lands besides. In giving which account 
I shall say nothing of the share that other people have had in counsel- 
ling or mis-counseiling me ; nor of my reasons for what I have done. 
St George's bishops do not ask people who advised them, or what they 
intended to do ; but only what they did. 

My first performance was the investment of fifty thousand pounds in 
* entirely safe ' mortgages, which gave me five per cent, instead of three. 
I very soon, however, perceived it to be no less desirable, than difficult, 
to get quit of these ( entirely safe ' mortgages. The last of them that 
was worth anything came conveniently in last year (see For* accounts). 
I lost about twenty thousand pounds on them, altogether. 

In the second place, I thought it rather hard on my father's relations 
that he should have left all his money to me only ; and as I was very 
fond of some of them, indulged myself, and relieved my conscience at 
the same time, by giving seventeen thousand pounds to those I liked 
best. Money which has turned out to be quite rightly invested, and at 
a high interest ; and has been fruitful to me of many good things, and 
much happiness. 

Next I parted with some of my pictures, too large for the house I 
proposed to live in, and bought others at treble the price, the dealers 
always assuring me that the public would not look at any picture which 
I had seen reason to part with ; and that I had only my own eloquence 
to thank for the prices of those I wished to buy.* 

I bought next a collection of minerals (the foundation now of what 
are preparing Sheffield and other schools) for a stipulated sum of three 
thousand pounds, on the owner's statement of its value. It proved not 
to be worth five hundred. I went to law about it. The lawyers charged 
me a thousand pounds for their own services ; gave me a thousand 
pounds back, out of the three ; and made the defendant give me an- 
other five hundred pounds' worth of minerals. On the whole, a satis- 
factory legal performance ; but it took two years in the doing, and 
caused me much worry ; the lawyers spending most of the time they 
charged me for, in cross-examining me, and other witnesses, as to 
whether the agreement was made in the front or the back shop, with 
other particulars, interesting in a picturesque point of view, but wholly 
irrelevant to the business. 

* Fortune also went always against me. I gave carte-blancAe at Christie's for Turner's 
drawing of Terni (Ave inches by seven), and it cost me five hundred pounds. I put a limit 
of two hundred on the Roman Forum, and it was bought over me for a hundred and fifty, 
And I gnash my teeth whenever I think of it, because a commission bad been given up to 
three hundred. 



FOBS CLAVrGERA. 



19 



Then Brantsvood was offered me, which I bought, without seeing it, 
for fifteen hand red pounds ; (the Fact lining that. I have no time to see 
things, and mini decide nt a guess ; or not act at all). 

Then the house at Brantwood, a mere shed of rotten timber and 
loose Kloue, had to be furnished, and repaired. For old acquaintance 
Bake, I want to my father's upholsterer in London, (instead of the 
country Coniston one, on I ought,) aud had five puutids charged me for 
a footstool ; the repairs also proving worse than complete rebuilding ; 
and the moving one's chattels from London, no small matter, I got 
myself at last settled at my tea-table, one summer evening, with my 
view of the lake — for a net four thousand pounds all told, I afterwards 
built a lodge nearly as big as the house, for a married servant, and cut 
aud terraced a kitchen garden out of the ' steep wood ' * — another two 
thousand transforming themselves thus into " utilities embodied in 
material objects '' ; but these latter operations, under my own inline' 
diate direction, turning out unprovable by neighbours, aud. I imagine, 
not unprofitable as investment. 

At] these various shiftings of harness, and getting into saddle, — with 
the furnishing also of ray rooms at Oxford, and the pictures and uni- 
versal acquisitions aforesaid — may be very moderately put at fifteen 
thousand for a total. I then proceeded to assist my young relation in 
business ; with resultant loss, as before related of fifteen thousand; of 
which indeed he still holds himself responsible for ten, if ever able to 
pay it ; but one of the pieces of the private message sent me, with Ht. 
Ursula's on Christmas Day, was that I should forgive this debt alto- 
gether. Which hereby my cousin will please observe, is very heartily 
done ; and he is to be my cousin as he used to be, without any more 
though) of it. 

Then, for my St. George and Oxford gifts— there arc good fourteen 
thousand gone — nearer fifteen — even after allowing for stock prices, 
but say fourteen. 

And finally, you see what an average year of carefully restricted ex- 
pense has been to me 1 — Bay A!3,."i!H) for thirteen years, or. roughly, 
seventy thousand ; and we have this — I hope not beyond me— sum in 
addition :— 



Loss on mortgages 890,000 

Gift to relations 17,000 

Loss to relations. 15,(100 

Harness and stable expenses , 15,(100 

St George and Oxford 14.000 

And added yearly spending 70,000 

£151,000 




20 FOJiS CLAY1GERA. 

Those are the clearly stateable ami memorable heads of expenditure — 
more 1 could give, if it were needful; still, when one is living on one* 
capital, tins melting away is always faster than one expects ; and the 
linal state of uffaiis is, that on this let of April, 1877, my goods and 
chattels are simply these following : — 

In funded cash — six thousand Bank Stock, worth, at present prices, 
something more than fifteen thousand [sounds. 

Brunt wood —worth, certainly with its house, and furnitures, five 
thousand. 

Marylobone freehold and leaseholds— three thousand fin* hundred. 

Greenwich freehold— twelve hundred. 

Heme Hill leases and other little holdings — thirteen hundred. 

Ami pict nn--i jiiicI bnnkit, :it present Imvcsl auction price-., worth at 
leust double my Oxford insurance estimate of thirty thousand ; but put 
them at no more, and you will find that, gathering the wrecks of me 
together, I could still now retire to a nio.-sy hermitage, on a little 
property of fifty-tour thousand odd pounds ; more than enough to find 
me in meal and cresses. So that 1 have not at all yet reached my limit 
proposed in Mutitra I'uln ritt.—ot dying "as poor as possible,' nor con- 
aider myself ready for the diguing scenes in Tim.m of Atheit', Accord- 
ingly, I intend next year, when St. George's work really begins, to re- 
dress my affairs in the following manner : — 

First. 1 shall uiuke over the Marylelwne properly entirely to the St. 
George's Company, under .Miss Hill's superintendence always. I have 
already had the value of it hack in interest, anil have no business now 
to keep it any more. 

Secondly. The Greenwich property was my Father's, and I am sure 
he would [ike me to keep it. I shall keep it therefore ; and in oome way, 
make it a Garden oF Tuiieries, honourable to my father, and to the 
Loudon be lived in. 

Thirdly. Brantwood I shall keep, to live upon, with its present ser- 
lants — necessary, all, to keep it in good order ; and to keep me comfort- 
able, and fit for my work. I mny not bo able to keep quite so open a 
house there as I have been accustomed to do : that remains to be seen. 

Fourthly. My Herne Hill leases and little propertins that bother me, 
1 shall make over to my pet c... in in — whose children, and their donkey, 
need good supplies of bread and butter, and hay : she always promising 
to keep my old nursery for a lodging to me, when I come to town. 

Fifthly. Of my ready cash, 1 mean to spend to the close of this year, 
another three thousand pounds, in amusing myself — with such amuse- 
ment as is yet possible to me— at Venice, and On the Alps, or elsewhere j 
and as, at the true beginning of St. George s work, 1 must quit myself 
of usury and the Bank of England, I shall (at some loss you will find. 
on estimate) then buy for mynelf twelve thousand of Consols stock, 
which, if the nation hold its word, will provide me with three hundred 




FOKS CI.A VKiEUA. 



21 



anil sixty pounds a-year — the prober degrees of the annual circle, accord- 
ing lo my estimate, of a bachelor gentle man's proper income, on which, 
it he cannot I've, he deserves speedily to die. And this, with Brant- 
wood strawberries and oream, I will for my own poor port, undertake 
to live upon, uncomplainingly, us Master of St. (;e<irgi''s Company, — or 
die. But, lor my dependants, and customary charities, further pro- 
vision must be made; or radi dependencies and charities must end. 
Virtually, I should then be giving away the liven of these people to St. 
George, and not my own. 

Wherefore. 

Sixthly. Though I have not made a single farthing by my literary 
work last year,* 1 I have paid Messrs. Hazell, Watson, and Viney an 
approximate sum of £300 for printing my new books, which sum has 
been provided by the sale of the already printed ones, I have only 
therefore now to atop working ; and 1 shall receive regular pay for my 
past work— a gradually increasing, and I have confidence enough in St. 
George and myself lo say an assuredly -till ImmHltll",, income, on which 
1 have no doubt I can ciilficieui Jj maintain all my present servants and 
pensioners; and perhaps even also sometimes indulge myself with a 
new missal. New Turner drawings are indeed out of the question; 
but, as I have already thirty large and fifty or more small ones, and 
some score of illuminated MSS., I may get through Hi'- declining years 
of my [esthetic life, it seems to me, on those terms, resignedly, and 
even spare a book or two — or even a Turner or two, if needed— to my 
St- George s schools. 

Now, to stop working/")' Ihr praM, will bo very pl&tMDt to me— not 
to say medicinal, or even necessary — very soon. Hut that does not 
mean stopping work. Jltucalion and Proaerpin.it can go on far 
better without printing ; and if the public wish for them, they can sub- 
scribe for them. In any case, I shall go on at leisure, God willing, with 
the works I have undertaken. 

Lastly. My Oxford professorship will provide for my expenses at 
Oxford as long as I am needed there. 

Such, Companions mine, is your Master's position in life ; — and such 
his plan for the few years of it which may yet remain to hhn. You 
will not, I believe, be disposed wholly to deride either what I have done, 
or mean lo do; but of this you may be assured, that my spending, 
whether foolish or wise, has not been tlie wanton lavishness of a man 
who could not restrain his desires ; but the deliberate distribution, as I 
thought best, of the wealth I had received as a trust, while I yet lived, 
and had power over it. For what haa been consumed by swindlers, 
yonr modem principles of trade are answerable ; for the rest, none even 
of that confessed to have been given in Ihe partiality of affection, haa 



22 FOBS CLA VIQEItA. 

been bestowed but in real self-denial. My own complete satisfaction 
would bare been hi buying every Turner drawing I could afford, and 
passing quiet days nt Brantwood between my garden rind my gallery, 
praised, as I should have boon, by all the world, for doing good to 

I do not doubt, had tiod condemned me to that seifiHhnuss, He would 
also havo inflicted on ma the onne of happiness in it. But He baa led 
me by other ways, of which my friends who arc wis.; and kind, neither 
as yet praising me. nor condemning, may one day he gladdened in 
witness of a nobler issue. 

III. The following letter, with the e: 
interest, in connection with our present ii 
for rule of conduct. 

I should also be glad if Major Hartley could furnish rae with any 

Kili-lii' lor v explanation n[ (lie •■iron instances wliich have induced my 
corn's pendent' a appeal. 

"My dear Sir,— When I bad the pleasure of seeing you last week you 
expteiised some interest in the house in filoticestershire where for a 
time resided the great translator of tin; English Scriptures. William 
Tyndale, and which is now iu a sadly neglected condition. It is charm- 
ingly act on the south- western slope of the Cotswolds, commanding a 
fine prospect over the richly wooded Talc of the Severn, to the distant 
bills of Wales. After leaving Oxford, Tyndale came to reside iu this 
manor-house of Little Sudbury, in tutor in the family of the proprietor. 
Sir John Walsh, and was there prolmblv from 1531 to l.">3:S. It was in 
the old dining hall that. diwiiHsiriL' wii h a neighbouring priest, Tyndale 
uttered his memorable words, ' If God spare my life. I will cause a boy 
that dnveth l lie plough („ kuoiv more, of the Scriptures than yon do." 
This prediction he fulfilled, for he was the first man to translate from 
the original, and print in a foreign land, the English Scriptures, and 
was rewarded for bis toil by being strangled and burnt. However 
England may have misused mi.l abused the book, there can be uo doubt 
that the introduction of Tyndnle's Testaments marked a new and 
remarkable era in the history of our country ; and whatever opinion 
may be formed of the contents of the volume, the line masculine English 
and nervous simplicity of Tyndale s translation have commanded the 
admiration .-dike of friends and foes. Though they are probably famil- 
iar to you, I enclose tin extract, from I he late Dr. Tatar, a Roman Catho- 
lic, and in nit her fr.iru .Mr Iroiuie. the historian, as to the beauty of Tyn- 
dale'a style." (I wish Mr. Fron.le. the historian, ram! u little less about 
Btyle ; and bad rather told us what he thought about the Bible's mutter. 
I bonght the Riiuiovammto of Venice yesterday, with a review in it 
of a new Italian poem in praise of rim Devil, of which the reviewer says 
the style is excellent.) "Yon may also be interested in perusing a 
translation from the Latin of rbe only letter of the translator that has 
ever been discovered, and whi, h touching-] y reveals his sufferings in the 
castle of Vilvorde, in Flanders, shortly before lit: was put to death. N'ow 
I hope you will agree with ine that the only house in the kingdom 
where so great a man resided ought not to be allowed to full into decay 




FOliS CLAYIOKRA. 23 

and neglect as it in nnw doing 1 . Part of the house is unroofed, the fine 
old dining hull with ltn beautiful ro.if tins liren turneii into a carpenter's 
■hop, tbe chimneypiece and other portions of the fittings of the inanor- 
honse having been carried off by the owner. Mitjor Hartley, to hia own 
residence, two or three miles off. 1 have appealed to tin: proprietor in 
behalf of th« old noma, bat in vain, for he dots not even condescend 
to reply. I should be glad if your powerful pen could draw atten- 
tion to this as well an other similar coses of neglect. Tbe interesting 
old church of St. Adeline, immediately behind the manor-house of 
Little Sodbury, and where Tyiidale frequently preached, waa pulled 
down in 1830, and tbe stones carried oil for a uew one in another 

part of the parish. Many would have gladly I irilmied towards a 

□ew church, and to save the old one, but they were never asked, or 
had any opportunity. I fear I have wearied you with these particu- 
lars, bnt I am aure you wi:l not approve the doings I have recounted. 
With pleasant recollect -ions of your kind hospitality, 
" Believe me, dear Sir, 

" Your faithful and obliged." 

" The late Dr. Faber wrote of tbe Engl iBh Bible, of which Tyndale's 
translation in the basis, 1.1 follows." r I don't understand much of this 
aweet writing- of Dr. Fabcre myself ; but I beg leave to state ■jcnr-mlly 
tbot the stronghold of Protestant heresy is pure pig-head edness, and 
not at all a taste for pure English.) 

" ' Who will not any that the uncommon beauty and marvellous 
English of the Protestant. I.ible i» not one of the great strongholds 
of heresy in this country ? It lives on the ear like music that can never 
be forgotten — like tbe sound of a church bell which a concert hardly 
knows he can forego. Its felicities seem to be almost things rather 
than mere words. It is part of the national mind and thy anchor of 
national seriousness. The memory of the dead posses into it. The 
potent traditions of childhood axe stereotyped in its verses. The dower 
of nil ttie gifts and trials of a man's lif>> in hidden li.-nmUi its words. It 
is the representative of the best moments ; and nil that there has. been 
about him of soft and gentle, ;ind pore and penitent and good, speaks 
to him for ever out of the English Ilible. It is his sacred thing which 
doubt bos never dimmed and controversy never soiled.' (Doctor!! 
• In the length nod breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with 
one spark of righteousness about hiin whose spiritual biography is not 
in his English Bible.' 

" Mr Fronde says of Tyndale's version : — 

" ' Of the translation itself, though since that li ii has been many 

times revised and altered, we may say that it, is substantially tile Ilible 
with which we are all familiar. The peculiar genius — if such a word 
may bo permitted " — (better unpermitted) — " which breathes through 
it. the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the pre- 
ternatural " iDo you really mean that, Mr Fronde?) "grandeur, un- 
equalled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern 
scholars, all are here, and Item' the impress of the mind of one man — 
William Tyndale. -/■>'""/. '.v tl/.-l-.i-i, of England. 

" The only letter of William Tyiidale which has been discovered was 
found in the archives of the Council of Brabant, and is aa follows ; it is 






24 FOES CLAVIGERA. 

addressed to the Marquis of Berg-op-Zoom, the Governor of Vilvorde 
Castle, in the Low Countries ; the date is 1535 : — 

44 ' I believe, right worshipful, that you are not ignorant of what has 
been determined concerning me, (by the Council of Barbant,) therefore 
I entreat your lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to re- 
main here (in Vilvorde) during the winter, you will request the Procu- 
reur to be kind enough to send me, from my goods which he has in his 
possession, a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely from cold in the head, 
being afflicted with a perpetual catarrh, which is considerably increased 
in the cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin ; 
also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings : my overcoat has been worn 
out ; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if 
he will be kind enough to send it. 1 have also with him leggings of 
thicker cloth for putting on above ; he has also warmer caps for wear- 
ing at night. I wish also his permission to have a candle in the 
evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But above all, I 
entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the Procureur 
that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew 
Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with 
that study. And in return may you obtain your dearest wish, provided 
always it be consistent with the salvation of your soul. But if any 
other resolution has been come to concerning me, that I must remain 
during the whole winter, I shall be patient, abiding the will of God 
to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose spirit I pray 
may ever direct your heart. Amen. W. Tyndale.' " 



FOR& CLAVIOERA, 



LETTER LX.YVir. 









Vkn ice, Easter Sunday, 1877. 

;ay, my Sheffield friends, re 

before going on to 
:h you. may havo observed the 
[i this subject, have, in sum, 
the discussion oF it always on 
> God: the ecclesiastical mem- 
to pre- 



I iiah; yet a word o 
specting your religious 
Batten. The difficult 1 
School Board getting 
arisen from their approacl 
the hypothesis that there 
hers of the board wishing to regulate educ 
vent their pupils from painfully feeling the 
and the profane members of it, so as to make sure that their 
pupils may never be able to imagine one. Objects which 
are of course irreconcileable ; nor will any national system 
of education be able to establish itself in balance of them. 

But if, instead, we approach the question of school disci- 
pline on the hypothesis that there is a God, and one that 
cares for mankind, it will follow that if wo begin by teach- 
ing the observance of His Laws, He will gradually take upon 
Himself the regulation of all minor matters, and make us 
feel and understand, without any possibility of doubt, how 
He would have us conduct ourselves in outward observance.* 
And the real difficulty of our Ecclesiastical party has of late 
been that they could not venture for their lives to explain the 
Decalogue, feeling that Modernism and all the practices of 
it most instantly be turned inside-out, and upside-down, if 
they did ; but if, without explaining it, they could manage 
to get it gaiit every Sunday, and a little agreeable tune on 
the organ played after every clause of it, that perchance 
would do, (on the assumption, rendered so highly probable 
by Mr. Darwin's discoveries respecting the modes of gen- 
eration in the Orchideu-, that there was no God, except 

" The news from Liverpool in the thirvl article of CorrBBpondence, is 
tbe most cheering I ever road iu public papers. 



26 FOBS CLAVIGEBA. 

the original Baalzebub of Ekron, Lord of Bluebottles and 
flyblowing in general ; and that this Decalogue was only 
ten crotchets of Moses's and not God's at all,) — on such as- 
sumption, I say, they thought matters might still be kept 
quiet a few years longer in the Cathedral Close, especially 
as Mr. Bishop was always so agreeably and inoffensively 
pungent an element of London Society ; and Mrs. Bishop 
and Miss Bishop so extremely proper and pleasant to behold, 
and the grass of the lawn so smooth shaven. But all that 
is drawing very fast to its end. Poor dumb dogs that 
they are, and blind mouths, the grim wolf with privy paw 
daily devouring apace, and nothing said, and their people 
loving to have it so, I know not what they will do in the 
end thereof ; but it is near. Disestablishment ? Yes, and 
of more powers than theirs ; that prophecy of the Seventh 
from Adam is of judgment to be executed upon all, and 
conviction of their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly 
committed. 

I told you to read that epistle of Jude carefully, though 
to some of you, doubtless, merely vain words ; but to any 
who are earnestly thoughtful, at least the evidence of a state 
of the Christian Church in which many things were known, 
and preserved, (that prophecy of Enoch, for instance,) lost 
to us now ; and of beliefs which, whether well or ill founded, 
have been at the foundation of all the good work that has 
been done, yet, in this Europe of ours. Well founded or not, 
at least let us understand, as far as we may, what they were. 

With all honour to Tyndale, (I hope you were somewhat 
impressed by the reward he had from the world of his day, 
as related in that final letter of his,) there are some points in 
the translation that might be more definite : here is the 
opening of it, in simpler, and in some words certainly more 
accurate, terms. 

" Judas, the servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of 
James, to all who are sanctified in God, and called and 
guarded in Christ. 

" Pity, and Peace, and Love, be fulfilled in you. 

" Beloved, when I was making all the haste I could to 



FOJtS CLAVIQSRA. 



write to jron of the common salvation, 1 was suddenly forced 
;xhorting you to fight for the faith, once for 



nsolent, changing the 
ig tiit only Despot, God ; 

id, you who know this,— 
g delivered his people nut 
md place destroyed those 



all delivered to the Saints. 

" For there are slunk in among yo 
down before to this condemnation, i 
grace of God into fury, and denying t 
and <nir Lord, Jesus Christ. 

"And I want to put you in mind, 
once for all, — that the Lord, ha 
of the land of Egypt, in the j 
who believed iiui, 

"And the Angels which guarded not their beginning, but 
left their own habitation, ho hath guarded in eternal chains, 
under darkness, to the judgment of the great day." 

Now this translation is certainly more accurate, in observ- 
ing the first principle of all honest translation, that the same 
word shall be used in English, where it is the same in the 
original. You see I have three times used the word 'guarded. 
So does St. Judas. But our translation varies its phrase 
every time ; first it says ' preserved,' then ' kept,' and then 
• reserved," — every one of these words being weaker than the 
real one, which means guarded as a watch-dog guards. To 
1 reserve ' the Devil, is quite a different thing from ' watch- 
ing' him. Again, you see that, for 'lasciviousness' 1 have 
written ' fury.' The word is indeed the same always trans- 
lated lasciviousness, in the New Testament, and not wrongly. 



if you know Latin ; b 
Ephesians iv. 10, etc,) 
the lust of pleasure. Il 
" refuses to hear the vc 
wisely," which cannot 
its own way, and rage 
of God through the ig 
part feeling, have given th 
rage, carnivorousness in pnl 
of horses with swinging spi 
oorso, in science, literature, i 
all unclean ness, — (not mere sei 
• Sue fourth «rtiol« 



ii. n ; 



which 



herever it, occurs, (Murk v 

is a deeper under-tneanin. 

ns essentially the charactei 

f the charmer, charm he never so 

othed, or restrained, but will take 

vn rage,* — alienated from the life 

in them,— who, being 

iselves over to fury, (animal 

oal economy, — competition, as 

i at their sides in the Roman 

d all the race of life,) to work 

usual vices, but all the things 

Correspondence. 




28 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

that defile, comp. Mark vii. 22, just quoted,) with greediness ; 
— then, precisely in the same furrow of thought, St. Jude 
goes on, — " denying the only Despot, God ; " and St. Paul, 
" but ye have not so learned Christ — if so be that ye have 
heard him, and been taught by him " — (which is indeed pre- 
cisely the point dubitable) — " that ye put off the old man," 
etc., where you will find following St. Paul's explanation of 
the Decalogue, to end of chapter (Eph. iv.), which if you will 
please learn by heart with the ten commandments, and, in- 
stead of merely praying, when you hear that disagreeable 
crotchet of Moses's announced, "Thou shalt not steal," 
" Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep 
this — crotchet," which is all you can now do, — resolve sol- 
emnly that you will yourselves literally obey, (and enforce 
with all your power such obedience in others,) the Christian 
answering article of Decalogue, " Let him that stole steal no 
more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the 
thing that is good, that he may have to give to him that 
needeth," you will, in that single piece of duty to God, over- 
throw, as I have said, the entire system of modern society, 
and form another in righteousness and true holiness, by no 
rage refusing, and in no cowardice denying, but wholly sub- 
mitting to, the Lord who bought them with a price, the only 
Despot, God. 

For our present translation of the passage is finally better 
in retaining the Greek word ' Despot * here rather than 
' Lord,' in order to break down the vulgar English use of the 
word for all that is evil. But it is necessary for you in this 
to know the proper use of the words Despot and Tyrant. A 
despot is a master to whom servants belong, as his property, 
and who belongs to his servants as their property. My own 
master, my own servant. It expresses the most beautiful re- 
lation, next to that of husband and wife, in which human 
souls can stand to each other ; but is only perfected in the 
right relation between a soul and its God. " Of those whom 
thou gavest me — mine — I have lost none, — but the son of 
perdition." Therefore St. Jude calls God the only Despot. 
On the other hand, a Tyrant, Tyrannus, Doric for Cyrannus, 



FOH.S OLA YIGE11A. 



a person with the es 
ntler from who 



iii.il l 



 of 



iiij..'j . 



exercising 1 sU 
sense belong t 
appointed, or 
purposes of st 

i despotisn 



; authority over persons who do not id any 
liim as his property, but whom he has been 
las appointed himself, to govern for general 
te-benefit. If the tyranny glow and soften 
i as Suwarrow's soldiers, (or any good com- 
manding officer's,) gradually become his ' children,' all the 
better — but you must get your simple and orderly tyrant, or 
Cyrus, to begin with. Cyrus, first suppose, only over green- 
groceries — as above recommended, in these gardens of yours, 
for which yesterday, 11th April, I sent our Trustees word 
that they must provide purchase-money. In which territory 
you will observe tbe Master of St. George's Company is at 
present a Tyrant only ; not a Despot, since he does not con- 
sider you as St. George's servants at all ; but only requires 
compliance with certain of his laws while you cultivate his 
ground. Of which, the fixing of standard quality for your 
shoe-leather, since I hear you are many of you shoemakers, 
will be essential : and on this and other matters of your 
business, you will look to our St. George's Companion, Mr. 
SoUMrroli, for instruction ; with this much of general order, 
that you are to make shoes with extremist care to please 
your customers in ali matters which they ought to ask ; by 
fineness of fit, excellence of work, and exactitude of com- 
pliance with special orders : but you are not to please them 
iu things which they ought not to ask. It is your business 
to know how to protect, and adorn, the human fool. When 
ially to protect and adorn his or her 
vith finest care : but if a customer 
r foot, or disfigure it, you are to re- 
se particulars, and bid tiiem — if they 
. You are not, the 



a customer wishes yo 
foot, you are to do it 
wishes you to injure tin 
fuse their pleasure in th 
insist on such i/iVservic 






i hoofs 



smiths of you, to put horsesh< 

not, the shoemakers of vou, 

heels, or with vulgar and use). 

measure — that will pinch the wearer. People who w 

be pinched must find torturers off St, George's ground, 



s decoratioi 



with high 
-if made to 




I expected, before no«*,*to ha,vc had more definite state- 
ments as to the number of families who are associated in 
this effort. 1 hone that more are united in it than I shall 
have room for, but probably the number asking to lease St. 
George's ground will be greatly limited, both by the inter- 
ferences with the modes of business just described, and by 
the law of openness in accounts. Every tradesman's books 
on St. George's ground must always be open on the Master's 
order, and not only his business position entirely known, but 
his profits known to the public : the prices of al! articles of 
general manufacture being printed with the percentages 
to every person employed in their production or sale. 

I have already received a letter from a sensible person in- 
terested in the success of our schemes, " fearing that people 
will not submit to such inquisition." Of course they will 
not; if they would, St. George's work would be soon done. 
If he can end it any day these hundred years, he will have 
fought a good fight. 

But touching tliis matter of episcopal inquiry, here in Venice, 
who was brought up in her youth under the strictest watch of 
the Primates of Aquileia — eagle-eyed, I may as weii say what 
is to be in For* finally said. 

The British soul, I observe, is of late years peculiarly in- 
flamed with rage at the sound of the words ' confession ' and 
1 inquisition.'* 

The reason of which sentiment is essentially that the Brit- 
ish soul has been lately living the life of a Guy Fawkes ; and 
is in perpetual conspiracy against God and man, — evermore 
devising how it may wheedle the; one, and rob the other. -f IE 

* The French soul concurring, with lens pride, but mon; petulance, id 
these sentiments. (See For*, vol, i., p. 107, ami observe my decision 
of statement. •' The Inquisition mutt come.") 

t " It was only a week or two ago that I went into one of tbe best 
ironmongers in London for some nails, and I assure you that 2,1 per 
cent, of the nails I can't drive; they, the hud oneH. are simply ill'; 
waste edges of the sin-, ts tluit- ih>- nulls are cut from : one time they 
used ta be thrown asidn ; now they are all mixed with I be good ones, and 
palmed on to the public. I *:iy ii wit-limit hesitation, ami have proved 
it, that one cannot buy u thing which is well or honestly made, 



FOBS CLAVIOEBA, 31 

vour conscience is a (lark lantern, — then, of course, you will 
shut it up when you see a policeman coming ; but if it is the 
candle of the Lord, no man when lie hath lighted a candle 
puts it under a bushel. And thus the false religions of all 
nations and times arc broadly definable as attempts to cozen 
God out of His salvation at the lowest price ; while His 
inqsMltion of the accounts, it is supposed, may by propel 
tact be diverted. 

On the contrary, all the true religions of the world are 
forms of the prayer, " Search ine, and know my heart ; prove 
me, and examine my thoughts; and see if there be any 
nicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 

And there are broadly speaking two ways in which the 
Father of men does this : the first, hy making them eager to 
tell their faults to Him themselves, (Father, I have sinned 
against heaven ami before Thee ;) the second, by making 
i hem sure they cannot be hidden, if they would : "If 1 
make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there." In neither 
case, do the men who love their Father fear that others 
should hear their confession, or witness His inquisition. 
But those who hale Him, and perceive that He is minded to 
make inquisition for blood, cry, even in this world, for the 
mountains to fall on them, and the hills to cover them. And 
in the actual practice of daily life you will find that wherever 
there is secrecy, there is either guilt or danger, It is not pos- 
sible but that there should be tilings needing to be kept 
si.vn.it ; but the dignity and safety of human life are in the 
precise measure of its frankness. Note the lovely description 
of St. Ursula, — Fors, vol. iii., p. 334, — learned and frank 
and fair. There is no fear for any child who is frank with 
its father and mother ; none for men or women, who are 
frank with God. 

I have told you that you can do nothing in policy without 

ing perhaps a railway engine, or, by-the-byo. a Chubb s safe to keep out 
thieve*. I looked in their window yesterday and xaw a small one, iiot 
three Teel high, marked Z<i 10*. Like ships versus guns, —more 
thieves, ami more etren-.rth to keep them out. Verily, a reckoning day 
is near at hand " (Part of le'ter from my publisher, Jlr. Allen, i 



'32 F0H8 CLAVIGERA. 

prayer. The day will be ill-spent, in which you have not 
been able, at least once, to say the Lord's Prayer with under- 
standing : and if after it you accustom yourself to say, with 
the same intentness, that familiar one in your church service, 
" Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open," etc., you 
will not fear, during the rest of the day, to answer any ques- 
tions which it may conduce to your neighbour's good should 
be put to you. 

Finally. You profess to be proud that you allow no viola- 
tion of the sacredness of the domestic hearth. Let its love 
be perfect, in its seclusion, and you will not bo ashamed to 
show the house accounts. I know — no man better — that an 
Englishman's house should be his castle ; and an English 
city, his camp ; and I have as little respect for the salesmen 
of the ramparts of Berwick,* as for the levellers of the walls 
of Florence. But you were better and merrier Englishmen, 
when your camps were banked with grass, and roofed with 
sky, than now, when they are, "ventilated only by the 
chimney ; " and, trust me, you had better consent to so 
much violation of the secrecy of the domestic hearth, as may 
prevent you being found one day dead, with your head in 
the fireplace. 

Enough of immediate business, for to-day : I must tell 
you, in closing, a little more of what is being sent to your 
museum. 

By this day's post I send you photographs of two four- 
teenth-century capitals of the Ducal Palace here. The first 
is that representing the Virtues ; the second, that represent- 
ing the Sages whose power has been greatest over men. 
Largitas, (Generosity,) leads the Virtues ; Solomon, the 
Sages ; but Solomon's head has been broken off by recent 
republican movements in Venice ; and his teaching super- 
seded by that of the public press — as "Indi-catore generale " 
— you see the inscription in beautiful modern bill type, 
pasted on the pillar. 

Above, sits Priscian the Grammarian ; and next to him, 
Aristotle the Logician : whom that in contemplating you 

* See fifth article of Correspondence 



FOBS CLAVIQERA. 33 

may learn the right acid calm use of reason, I have to-day 
given orders to pack, with extreme care, a cast of him, which 
tins been the best ornament of my room here for some weeks ; 
and when you have examined him well, yon shall have other 
casts of other sages. But respecting what I now send,* 
observe, first, — 

These capitals being octagonal, are composed each of six- 
teen clusters uf leaves, opening to receive eight figure sub- 
jects in their intervals ; the leaf clusters either bending down 
al the angles and springing up to sustain the figures, (capital 
No. 1.) or beudlug down under the ligures and springing up 
to the angles, (No. 2;) and each group of leaves being com- 
posed of a series of leaflets divided by the simplest possible 
undulation of their surface into radiating lobes, connected 
I'V ..'I'litral ribs. 

Now this system of leaf-division remains in Venice from 
the foliage of her Greek masters ; and the beauty of its con- 
secutive flow is gained by the observance of laws descending 
from sculptor to sculptor for two thousand years. And the 
hair which flows down the shoulders of Aristotle, and the di- 
visions of the drapery of his shoulders andof the leaves of his 
book, are merely fourteenth-century forms of the same art 
which divided the flowing hair of your Leucothea by those 
harmonious furrows. Of which you must now learn the 
structure with closer observance, to which end, in next Fori, 
we will begin our writing and carving lessons again. 

* Mr, Ward will always b« ablu to provide my readers with copies of 
the photographs referred to in Fori ,* and will never send lind impres- 
sions | but I can only myself examine and sign ike mat four. 
Vol. IV.— a 




34 FOBS CLAVJGERA. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



I. Affaire of the Company. 

The Union Bank op London (Chancery Lane Branch) in Ac- 
count with St. George's Fund. 

1877. Dr. £ ». d. 

Feb. 15. To Balance 628 13 8 

19. " Draft at Douglas (per Mr. E. By- 
dings), less 1#. 6rf., charge*. 28 18 6 

April 3. " Per Mr. Swan, left at Museum by a 

-Sheffield Working Man" 2 

9. " Per ditto, from a " Sheffielder "... 2 6 

£657 16 8 

Cr. £ $. d. 

April 16. By Balance 657 16 8 

No details have yet reached me of the men's plan at Sheffield ; but 
the purchase of their land may be considered as effected (i if the titles 
are good." No doubt is intimated on this matter ; and I think I have 
already expressed my opinion of the wisdom of requiring a fresh inves- 
tigation of title on every occasion of the sale of property ; so that as my 
days here in Venice are surcharged with every kind of anger and indig- 
nation already, 1 will not farther speak at present of the state of 
British Law. 

I receive many letters now from amiable and worthy women, who 
would be glad to help us, but whose circumstances prevent them from 
actually joining the society. 

If they will compare notes with each other, first of all, on the means 
to be adopted in order to secure the delivery on demand, for due price, 
over at least some one counter in the nearest county town, entirely 
good fabric of linen, woollen, and silk ; and consider that task, for the 
present, their first duty to Heaven and Earth ; and speak of it to their 
friends when they walk by the way, and when they sit down, and when 
they rise up, — not troubling me about it, but determining among 
themselves that it shall be done, — that is the first help they can give 
me, and a very great one it will be. I believe myself that they will 



FOILS CLAVIQERA. 

find the only way in the slow, but simple and 
any girls they hare influence or authority over, 
and appointing an honest and religious womai 
If they Had any quicker or better way, thoy are 
bo long as any machinery employed in their aervi 
only. And let them re-read, it 
reported in this nnmber of /*•; 



•, of teaching 



for their merchant. 

,t liberty to adopt it, 

vice in moved by water 

th the gifta and loans 

made to the Sheffield Museum, 



the end of Fan of September 1874, vol. ii., pp. 305—371. 
II Affairs of the Master. 

I have been pleased, and not a little surprised, by the generally iu- 
ilulgeut view nrjnimwl bj the public, a.s vocal through its daily press, 
of the way I have broadcast my fortune. But I wish it always to be 
re members! that even iu what I believe to have been rightly distributed, 
this manner of lavish distribution is not in the least proposed by me ax 
generally exemplary. It hns been compelled in my own case, by claims 
which were accidental and extraordinary ; by the fact that oil my 
father's and mother's relations were comparatively poor, — suid the still 
happier fact that they were all deserving ; by my being without fam- 
ily of my own ; by my possession of knowledge with re-pett to the arta 
which rendered it ray duty to teach more than to enjoy, and to bestow 
at leoat a tithe of what I collected ; and finally by what I conceive to 
he the unhappy conditions of social disorder (■■in pornrily existing around 
me, involving call no leas imperative than that of plague or famine for 
individual exertion quite distinct from the proper course of the ordi- 
nary duty of private persons. My readers and Companions must not 
therefore lie surprised, nor accuse mo of inconsistency, when they find 
mo as earnestly enforcing the propriety mi their part, in most cases, of 
living much withiu their incomes, as contentedly exposing the (hitherto) 
excess of my expenditure above my owu. 

V part of 



A Wr>[.r:iAN- Mayor ant> \ Roman Cvnt.n.ro lienor.— The 
ttoman Catholic ISishop of Liverpool laid on Monday the foundation 
stone of a new church nt Greenbank, St. Helens. The now building is 
to accommodate 851 J worshippers, and will w.>i uln.iit I'llt.dOu. In the 
evening a banquet v.- an givuu, and the Mayor of ^t. Helen's, who (the 
Ltvr)xnA !'■•!•! says> is a member of the We-oyjiu community, was 
present. The Bishop proposed the Mayor's health ; and the Mayor, in 
acknowledging the compliment. said tltat it gave him great, pleasure 
to be present, and he rejoiced with them in the success which had 
attended their efforts that day -a success which had enabled them 
to lay the foundation stone of another church in the town. Ho 
rejoiced because he looked upon the various churches of the town as 
centres of instruction and centres of influence, which tended to the 




FORS CLAYIGERA. 

moral and spiritual welfare of the people. He was not n Roman Cath- 
olic, but he rejoiced in every centre of influence for good, whatever 
might be the tenets of the Church to which those centres belonged. 
For the welfare of the town which he had the honour of representing 
he felt pleasure in being there that evening ; and it would be ungrate- 
ful of him, with the feelings which he had for ever; branch of the 
Church, if he did not wish bis Catholic townsmen God-speed. There 
waa Kill a vast amount or ignorance to be removed, and the churches 
were the centres around which the moral influence waa to be thrown, 
and which should gather in tho outcasts who had hitherto been left to 
themselves. He hojH'd that the church the foundation -stone of which 
the; hod just laid. Mould be raised with all possible speed, and he 
wished it Gods blessing." 

St. George and St. John Wesley charge ine very earnestly to send 
their united compliments both to the Bishop, and to the Mayor of Liv- 
erpool i but they both beg to observe that a place may be got to hold 850 
people oomfortably, for less than ten thousand pounds ; anil recommend 
the Mayor and Bishop to build the very plainest shelter for the con- 
ffro-.ru ti mi possible. St. George wishes the Bishop to say mass at an altar 
emulating of one block of Lancashire mountain limestone, on which no 
tool has been lifted up ; and St. John Wesley requests the Mayor to 
issue orders to tho good people of Liverpool to build the walla — since 
walls are wanted— in pure charity, and with no commission whatever 
Vi the architect. No design ia needed either for churches or sheep- 
folda— nnlll tho wolf is kept well out. But see nent article. 

IV. The most perfect illustration of what is meant by "turning tho 
grace of Ood Into fury " was given me here in Venice during the last 
Carnival. This grace, St. Paul writes to Titus, " hath appeared unto 
 II mou, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we 
i,,.,iM 1 1 vi' I  inking for tlint hleraed hope, ami the glorious appearing of 
Ci« grout Cod." Now inn institution of Lent, hefore Easter, has the 
.jwli.l fiiiiHinri -if reminding us of such grace; and the institution of 
1 1- 1 fori' Li'iil,, as to be pardoned by it, is the turning of such 
graiw Into fury. I print on the opposite page, as nearly ns I can in 
 Um bill of Venetian entertainments in St. Mark's flaoe, in 
li.mi .if Ki,. Mark's Church, (Certainly, neit to the square round the 
, f of Klorenco. the moat sacred earth in Italy. I on the Btb Feb- 
Kiai.y nf [Ml yin And I append translation, accurate 1 think in all 
, . Bomme tiding, however, by St. Mark's order, and with his 

salutation, ll nreful study nt the original to hia good servant the 

II mi i hi In, 1 1.  lllshop of Liverpool, to the end that the said prelate 

 i ■' ■■'■ ti I nob importance to church -buil ding, while these 

g* ■!» doii" in fionl of St. Mark's. 







FOBS CLA naSBA. 



GIORNATA \.— Venerdi 9 Febbraio. 

GRAN SABBA 



Spettacolo portentosn e clif; faro venir laqua alto dal giubilo del 
Mare — Dueoento diBcendonti legittime delle Mngtae di Maebet. si scar- 
aventeramio dalla loro foreata di Ilinningan, c con tin salto aatanico 
pwdpttvamu) anlla Piazza Snn Marco prendendola d'assalto da van 
paoti. — Slridendo, iirlando, Buonsmdn, oautando. e agitando fuocbi 
ehe Miami neran no tutti i vasti dominii di ri. M. Allogra fffPBflflfrlO 
d'assalto la Sala del Trono, dove darati prineipio alle lora daazn 
infernal! ; (juiudi vi sarannu oauti e suoni diabolici e la 



Grande Lotta 



e combattimento di deraonj 

il fiar.hlo di Batana ordiiierii la pace iatimando 

U n Canto 



aj cbiarorf 
coloro cbe 

Finalmente 
il luminals dalle 



ED r v v BIDDA IMIIIMI.I 
di Inci fontastiche, fosforiehe. dn tar reatar ciecbi tutti 
la Pimm di S. Marco sarfi 11 



I completamente 



FIAMME DI BELZEBU 

Perehft il Snbba possa riuscire pin completo, ni racconiaiida a 
tntti gli spettatori di fischiare durante le fiiimme come aiiimo 
d annate. 

Sn questft seratn cbe farii stnpire e fremere gli elemeDti, iiqd 
agginngiamo dettagll. per lasciar ai ft-lici regnicoli di S. M. Pantalone, 
guitar vergini gli effetii dt-lle piu prodigiosu eorpieae. 







FOIIS CLA VIGEHA. 



" Day 5th. — Friday, 9(A February. 
"GREAT SABBATH OF THE WITCHES. 

" Porteut'ius "J tade. Mini which, will make the water high with re- 
joicing "f the Sea.* Two hundred legitimate descendants of the 
Witches ill' M sir lie th, will hurl themselves out of their forest of Bir- 
iningau,"' (Birnain ?t " ami with a Satanic ler. ;i will i<r< i.:i|ii tut« them- 
selves upou the piazza of St. Murk taking it by assault on various 
(mints, shrieking, howling, piping tinging, and shaking Urea which 
will illuminate all lb'; >ast dominions of his Joyful Majesty," (The 
leader of Carnival, i " they will cany by assault the saloou of the Throne, 
where they "ill bejiiu their interna! dances. Then there will be din- 
holic songs ami music, ami tin: Ureal Wrestling and Combat uf Demon*, 
until th« whistle r>f Satan shall order |>eace, intimating a sung and in- 
fernal 'cidda' I?) by the glaru uf fantastic phosphoric lights, enough to 
make all remain blind who cannot see. Finally, the piazza of St. 
Mark will he invaded and completely illuminated by the 1 lames of 
Beelzebub, 

•' That the Sabbath may succeed inure cnmpletcly. it is recoi mil ended 
to all the spectators in u-hisl le, during I he llamcs. like damned souls. 

" But of t lii m evening, which nil I astonish the elements, we will add 
no details, ill order to leave tin- h;ippy subjects of his Majesty Fauta- 
loon to tasti) the virgin inipvf/ssii iiis <.l" ilm most prodigious surprises." 

V. I reserve comment nil the following announcement, I in which the 
italics are mine,) until I learn what use the Berwick Urban Sanitary 
Authority moan to put the walla to, after purchasing- them i — 

" The Wai.i-h uf ISkhWW'b — The Berwick ramparts ' arc for pale. 

The G'lven -nt bus offered to m?H a considerable part of them to Ihe 

Berwick Krbau Sanitary Authority ; and nt a special meeting of that 
body on Wednesday it was deeidi ■■] Hi negotiate for r.lie purchase. From 
an account given of I hesc i-aiupnits by the Svrfjwjdii, it seems that when 
the town was taken in IJBIi by Edward I., they consisted only of woollen 
palisades, erected on fie ridge »f a narrow and shallow ditch,— so nar- 
row, in fact, that hii Majesty cleared both ditch anil palisades at a leap, 
and was the first than guily to enter the town. lie afterwards caused 
a deep ditch to he dug round the town, and ihis ditch, when built, was 
encircled by o stone wall. Ilolit rt liruee. mt '■'•t'liniifj j«>*i<r*fii>ji of Her- 
trie*, lainttt the inrill I, it fit round, and this wall was again strengthened 
by Edward III. after the battle of Hollidon Hill, Pn-rt* of t/ti* teaU Hit! 
trixl, as well as of the rani le. which was a formidable structure founded 
at a remote date. It is stated to have been rebuilt by Henry II, , and 
to have passed out of royal hands in IWl, being subsequently sold by 
the second Karl of Dunbar to the corporation of Berwick for t!:{20. The 
corporation dismantled it. and used the stones for building the parish 
chnrch, selling what they did not require for £11)1) to an alderman of 
Berwick, who afterwards sold it to the ancestor of Mr. Askew, of Pal- 
liiisliurn. It was retained in that family until Ihe eonstruotiou of the 
North British Railway. A counitb nihil j,orti'in ■■!' the krtji irhich W'iJ 







F0R8 CLAVIGERA. 39 

then standing, was levelled to the ground, and the railway station built 
upon the site of the main budding. The old fortifications which joined 
the castle measured in length 2 miles 282 yards, but in length the pres- 
ent walls only measure 1£ mile 272 yards, and are constituted of a 
rampart of earth levelled and faced with stones. There are five bas- 
tions which, with the ramparts, were kept garrisoned until 1819, when 
the guns were removed to Edinburgh Castle, in order to prevent them 
falling into the hands of the Radical rioters." 



FOliS CLAVWF.RA. 



LETTER LXXVIII. 

Venice, Oth May, 1877. 

I send to-day, to our Museum, a photograph of another 
capital of the Ducal palace — the chief of all its capitals: 
the corner-stone of it, on which rests the great angle seen 
in your photograph No. 3 : looking carefully, you will easily 
trace some of the details of this sculpture, even in that 
larger general view ; for this new photograph, No. 7, shows 
the same side of the capital. 

Representing, (this white figure nearest us) LUNA, the 
Moon, or more properly the Angel of the Moon, holding her 
symbol, the crescent, in one hand, and the zodiacal sign 
Cancer in the other, — she herself in her crescent boat, float- 
ing on the tides, — that being her chief influence on Venice. 
And note here the difference between heraldic and picto- 
rial symbolism : she holds her small crescent for heraldic 
bearing, to show you who she is ; once that understood, her 
crescent boat is a jrieturetgue symbol of the way her reflected 
light glides, and traverses, and trembles on the waves. You 
see also how her thin dress is all in waves ; and the water 
ripples under her boat so gaily, that, it sets ail the leaf below 
rippling too. The next leaf, you observe, does not ripple. 

Next to the Angel of the Moon, is the Angel of the planet 
Jupiter,— the symbol of the power of the Father (Zeus, 
Pater) in creation. He lays his hand on the image of Man ; 
and on the ledge of stone, under the iron bar above his head 
you may decipher, beginning at the whitest spot on the ex- 
actly nearest angle, — these letters : 

D (written like a Q upside down) ELI; then a crack 
breaks off the first of the three legs of M ; then comes O, 
and another crack ; then D S A D A (the A is seen in the 
light, a dancing or pirouetting A on one leg) ; then D E C O, 
up to the edge of Jupiter's nimbus ; passing over his head, 






FOJtS OLAVIGERA, 



41 



you come on the other side to S T A F 0, and n ruinous 
crack, carrying away two letters, only replaceable by conject- 
ure ; the inscription then closing with A V I T 7 EVA. 
The figure like a numeral 7 is, in ail the Ducal palace writing, 
short for E T, so that now putting the whole in order, and 
arlding the signs of contraction hidden by the iron bar, we 
have this legend : 

" DE LIMO DS ADA DE COSTA F0**AV1T ET 
EVA ; " 
or, in full, 

" De limo Dominus Adam, de costa fomiavit et Evam." 
*' From the clay the Lord made Adam, and from the rib, 



Eve. 



standin; 



Both of whom you see im 
capital, in photograph No. 3. 

And above these, the Archangel Michael, with his name 
e above him— ACANGEL. MICHAEL; 
towards the piazzetta, and 
a ; his robe is clasped by a 
small cross in its centre; 
J bronze, in his right hand, 
ritten : 



tlie Archangel being 
Michael, larger, towards thi 
brooch in the form of a rose 
he holds a straight sword, ol 
and on the scroll in his left 



" ENSE 

BONOS 
TEGO_ 
MA LOR V 
CHIMIN A 
PURGO." 

"WITH MY SWORD, I GUARD THE GOOD, AND 
PURGE THE CRIMES OF THE EVIL." 




nth 



Purge — not punish ; so much of purgatorial doctrine being 
engraved on this chief angle of the greater council chamber 
of the Senate. 



*2 



FORS CLAVIHERA. 



Of all such inscription, modern Venice reads no more ; and 
of such knowledge, asks no more. To guard the good is no 
business of hers now : ' is not one man as good as another ? ' 
and as to angelic interference, ' must not every one take 
care of himself?' To purify the evil ;—' but what! — are 
the days of religious persecution returned, then ? And for 
the old story of Adam and Eve, — don't we know better than 
that!' Xo deciphering of the old letters, therefore, any 
more ; but if you observe, here are new ones on the capital, 
more to the purpose. Your Modern Archangel Uriel — 
standing in the Sun — provides you with the advertisement 
of a Photographic, establishment, FOTOGRAFIA, thu dec- 
oration, alone being in letters as large, you see, as the 
wreath of leafago round the neck of the pillar. Another 
bill — farther round the shaft — completes the effect ; and at 
your leisure you can compare the beautiful functions and 
forms of the great modern art of Printing, with the ancient 
rude ones of engraving. 

Truly, it is by this modern Archangel Uriel's help, that I 
can show you pictures of all these pretty tilings, at Sheffield; 
— but by whoso help do you think it is that you have no real 
ones at Sheffield, to see instead ? Why haven't you a Ducal 
palace of your own, without need to havo the beauties of one 
far away explained to you ? Bills enough you have, — stuck 
in variously decorative situations ; public buildings also — 
but do you take any pleasure in them ? and are you never 
the least ashamed that what little goo. 1 there may be in them, 
everv poor flourish of tlieir cast iron, every bead moulding 
on 11 shop front, is borrowed from Greece or Venice : and 
that if you got all your best brains in Sheffield, and best 
hands, io work, with that sole object, you couldn't carve such 
another capital as this which the photographer has stuck his 
bill upon ? 

You don't believe thai, I suppose. Well, — you will believe, 
and know, a great deal more, of supreme serviceableness to 
you, if over you come to believe and know that. But you 
can only come to it slowly, and after your "character" has 
been much "improved," — as you see Mr. Goldwin Smith 






FOJIS CLATIGERA. 43 

desires it to be ; (see the third article of Correspondence). 
To-day you shall take, if you will, a step or two towards 
such improvement, with Leucothea's help — white goddess of 
sea foam, and the Sun-Angel's h-elp — in ovir lesson-Photo- 
graph No. 1. "With your patience, we will now try if any- 
thing ; is to be seen in it.' 

You see at all events that the hair in every figure is termi- 
nated by severely simple lines externally, so as to make ap- 
proximately round balls, or bosses, of the heads ; also that it 
is divided into minute tresses from the crown of the bead 
downwards; bound round the forehead by a double fillet, 
and then, in the headdress of the greater Goddess, escapes 
into longer rippling tresses, whose lines are continued by the 
rippling folds of the linen sleeve below. 

Farther, one of these longer tresses, close behind the ear, 
parts from the others, and falls forward, in front of the right 
shoulder. 

Now take your museum copy of my Aratra Pentelici, and, 
opposite page 53, you will find a woodcut,* giving you the 
typical conception of the Athena of Athens at the time of 
ill.; battle of Marathon. You see precisely the same disposi- 
tion of the hair; but she has many tresses instead of one, 
faffing in front of her shoulders ; and the minute curls above 
her brow are confined by a close cap, that her helmet may 
not fret them. Now, I have often told you that everything in 
Greek myths is primarily a physical, — secondly and chiefly 
a moral — type. This is first, the Goddess of the air, secondly 
and chiefly, celestial inspiration, guiding deed ; specially 
tlir.se two deeds of weaving, and righteous war, which you 
practise at present, both so beautifully, ' in the interests of 
England.' 

Those dark tresses of hair, then, physically, are the dark 
tresses of the clouds ; — the spots and serpents of her icgis, 
hail and fire ; — the soft folds of lier robe, descending rain. 
In her spiritual power, all these are the Word of God, spoken 
either bv the thunder of Flis Power, or as the Bnft rain upon 




44 FOBS CLAVIGEBA. 

the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Her 
■pear is the strength of sacred deed, and her helmet, the hope 
of salvation. 

You begin now to take some little interest in these rip- 
plings of the leaves under the Venetian Lady of Moonlight, 
do not you, and in that strangely alike Leucothea, sedent 
there two thousand years before that peaceful moon rose on 
Venice ; and that, four hundred years before our " Roaring 
moon" 

Take a very soft pencil, and touching very 
nes on the photograph between the ripples of 
the hair, thus : and you will find that the 
distances 1 — 2, 2 — 3, 3 — t, etc, first dimin- 
ish gradually, and then increase ; — that the 
lines 1, 2, 3, etc., radiate from the slope of 
the fillet, gradually, till they become hori- 
1 zontal at the shoulder ; and lastly, that the 
whole group first widens and then dimin- 
ishes, till the tress farthest back losing 
itself altogether, and the four nearest us 
hiding behind the shoulder, the fullest one, 
set for contrast beside the feeblest, dies 
away in delicate rippling over the shoulder 
line. 

Now, sketch with a soft pencil such a 
little diagram of all this, as the figure above ; and then, take 
your pen, and try to draw the lines of the curved tresses 
within their rectangular limits. And if you don't 'see a 
little more in ' Leucothea's hair before you have done, — you 
shall tell me, and we'll talk more about it. 

Supposing, however, that you do begin to see more in it, 
when you have finished your drawing, look at the plate op- 
posite page 112 iu Aratra, and read with care the six para- 
graphs 115 — 120. Which having read, note this farther, — 
the disorder of the composition of the later art in Greece is 
the sign of the coming moral and physical ruin of Greece ; 
but through and under all her ruin, the art which submitted 
itself to religious law survived as a remnant ; unthought of, 




FORS CLAYJGEUA. 



45 



but immortal, and nourished its little (lock, day by day, till 
Byzantium rose out of it, and then Venice. And that flow- 
ing hair of the Luna was in truth sculptured by the sacred 
power of the ghosts of the men who carved the Leucothea. 

You must be patient enough to receive some further wit- 
ness of this, before our drawing lesson ends for to-day. 

You see that drapery at Leucothea's knee. Take a sheet 
of thin note-paper: fold it (as a fan is folded) into sharp 
ridges ; but straight down the sheet, from end to end. Then 
cut it across from corner to corner, fold either half of it up 
again, and you have the root of all Greek, Byzantine, and 

truscan pendent drapery. 

Try, having the root thus given you, first to imitate that 
simple hit of Leucothea's, and then the complex ones, ending 
in the tasselled points, of Athena's robe in the woodcut. 
Then, lake a steel pen, and just be good enough to draw tin: 
edges of those folds ; — every one, you see, taken up in order 
duly, and carried through thu long sweeping curves up to 
the edge of the fegis at her breast. Try to do that yourself, 
with your pen-point, and then, remember that the Greek 
workman did it with his brush-point, designing as he drew, 
and that on the convex surface of a vase, — and you will 
begin to see what Greek vases are worth, and why they 

hen lastly, take your photograph No. 10, which is of a 
door of St. Mark's, with two prophets bearing scrolls, in the 

dst of vineleaf ornament on each side, and look at the 

apery of the one on the left where it falls in the last folds 

hind his foot. 

Athena's sacred robe, you see, still ! — and here no vague 
reminiscence, as in the Luna, but absolutely pure Greek 
tradition, kept for two thousand years, — for this decoration 
hs thirteenth century work, by Greek, not Venetian, artists. 

Also I send other photographs, now completing your 
aeries to the twelfth, namely — 

No. 8. Entire west front of St. Mark's, as it stood in the 
fifteenth century ; from Gentile Bellini's picture of it. 

No. 9. Entire west front, as it stands now. 



46 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 

No. 10. Northern of the five porches of the west front, as 
it is. 

No. 11. Southern porch of the west front, as it is now. 

No. 12. Central porch of the west front, as it is now. 
The greater part of this west front is yet uninjured, except 
by time, since its mosaics were altered in the sixteenth cen- 
tury. But you see that some pillars of the southern porch 
are in an apparently falling condition ; propped by timbers. 
They were all quite safe ten years ago ; they have been 
brought into this condition by the restorations on the south 
side, and so left : the whole porch was therefore boarded 
across the front of it during the whole of this last winter ; 
and the boards used for bill-sticking, like the pillars of the 
Ducal palace. I thought it worth while to take note of the 
actual advertisements which were pasted on the palings over 
the porch, on Sunday, the 4th of March of this year (see 
opposite page) : two sentences were written in English in- 
stead of Italian by the friend who copied them for me. 

Such are the modern sacred inscriptions and divine in- 
structions presented to the Venetian people by their church 
of St. Mark. What its ancient inscriptions and perennial 
advertisements were, you shall read in St. Mark's Rest, if 
you will, with other matters appertaining to ancient times. 

With none others do I ask you to concern yourselves ; nor 
can I enough wonder at the intense stupidity and obstinacy 
with which the public journals speak of all I am trying to 
teach and to do, as if I were making a new experiment in 
St. George's Company ; while the very gist and essence of 
everything St. George orders is that it shall not be new, and 
not an ' experiment' ;* but the re-declaration and re-doing 
of things known and practised successfully since Adam's 
time. 

Nothing new, I tell you, — how often am I to thrust this 
in vour ears? Is the earth new, and its bread? Are the 

* The absurd endeavours of modern rhymesters and republicans, with 
which St. George's work is so often confounded, came to water, because 
they were new, and because the rhyming gentlemen thought themselves 
wiser than their fathers. 



F0R8 CLAVIQERA. 47 

CASA OMNIA 

ED AOENZIE REUNITE, 
For Information on all matters of Commercial Enterprise, Speculation, 



SALA DI EVANGELIZZAZIONE, 

CHIESA EV ANGELICA, 

Avra lnogo una Pubblico Conferenza sul sequent© soggetto. 

LA VERA CHIESA. 



V1LLE BE NICE. 

SOClfiTfi DE BEAUX ARTS. 

EXPOSITION DE PEINTURE ET SCULPTURE. 



societA nazionale italiana, 

EMISSIONE 1866. 

PRESTITO E PREMI. 

Tickets x lire. 
THOSE WHO BUY 10 WILL RECEIVE 11. 



DENTI. 

NON Pifr ESTRAZIONE, SICURA GUARIGIONE. 



CALLS DEI SPECOHIERIE. 



10 LIRE DI MANOIA. 
PERDUTA UNA 

CAGNOLINA, 

COLORE CANNELLA COLLE ORECCHIE PIUTOSTO LUNGE. 



48 



FORS CLAVIGERA, 



plough and sickle new in n 
Godliness new in their hearts 
and courage new ? By God's 
miners' hearts and sailors', 1 
and vour public rascalitv, a 



l's hands ? Are Faith and 
Are common human charily 
;race, lasting yet, one sees in 
ur political cowardice is new, 
blasphemy, and yoi 



New in their insolence 
not new in one idea, or 



equality, and your science of Dirt, 
and rampant infinitude of egotism- 
in one possibility of good. 

Modern usury is new, and the abolition of usury laws ; 
but the law of Fors as old as Sinai. Modern divinity 
with — not so much as a lump of gold — but a clot of mud, 
for its god, is new ; but the theology of Fors as old as Abra- 
liam. And generally the modern Ten Commandments are 
new : — " Thou shalt have any other god but me. Thou shall 
worship every beastly imagination on earth and under it. 
Thou shalt take the name of the Lord in vain to mock the 
poor, lor the Lord will hold him guiltless who rebukes and 
gives not ; thou shalt remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
proFane ; thou shalt dishonour thy father and thy mother; 
thou shalt kill, and kill by the million, with all thy might 
and mind and wealth spent in machinery for multifold killing; 
thou sliait look on every woman to lust after her ; thou shalt 
steal, and steal from morning till evening, — the evil from 
the good, and the rich from the poor ;* tliou shait live by 
continual lying in million-fold sheets of lies ; and covet thy 
neighbour's house, and country, and wealth, and fame, and 
everything that Is his." And finally, by word of the Devil, 
in short summary, through Adam Smith, "A new command- 
ment give I unto you : that ye hate one another." 

* Stealing by the poor from the rich is of course still forbidden, and 
even in a languid way by tbe poor from the poor ; but every form of 
theft, forbidden and appruv-pd is |.r;Lcti™lly on Ike increase. 

.Tuat as 1 had finished writing this modern Decalogue, my gondolier, 
Piero Mazzini, came in for his orders. Hi* daughter U. I believe, dying 
of & brain disease, which was first brought ou by fright when his house 
was broken into last year, and all he had in it carried off. I asked him 
what the new doctor said, knowing one bad been sent for. The new 
doctor said "he had been culled too late; hut the girl must have a new 
medicine, which would coat a franc the dose." 




FORS CLAVIGE11A. 49 

Such, my Sheffield, and elsewhere remaining friends, are 
the developed laws of your modern civilization ; not, you 
will find, whatever their present freshness, like to last in the 
wear. But the old laws (which alone Fore teaches you) are 
not only as old as Sinai, but much more stable. Heaven and 
its clouds, earth and its rocks, shall pass ; but these shall not 
pass away. Only in their development, and full assertion of 
themselves, they will assuredly appear active in new direc- 
lions, and commandant of new duties or abstinences ; of 
which that simple one which we stopped at in last Fors, — 
"Let him that stole steal no more" — will be indeed a some- 
what astonishing abstinence to a great many people, when 
they see it persisted in by others, and therefore find them- 
selves compelled to think of it, however unwillingly, as 
perhaps actually some day imperative also on themselves. 

When I gave you in Fort, vol. i., page 51, the little 
sketch of the pillaging of France by Edward III. before the 
battle of Crecy, a great many of my well-to-do friends said, 
"Why does he print such things? they will only do mis- 
chief ! " — meaning, they would open the eyes of the poor a 
little to some of the mistaken functions of kings. I had 
previously given, {early enough at mv point, you see,) that 
sketch of the death of Richard I., For*, vol. i., p. 40, differ- 
ing somewhat from the merely pictuit>M|ue accounts of it, 
and Academy pictures, in that it made you clearly observe 
that Richard got his death from Providence, not as a king, 
but as a burglar. Which is a point to be kept in mind when 
you happen any day to bo talking about Providence. 

Again. When Mr. Greg so pleasantly showed in the Con- 
temporary Review how benevolent the rich were in drinking 
champagne, and how wicked the poor were in drinking beer, 
you will find that in Fors of vol. iii., p, 85, I requested him to 
supply the point of economical information which he had in- 
advertently overlooked, — how the champagne drinker had 
j/ot his champagne. The poor man, drunk in an ungraceful 
manner though he be, has yet worked for his beer — and does 
but drink his wages. I asked, of course, for complete parallel 
of the two cases, — what work the rich man had done for Awt 
Vol.. IV.— 4 





BO 



FOBS CLAVIQEBA. 



sparkling beer ; and how it came to pass that he had got so 
much higher wages, that he could put them, unblamed, to 
that benevolent use. To which question, you observe, Mr. 
Greg has never ventured the slightest answer. 

Nor has Mr. Fawcett, you will also note, ventured one 
word of answer to the questions put to him in Fora, vol. 
i., pp. 293, 896; vol. i., p. 247; vol. !., p. 148; and to 
make sure he dared not, I challenged him privately, as I 
did the Bishop of Manchester, through my Oxford Secre- 
tary. Not a word can either of them reply. For, in- 
deed, you will find the questions are wholly unanswerable, 
except by blank confessions of having, through their whole 
public lives, the one definitely taught, and the other, in 
cowardice, permitted the acceptance of, the great Devil's 
law of Theft by the Rich from the Poor, in the two terrific 
forms, either of buying men's tools, and making them pay 
for the loan of them — (Interest)— or buying men's lands, and 
making them pay for the produce of them — (Rent). And it 
is the abstinence from these two forms of theft, which St. 
Paul first requires of every Christian, in saying, "Let him 
that stole, steal no more." 

And in this point, your experiment at Sheffield is a new 
one. It will be the first time, I believe, in which the Land- 
lord, (St. George's Company, acting through its Master,) 
takes upon himself the Ruler's unstained authority, — the 
literal function of the Shepherd who is no Hireling, and who 
rfots care for the sheep : and not count them only for their 
flesh and fleece. And if you will look back to the last 
chapter of Munura J'ulverit, and especially to its definition 
of Royal Mastership, — or the King's, as separated from the 
Hireling's, or Usurer/s, pp. 116-117 ; and read what follows 
of Mastership expectant of Death, p. 123, — you will see both 
what kind of laws you will live under; and also how long 
these have been determined in mv mind, before I had the 
least thought of being forced myself to take any action in 
their fulfilment. For indeed 1 knew not, till this very last 
year in Venice, whether some noble of England might not 
hear and understand in time, and take upon himself Master- 






F0R8 CLAVIOESA. 



51 



ship and Captaincy in this sacred war : but final sign has 
just been given ine that this hope is vain ; and oil looking 
back over the preparations made for all these things in 
former -years — I see it must be my own task, with such 
strength as may be granted me, to the end. Fur in rough 
approximation of date nearest to the completion of the 
several pieces of ray past work, as they are built one on the 
other, — at twenty, I wrote Modern Painter* ; at thirty, Tlte 
st,n,.s .>/■ T twice ,' at forty, f'nto this Lttxt ; at fifty, the? In- 
augural Oxford lectures ; and — if Fors Ctavigera is ever 
finished as I mean — it will mark the mind I had at sixty ; 
and leave me in my seventh day of life, perhaps — to rest. 
For the code of all I had to teach will then be, in form, as it 
is at this hour, in substance, completed. Modern Painter* 
taught the claim of all lower nature on the hearts of men ; 
of the rock, and wave, and herb, as a part of their necessary 
spirit life ; in all that 1 now bid you to do, to dress the earth 
and keep it, I am fulfilling what I then began. 

The Stone.* of Vi-nh-e taught the laws of constructive Art, 
and the dependence of all human work or edifice, for its 
beauty, on the happy life of the workman. Cnto tkis Lad 
taught the laws of that life itself, and its dependence on the 
Sun of Justice : the Inaugural Oxford lectures, the necessity 
that it should be led, and the gracious laws of beauty and 
labour recognised, by the upper, no less than the lower, 
classes of England ; and lastly Fors Cl'iingera has declared 
(he relation of these to each other, and the only possible 
condition! of peace and honour, for low and high, rich and 
poor, together, in the holding of that first Estate, under the 
only Despot, God, from which whoso falls, angel or man, is 
kept, not mythically nor disputably, but here in visible hor- 
ror of chains under darkness to the judgment of the great 
day : and in keeping which service is perfect freedom, and 
inheritance of all that a loving Creator can give to His 
creatures, and an immortal Father to His children. 



This 



i the 



j message, 
unfolded the scroll of 
than a blade of grass 



nhich, k»< 



bal \ 



rould be written there, 
! form of its fruit shall 




52 



FORS CLA YIQ ERA, 



be, I have been led on year by year to speak, e 

And now it seems to me, looking back over i 
fragments of it written since the year 1860, Vitl'i tMe I^'.-i, 
Time and Title, Muiiera Ptt/veris, and Eagle's A'eaf, together 
with the seven years' volumes of Fore Clavigera, that it has 
been clearly * enough and repeatedly enough spoken for 
those who will hear : and that, after such indexed summary 
of it as 1 may be able to give in the remaining numbers of 
this seventh volume, I should set aside this political work as 
sufficiently done ; and enter into my own rest, and your next 
needed service, by completing the bye-law books of Botany 
and Geology for St. George's schools, together with so much 
law of art as it may be possible to explain or exhibit, under 
the foul conditions of the age. 

Respecting all these purposes, here are some words of 
Plato's, which reverently and thankfully adopting also for 
my own, 1 pray you to read thoughtfully, and abide by, 

" Since, then, we are going to establish laws; and there 
have been chosen by us guardians of these laws, and we our- 
selves are in the sunset of life, and these guardians are 
s, we must at the same time write 



you ii 

the 1 



■MlW-lv. 



. far i 



lake the; 



chosen keepers of then 
shall be need. And th. 
friends, saviours of law 
which we make law, 



noticed : hi 
total system, and in m 
leave, to the best of o 
encompassed by strict c 



able to write laws also, when there 
refore we will say to them, 'Oh our 

we indeed, in all matters concerning 
hall leave many things aside un- 



fa* othe 



kit. i: 



the 



tfaa 






jrtheless, in the 
diief of its parts, we will not 
r, anything that shall not be 
is with a painter's first deter- 
some exact limit. This line, 
nd, it will be for you after* 



• The complaints of several f niy friends that they cannot under- 
stand mi- lead nit the mom to think that I am multiplying word* in 
lain. I am perfectly certain that if they once made the resolution 
Hint nothing should stay tin ni from doing right when they ono« knew 
what the right was, they would understand me fast enough. 






roaa OLA VWEUA. 



53 



■wards to fill. And to what you must look, and keep for ever 
in your view as you complete the body of law, it behoves you 
to hear. For, indeed, the Spartan Megillus, and the Cre- 
tan Clinias, and I, Athenian, have many a time agreed on 
this great purpose among ourselves ; but now we would 
have you our disciples to feel with us also, looking to the 
same things to winch we have consented with each other 
that the lawgiver and law-guardian should look. And this 
consent of ours was in one great sum and head of all pur- 
poses : namely, that a man should be made good, having the 
virtues of soul which belong to a man ; and that whatever 
occupations, whatever disciplines, whatever possessions, (" 
sires, opinions, and instructions, contribute to this ei 
whether in male or female, voung or old, of a 
state, those, with all zeal, a 
led through the whole of lift 
such, which are impediments to virtue. 
a state shall show itself as prizing or desir 
ing them. And this shall be so finally and sternly estab- 
lished, that if it became impossible to maintain the city, 



d, 

that dwell 






things 
that m 



for 



soul i 






e of its ( 



nhabitants 



city for ever, ar 
 any yoke put o 
ion for any othe 



ordered, ii 

should rathi 

any hardship in exile, than submit 

by baser men, or change their legisl 

would make them baser themselves. This was the 1 

head and front of all that we consented in, to which 

would, now, that you our disciples looking also, she 

praise or blame the laws we have made ; such of them a: 

have no real power to this noble end, reject ; but such ai 

contribute to it, salute ; and affectionately receiving them 

live in them ; hut to all other way of life leading to any' 

thing else than such good, you must bid farewell.'" 






1.1 




FOBS CLAV1QERA, 



NOTES AND COKUKSPOXDENCE. 



I. Affairs of Che Company. 

The i|iiite justifiable, but — in my absence from England — very incon- 
venient, hesitation of our trustees to re-invest any part of our capital 
without ascertain Log for themselves the safety of the iuvoatmeut, has 
retarded the completion of the purchase of Abbey.dale : and the explana- 
tions which, now that the Company in aci.iially In-pinning Hi work, I 
felt it due to our trustees to give, more clearly than heretofore, of its 
necessary methods ii[ action respecting land, have issued in the res- 
ignation of our present trustees, with the immediately resulting neces- 
sity that the estate of Abbey-dale should be vested iu me only until I 
can find new trustees. I have written at once to the kind donor of onr 
land in Worcestershire, and to other friend.", re.meitingtbem to undertake 
the office. But this important and difficult business, coming upon me 
Justus I was in the midst of the twelfth -centnry divinity of the mosaics 
of St. Mark's, will, I hope, be sufficient apology to my readers for the 
delay in the publication of tlie present number of Fort. I have, how- 
ever, myself guaranteed the completion of the purchase of Abbey-dale to 
the owner : and as, God willing, 1 shall be at home now in a fortniijlit, 
will gat the estate vested under new trustees with utmost speed. Re- 
s]>ecting the future tenants of it, I have pleasant intelligence, butdo not 
care to be hasty in statement, of so important matters. 

II. Affairs of the Master. 

I do not suppose that any of my readers, —but there is chance that 
some who hear and talk of me •rifJioitt reading me — will fancy that I 
have begun to lie tired of my candour in exposition of personal expenses. 
Nothing would amuse me more, on the contrary, than a complete his- 
tory of what the last six months have cost me; but it would take me as 
long to write that, as an account of the theology of St. Mark's, which I 
am minded to give the time to instead, as a more important rc 
ami, for the present, lo cast laik <if myself The following statu 
by Miss Hill, of the nature and valne of the property which I intend U 
luako over next year to the St. George's Company is more clear than 
could before give ; and I am sure that at least this portion of the Soot- 
ety's property will be rightly managed for them. 






FOIiS CLAVJQEMA. 55 

"The houses owned by Mr. I'uskin in Paradise Plnoe are three in 
nmni'i-r. They ore held of the Duke of Portland, under a lease of 
which forty-one years are unexpired. The houses are subject to a 
(round reot of £4 each. Mr. Ruskin invested £8M at first in these 
linjinsa About £100 of this Hum has been repaid oat of the surplus 
renta. and baa been by his desire re-invested in the Temperance Building 
Society, 4, Ludgate Hill. It stands for convenience of management in 
Ilia name and my own, bnt is of course all his. He bag more than once 
expressed his wish that it should some day be employed again for a simi- 
lar purpose lis at first; but that is for him to determine. The remainder 
of tbe capital. £'140, bears interest at fire per cent. Every year the 
capital in the bouses, of eonrse. decreases ; that in the Temperance 
Building Society increases. Tbe latter bears a varying rate of interest: 
it baa not amounted to live per cent, for some years. The investment 
can be altered if a month s notice in at any time given. 

"Mr. Raskin's other properly iu Marylebone is freehold. It consists 
of one house in tbe Marylebouo lduid. anil live in Freshwater Place, 
bt-M.jes a small open space used as a playgrtmnd. The capital invested 
was £2W>. and bears interest at five per cent. Mr. itnskin has direct- 
ed me to expend £«4 of this money yearly on any good object I have in 
hand for the benefit of the poor ; and the first payment in accordance 
with thin desire of his has just been made. During the years he has 
Owned the property previously, the entire five percent, has always been 
paid direct to bim. 

•- Mr. Buskin last year asked me lo take charge of a house of which 
he holds the lease in Paddiugton Street. I have not bad the care of it 
long enough to be sure how it will answer ; bnt as no capital was, as 
far as I know, expended, and the rent to the ground landlord is con- 
siderable. I shall be well satisfied if it is entirely r-vli-sii[i[>iii-tin|j, which 
1 quite hope it may be. " Octavia Hill. 

" fttA AprS, 1677." 



of the Victoria Hall, Reading, a new public building, with club r 
tit wit/, erected at the east end of the town, for the purpose of afford- 
ing means of recreation to this rapidly increasing neighbourhood. The 
inaugural address wan delivered by PrnlVsM-r (.loliiwin Smith, who is a 
native and was a former resident iu the town : — 

" * The learned gentleman commented upon the marvellous changes 
that had taken place in Heading since he wna a boy. A Oiisis had ar- 
rived in the history of the British Empire, and whether England would 
successfully surmount it or not would tit/x-ft twiuitt/ ii-jmn th- thiin\--U r 
,.f tin irnri-iii;/ i/ien. Th" crowlh of wealth during the twenty years 
preceding 1*T2 hud been something marvellous rind beyond nil previous 
experience. There had been nothing in the commercial history of any 
country, of either ancient or mod- rn times, that would compare with 
the mass of n|iiib me "f KriLHrmd of th.' prevent day,' — e.g.. nobody can 
have butter for their children's bread : see uoxt article. - The speaker 
then proceeded to review the causes of thin vast prosjierity, to Bee if 
they were such as eoulrl firmly be relied upim, or ivhetlier it was merely 
a transitory flow of wealth. In part, the .sources of wealth wore due 
to the fortunate position of England, the great variety of its mineral 




5fl FORS CLAYIQKHA. 

and other resources, and. above nil, the utt'uli/. eiierf/etie, tint! iitduntri- 
ou* cltarticter of her working mm,' (not in the least, yon observe, 10 
that of their masters ; who have nevertheless got the wealth, have not 
they, Mr. Smithy) 'In part, the sonrcea of wealth were accident! 
and transitory. The close of the ({rent wars of Napoleon left England 
the only manufacturing and almost the only maritime power in the 
world. The manufactures of other countries were destroyed by the 
desolating inroads of wnr, and their mercantile marine was almost 
swept from the seas. Add to them fuels that England wits the banker 
of the world, and they would understand the great source of England's 
wealth. The wars were, however, now over, and other nations were 
entering into competition, and now this country had formidable rivals 
in (jermany and lielgium and on the other aide of the Atlantic, and 
they niu.il cxpeot them to t jik .- their own part in having manufactories, 
though it would be possible for England to open up new countries for 
produce England must expect competitors, too, in her carrying trade. 
and they all knew that the bunk ol the world went where the prim -ip:il 
trade was done. In the middle of the iait century the bank of the 
world was at Amaterdatn. They must expect, therefore, that some of 
tin: .'M.'r.-idenLil and transitory sources of superiority would pass away. 
All the more necessary was it therefore that the iruiiii twirt-i ••}' jtnii/i. r- 
ily, the c/i-triii-ter nf the irurhmeii, should remain unimpaired. It was 
impossible to say that there were not dangers threatening the character 
of the working men. for the rapid i 1 1 1 - r  - : t .~ i • of r their masters' ' i wealth, 
with the sudden rise of w;i)»''s, had e*p"ried them to many temptations. 
It was of no use being censorious. The upper classes of the land had, 
for the moHt part, spent i !n-ir brire weal lb in enjoyments suited to their 
tastes ' (as for instance Mr Smith '-' ' ami they must not be surprised 
that working men should act likewise, though their tastes might 
not he so refined. It was appalling to see how large an amount 
of wages was spent in drink. The tittay of the ittduttrial eltuat* 
of I'lutjLiiutt irmilii t" ifimiitrniiH t<i hir in pri'pnrli»ii to her jirrriou* prot- 
jTtty, because the past had of course increased the population of 
England to an enormous extent, and should the wealth and industry of 
the land pass away, this vast mass would become a population of penury 
and suffering. Mr. Uoldwin Smith went on to say that he understood 
that the present, iusrirnlion had this object in view : to draw away the 
artisan from places when; he was tempted lo indulgences, to places of 
more rational entertainment, and where the same temptation* would 
not spread their snares before him. He expressed his sympathy with 
the moral crusade movement instituted hy the teetotalers, but he 

ilo'l'ite.l lile .-Hii.-:n-y ol re si rici i VI- ''•„'! -ial h Ml III] l.tlis Mllijeet. The 

Anglo-American race was nn exceedingly temperate people, and the 
restrictive measures adopir-.l iu-onie p;,ns of the country were rather 
the expression than the cause of temperance, hut iheii effect in restrain- 
ing the habits of the intemperate was not very great. In proof of this 
he quoted the effect of the Drunken Act of Canada, a permissive 
measure which had been ad. .pied in I'riu. e IVhvunl's County. He was 
ready enough, ho had told his friends in Canada, lo co-operate in favour 
of strong measures if they could show him there was a desperate emer- 
gency, and in his judgment the only one way to prevent liquor being 
drunk was to prevent it being made ; but if they simply wished t 
harass the retail trade, they would have u constant i 




FOBS CLAVIGSRA. 57 

id habitual violation of tbe law. Therefore he had not that 
confidence that many good and wire men had in restrictive legislation, 
though he could ayuipathiie with their aim. They could all concur, 
however, in removing temptation out of the way of the working men 
and providing counter attractions, and that be understood woe their 
object in erecting the present building. A man who had been working 
all day most have some enjoyment, and they should provide it as bent 
suited to the taste*,' lin the next article the public are required to 
accommodate their tastes to the nutriment,) "and, therefore, us these 
were the objects of the present establish ment, they deserved hearty 
sympathy and support.' 

"A fancy fair was then opened, which will extend over three days, in 
aid of the objects of the institution." 

I V. " AlirLTE RATED Bltteil — The manufacture of those un- 
pleasant compounds, ■butterino.'  margarine.' and their congeners, is, 
we hear, making rapid progress. Indeed, there seems a dismal proba- 
bility that these objectionable compounds will soon almost entirely 
supersede the genuine article in the market. To a large extant, the 
public will be absolutely compelled by circumstances In aeoommmlale 
tlitir trutt* to tliii tirirfurm ../ nvtrimrut. They may be qnit* ready lo 
pay, as at present, 1». 10<t to 2*. per lb. for the best Devonshire Or 
Aylesbury, but the option will no longer remain in their hands. Hera 
is the modiu HfMKHU*fl by which a malevolent fate is compassing tho 
perpetual nausea of butter gaunatU. To manufacture hutterine and 
margarine, the first step is to obtain a snpply of real butter. This 
must bo of the fitimt ipiMlitv Inferior descriptions do not sufficiently 
diagnise the rank flavour of tho fat which forms about nine-tenths of 
the manufactured article. Having procured a sufficient quantity of 
prime Devonshire, tbe manufacturer next proceeds to amalgamate it 
with beef-fat, until he has obtained a product marvellously resembling 
pure butter. This nasty stuff costs about 0d per lb., anil the manu- 
facturer, therefore, makes n handsome proBI by retailing it at from lOri. 
to If, per lb. to that large class of tin- community which believes in tbe 
saving efficacy of small economies. The quantity of first-class butter 
in the market is strictly limited, and is incapable or being increased. 
Already the demand almost outruns the sn oply. us i- proved by the high 
price commanded by snch descriptions in the market. What, then, 
will be the result when the manufacturers of shoddy butter come to bid 
for the article ? Some experts go so far as to predict that Devonshire 
butter will fetch '■'•'. per lb. before another twelve months, through the 
operation of this competition. On the other hand, inferior sorts will be 
altogether driven out of the market by the new compound, which is, 
we believe, more palatable, and 50 per cent, cheaper. Under these 
depressing r-irciiiiistaneea, we can but trust some other means may bo 
found for disguising the rancid taste of beef-fat. It would be hard, 
indeed, if butter connoisseurs in moderate circumstances were con- 
demned to the Ilobflou'a choice of margarine or nothing, "—Zand ami 
Water. 

Very hard indeed ; but inevitable, with much other hardness, under 
modern conditions of prosperity. 

I roaet briefly explain to you the error under which our prese. writers 




58 



F0R8 CLAVHfBRA. 



and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr, Gold win Smith are all 
labouring. 

They have got into the quite infinitely and diabolically stupid habit 
of thinking that the increase of monri/ is the increase of prosperity. 

Suppose at this moment every man in Sheffield had a thousand 
pounds, in gold, put into his coat poeketi. What would be the conse- 
quence ? ' You would all buy all you wanted '? 

But do you think all you want is in Sheffield, then ? Yon would 
gobble up all the turtle— first come first served— drink all the beer, 

dreBS your wives in all the Bilks, and then in a little while Stand 

staring at each other, with nothing to eat, drink, or put on, shaking 
your gold in your pockets. ' You would send a omEwhere else ' ? Yea, 
I dare say ; but then, mind you, the prosperity is to be universal. 
Everybody in Bradford and Halifax has a thousand pounds in hit 
pocket, and all the turtle and beer are gone, long ago, there, too. 

' Oh — but you would send abroad ' ? Yes, I dare aay. But the pros- 
perity is to be world-wide : everybody in Franoe has a thousand pounds 
in A if pockets, and all the turtle and champagne are gone there, too, 
since yesterday at five o'clock— and everything is at famine prices 
everywhere, and will soon be — for no price to be had anywhere. That 
is your ' universal prosperity, according tu the word of the devil. But 
the word of God is that the increase of prosperity is increase, not of 
money, but money's worth. 

V. Several of my readers have asked me to write a letter to boys as 
well as to girls. Here is some advice respecting them, which I cannot 
better. 

"A Plea fou Both.— The Rev. Thomas Streot sends to the Neit) 
York Chriili-ih ETntOn 'A Plea for Boys,' in the course o( which he 
says: — ' Every boy, if he is in sound health, has an excess of energy 
which must End an outlet. The mother is alarmed and worried at 
what she calls his mischievous proclivities- He is always breaking 
things, is never still, is always in the way, wanting to act outside of 
household law. He keeps the good mother and sister in a constant 
fever. Their bet? iioir is a raiuy day, when Charley can't go outdoors to 
piny; a school vacation is a burden hard to be borne, and the result is, 
Charley must l»- parked off to a distant hoardine; school, nut fo much 
for his education, but to get rid of him. If, as we bold, the interests 
of husband and wife are one, and it inessential to train the girl (or wife- 
hood in all lion -eh i iU] duties, it is equally ho to train the boy for his part 
in the same direction. He should be under the law of borne order, 
taught to be as neat and tidy us (bo girl ; to arrange bis bed clothing 
and furniture, instead of leaving it to his sister to do. He should have 
provided him needles, thread, and buttons, and be taught their use. 
that he may not be subjected in manhood to that terror of nctvous 
men, a button less shirt. He should take k---nn- (rum tie- cook, and be 
cajiable of preparing a wholesome dinner. He should leam bow to do 
the multitude of little things that are constantly demanding attention 




FORS CLAVIGSRA, 59 

in the house. There ii no knowledge, however trivial, that will not 
at some time com" into service. It is said that a " Junk of all trades 
is master of none," but he need not make himself master. He may 
know enough of the general principle of MIKlluillil to be ubie to repair 
wastes, and keep things in order. If a swollen door sticka, he should 
know how to ease it. If a hinge creaks, how to get at it and stop its 
muaic- If a lock or a dock is out of repair, how to take it to pieces 
and arrange it properly. If a pipe or a pan leaks, how to use iron and 
■older for its be nefit. If the seams of a tub are open, how to cooper 
it. If a glass is broken in a sash, how to set another, llow to hang 
paper on walls, and use brush and paint and putty. How to make a 
fire, and lay a carpet, and hang a curtain. Ev-ery boy may learn enough of 
these things to do away with the necessity of calling a cobbling me- 
chanic to his house when he is a man. And he will delight to leam tbein. 
He will take infinite pleasure in the employment. Nothing makes a 
boy feel so proud as to be able to do things. His workshop will be his 
paradise. He will have his mind occupied and amused with utilities. 
He will be led to think, to reflect, and invent. Neither need this in- 
terfere with his studies or his plays . he will pursue aud enjoy them 
with more zest. It is idleness, nimlessness, that is ruining our hoys. 
With nothing attractive to do at home, thoy are in the streets or in 
wor-e places, expending tli.ir aaMfim mid feeding their desires for eu- 
ttrtu in men t upon follies.' " 

VI The following letter, from one of our brave and gentle compan- 
ions, has encouraged me in my own duties, and will, I trust, guide no 
less than encourage others in theirs: — 

" Scarborough 1 , Whit Sunday, 1877. 
" Dbak Master, — 1 write to acquaint you with our removal from 
Skelton to Scarborough, and how it happened. At fiewby Hall Farm 
(where I was employed as carpenter) is a sr« niii-ni^ine which they use 
for thrashing, t-ln jp[>inir. pumping and hum- in  puri«>ses ; the blacksmith 
sets as engineer. It got out somehow that 1 understood engines and 
machinery: and the blacksmith at times was busy shoeing horses when 
he wan wanted at the engine, so 1 was naked to attend to it for an hour 
or so, which I did at frequent intervals. In April, 1870, we got a 
change in farm manager— a regular steam go-uheud sort of a man, with 
(treat ideas of ' modem improvements,' and with him more work to be 
done through the engine, which used to work two or three days n 
month, but now three or four days a week;, and I come to be looked 
upon by him as engineer. I remonstrated with him two or three times, 
tilling him that it wan quite contrary to my views am) wishes, and that 
I hoped he would free me from it. Well, winter comes, with its wet 
weather, and the labourers, numbering abon t thirty, had to workout in nil 
the bad weather, or else go home and lose their pay of course, the engine 
■1! the time hard nt work doing that which they very comfortably might 
be doing under cover, and so saving them from hunger or rheumatism, 
Well, this sort of thing cut me up very much, and my wife and I talked 
the matter over several times, and we were determined that I should 
do it no longer, let the consequence be what il may; so at Christmas I 
told him that with the closing year I should finish with the emrine. He 
•aid he was very aorry, etc., but if I did I should have c 




60 F0R8 CLAVIGERA. 

gether. On New Tear's morning he asked me if I was determined on 
what I said, and I answered yes ; so he told me to pack my tools and 
go, and so ended my work at Newby Hall Farm. The parson and one 
or two kindly wishing ladies wished to intercede for me, but I told 
them that I did not desire it, for I meant what I said, and he under- 
stood me. Well, I sought about for other employment, and eventually 
started work here at Scarborough with Mr. Bland, joiner and builder, 
and we have got nicely settled down again, with a full determination 
to steer clear of steam. 

" Remaining yours humbly, 

44 John Guy. 
"J. Buskin, Esq." 



FOBS CLAYIGKRA. 



LETTER LXXIX. 



Som time since, at Ver 
was sent me by its nut Ik 
way of bestowing o 



Hehnk Hill, 1«(/i June, 1877. 
■, a pamphlet on social subjects 
-expecting my sympathy, or by 



of it, wlii< 



falling now 
by Van as 

declaration 



I find presented to 

things needing Furth 

" It is indeed a most blessed y 
work without wages ; if they did, 






„i.l B 



mt of my pocket-book, 
proper introduction to 



s labour fur uolhiri: 



although writtt 
and altogether insignificant, per 
worth preserving, as one of the it 



:ly foolish. 



unanimous dailv, of a society which i 


itself a mo 


later] found- 


ing itself on the New Commandnx 


nt, Let hii 


that liateth 


God, hate his brother also. 







of which, my Sheffield 



rarj 




•A overthrown from its roots ; and out 
workmen, you are now called into this 
abour, not for wages, but for the love 
on this piece of British ground, freely 
lieartedness of unselfish toil, 
history of guilds of trade in England, 
lly, together with that of the great 



of God and man ; i 
yielded lo you, to f 
Looking back to 
and of Europe ge 
schools c 
to have lain chiefly in thi 

:i which were more or less involved 
md their laws of spprentioeshi] 
of your labour here on .St. George's ground, I must warn 
very earnestly against the notion of 'co-operation' as 
policy of a privileged number of persons for their own ad' 
tage. You have this land given you for your work that 



of selfishness and iso- 
nd in the outset 



62 FOUS CLAVIQERA. 

may do the best you can (or all men ; you are bound by cer- 
tain laws of work, that the 'best you can' may indeed be 
good and exemplary : and although I shall endeavour to per- 
suade you to accept nearly every law of the old guilds, that 
acceptance, I trust, will be with deeper understanding- of the 
wide purposes of so narrow fellowship ; and, (if the thought 
is not too foreign to your present temper,) more in the spirit 
of a body of monks gathered for missionary service, than of 
a body of tradesmen gathered for the promotion even of the 
lionestest and usefullest trade. 

It is indeed because I have seen you to be capable of co- 
operation, and to have conceived among yourselves the 
necessity of severe laws for its better enforcement, that I have 
determined to make the first essay of St. George's work at 
Sheffield. But i do not think you have yet learned that such 
unity of effort can only be vital or successful when organized 
verily for the "interests of England" — not for your own; 
and that the mutiny against co-operative law which you have 
hitherto selfishly, and therefore guiltily, sought to punish, is 
indeed to be punished for precisely the same reasons as 
mutiny in the Channel Fleet. 

I noticed that there was some report of such a thing the 
other day, — but discredited by the journals in which it ap- 
peared, on the ground of the impossibility that, men trained as 
our British sailors are, should disobey t heir officers, unlessunder 
provocation which no modern conditions of the service could 
involve. How long is it to be before these virtues of loyalty 
and obedience shall he conceived as capable of development, 
no less in employments which have some useful end, and fruit- 
ful power, than III those which are simply the moral organiza- 
tion of massacre, and the mechanical reduplication of ruin? 

When I wrote privately to oue of your representatives, the 
other day, that Abbeyiiale was to be yielded to your occupa- 
tion rent-free,* you received the announcement with natural, 

• Practically ao. The tenants must logully be hnund to pny the same 
rent ox on the other e»tate» of St. George ; but in tbia vasi-, tbe rout* 
will bo entirely returned to the estate, for ita Own advantage ; not di- 
verted into any other channels of operation. 






KORS CLAVIQEIiA. G3 

bat, I must now tell you, with thoughtless, gratitude. I ask 
you no rent for this land, precisely as a captain of a ship of 
the line asks no rent for her deck, cleared for action. Yon 
are called into a Christian ship of war ; — not hiring- a corsair's 
iniii. to go forth and rob on the high seas. And you will 
find the engagements you have made only tenable by a con- 
tinual referetiee to the ea use for which you are contending, — 
not to the advantage you hope to reap. 

But observe also, that while you suffer as St. George's 
soldiers, he answers for your lives, as every captain must 
answer for the lives of his soldiers. Your ranks shall not be 
thinned by disease or famine, uncared for, — any more than 
those of the I.ifn Guards : and the simple question for each 
one of you, every day, will bo, not bow he and his family are 
to live, for your bread and water wil I be sure ; hut how much 
good service you can do to your country. You wil! have 
only to consider, each day, how much, with an earnest day's 
labour, you can produce, of any useful things you are able to 
manufacture. These you are to sell at absolutely fixed prices, 
for ready money only ; and whatever stock remains unsold 
at the end of the year, over and above the due store for the 
next, you are to give away, through such officers of distribu- 
tion as the society shall appoint. 

You can scarcely, at present, having been all your lives, 
hitherto, struggling for security of mere existence, imagine 
the peace of heart which follows the casting out of the 
element of selfishness as the root of action ; but it is peace, 
observe, only, that is promised to you, not at, all necessarily, 
or at least primarily, joy. You shall find rest unto your 
souls when first you take on you the yoke of Christ ; but joy 
only when you have borne it as long as He wills, and are 
called to enter into the joy of your Lord. 

That such promises should have become all but incredible 
to most of you, is the necessary punishment of the dis- 
obedience to the plainest orders of God, in which you have 
been taught by your prophets, and permitted by your 
priests, to live for the last quarter of a century. But that 
this incredibility should be felt as no calamity, — but rather 




64 



FOSS CLAYIOERA. 



benefit and emancipation ; and that the voluble announce- 
ment of vile birth and eternal death as the origin and 
berit&nce of man, should be exulted over as a new light of 
the eyes and strength of the limbs ; this sometimes, after all 
that I have resolved, is like to paralyze me into silence— mere 
horror and inert winter of life. 

I am going presently to quote to you, with reference ti 
the accounts of what I have be«n last doing for your Museum 
(Article I. of Correspondence,) some sentences of an ad mi 
rable letter which has been just put into my hands, though it 
appeared on the 27th of February last, in the Manchester 
(iunnliaii. An admirable letter, I repeat, in its gene 
aim ; and in much of its text ; — closing, nevertheless, with 
the sorrowful admission in the sentence italicized in folloi 
appearing wholly unconscious of ilie 



-rowfulnei 
"That art 



i of it 



we believe, great popularity in Greece — 
that it had, as we know, such popularity in Italy — was in 
great measure owing to its representing personages and 
events known to all classes. Statue and picture were the 
illustration of tales, the text of which was in every memory. 
Fur our working men no such, tales exiitt, though it may be 
hoped that to the children now in our schools a few heroic 
actions of great Englishmen will be as well known, when, a 
few years hence, the children are men and women, as the 
s"of the saints were to Italian workmen of the fifteenth 
century, or the hunting in Calydon and the labours of 
Hercules to Athenians, twenty-three hundred years ago." 

" For our working men, no such tales i-xist." Is that, then, 
admittedly and conclusively true? Are Englishmen, by order 
r school-board, never more to hear of Hercules, — of 
Theseus, — of Atrides — or the tale of Troy? Nor of the lives 
of the saints neither? They are to pass their years now as a 
tale that is not told— are they? The tale of St. Mary and 
fit. Magdalen— the tale of St. John and bis first and last 
mother* — the tale of St. John's Master, 011 whose breast he 
" Then came uuto him the mother of the two sous of Zebedee, be. 
ittecljim/ him." 

•' Then aaith bo to Itmt disoiple, UoholJ, thy mother." 



FOBS CLA VIG ERA. 65 

leant ? Are all forgotten then ? and for the English work- 
man, is it to be assumed in the outset of benevolent de- 
signs for 'improving Ins character' that "no such tales 
exist"? 

And those other tales, which do exist — good Manchester 
friend, — tales not of the saints? Of the Magdalens who 
love — not much ; and the Marys, who never waste anything ; 
and the "heroic Englishmen" ivho feel the "interests of 
England" to be— their own ?— You will have- pictures of 
these, you think, for improvement of our working mind. 
Alas, good friend, but where is your painter to come from ? 
You have forgotten, in the quaintest way, to ask t/mt .' 
When you recognize as our inevitable fate that we shall no 
more "learn in our childhood, as the Italians did, at once 
grateful reverence for the love of Christ, the sufferings of 
the Virgin, or the patient couraga of the saints," and yet 
would endeavour to comfort us in the loss of these learnings 
bv surrounding us with "beautiful things"— you have not 
told us who shall make them ! You tell us that the Greeks 
were surrounded with beautiful objects. True ; but the 
Greeks must have made them before they could be sur- 
rounded by them. How did they so? The Romans stole 
till-in, in the spirit of conquest ; and we buy them — in the 
spirit of trade. But the Greek and the Italian created them. 
By what spirit ?— they ? 

Although attempting no answer to this ultimate question, 
the immediate propositions in the paper are, as I have said, 
admirable ; and in the comments with which I must accom- 
pany what I now quote of It, please understand that I am 
not opposing the writer, but endeavouring to load him on 
the traces of his hitherto right thoughts, into their true con- 
sequences. 

The sentences quoted above are part of a description of 
England, in which I leave them now to take their proper 
pi**. 

" What are the conditions under which art is now studied ? 
We meet in no temples adorned with statues of gods, whose 
are at the same time symbols of diviue power and 
Vol. IV.— 5 








06 irons CLAVIGE1U. 

types of earthly beauty, (a) Our eyes are not trained to 
judge sculpture by watching the lithe strong limbs of 
athletes, (ft) We do not learn in our childhood, as the 
Italians did, at once grateful reverence for the love of 
Christ, the sufferings oE the Virgin, the patient courage of 
the saints, and admiration of the art that shadowed thi_'tu 
forth. But we have the Roya! Institution in Mosley Street 
and its annual exhibition of pictures and sculpture. We have 
far less leisure than the contemporaries of Raphael or of 
Praxiteles, (e) Our eyes rest patiently on the unmeaning 

(n) Iii his presently following proposals for " a better system," the 
writer leaves many of these calamitous condition* nnapoken of, assum- 
ing theiu, presumably, to be irretrievable. And this first one, that we 
do not meet iu temples, etc., lie passes in such silence. 

May I at least suggest that if we cannot have any graven images of 
gods, at least, since the first of the Latter-day pamphlets, we might 
have demolished those ef our various Hudson*. 

(A) The writer feels instinctively, but his readers might not gather 
the implied Inference, that loeomntives, however Bwift, as substitutes 
for legs, and rifle- or t.irpeiW-. however effective and far-reaching as 
substitutes for arms, cannot, — by some extraordinary appointment* of 
Providence in the matter of taste, — be made Mftjaetl of heroic sculpture. 

{c\ Why, iny friend f Does not Mr. Goldwin Smith declare (see Fart, 
vol. iv., page 56] that ; ' flu-re has bsen nothing in the commercial history 
of any country, of either ancient or modern times, that would compare 
with the mas? of opulence of England ot the present day "'! — and can. 
not opulence purchase leisure ? It is true that Mr. Goldwin Smith is a 
gO'>se ; and his inquiries into the commercial history of ancient and 
modern times have never reached so far in the origin even of adultera- 
tion of butter; (Look back, by the way, to my former notes on Isaiah 
vii. 15: and just tike these farther little contributions on the Bubjeet. 
The other day, in the Hotel <le la Poeto at Brieg. I had a nice girl- 
waitress from the upper Valuis; to whom, having uttered complaint of 
the breakfast honey being watery and brown, instead of sugary and 
white, " What!" she said, in self -reproachful tone, ''have I brought you 
'du clalr'?" and running briskly away, returned presently with a clod 
of splendid saccharine snow. "Well, but tell me then, good Louise, 
what do they put in their honey to make this mess of it, that they gave 
you first for me?" "Carrots, I believe, sir," she answered, bravely, 
and I was glad to bear it was no worse;) but, though Mr. Goldwin 
Smith be a goose, and though, instead of an opulent nation, we are in- 
deed too poor to buy fresh butter, or eat fresh meat, — is even that any 
why we should have no leisure ? What are all our machines for, 




F0R8 OLAVIGEJIA. 67 

and ugly forms of modern furniture, on soot-begrimed and 
hideous houses, on a stratum of smoke-laden air that usurps 
[he name of sky. (d) The modern system of landscape 
painting, the modern use of water-colour, alone suffice to 
make an intelligent knowledge of art far more difficult than 
it was two hundred years ago. («) Vet we act as if we be- 
lieved that by strolling for a few hours a day, on a few days 
in the year, through a collection of pictures most of which 
are bad, and by carelessly looking at a few pictures of our 
own, we can learn to understand and be interested in more 
forms of art than Da Vinci or Michael Angelo would have 
tried to master, at a time when art still confined itself to 
familiar and noble subjects, and had not yet taken the whole 
uniT.™ for it. provino.. (/) 

" Is no better system possible ? It is, I believe, as certain 
that in the last twenty years we have learnt to better under- 
stand good music, and to love it more, as that in the same 
time our knowledge and love of pictures have not increased. 
The reason is easily found. Our music has been chosen for 
its by masters, and our picture* hare been chusoi by our- 
selves. ((/) If we can imagine exhibitions where good, bad, 

then ? Can we do in ten minutes, without man or horse, what a Greek 
conld not have done in a year, with all thu king's horses and all the 
king's men V — and is the result of all this magoIfiMnt much an ism, only 
that we have " far less leisure " 1 

(rf One of the mt»v grotesque consequences of this total concealment 
of the sky. with respect to art, is the hatred of the modern landscape 
painter for blue colour! I walked through the Royal Academy yester- 
day j and found that, in all the landscapes, th» »ky was painted like n 
piece of white wall plaster. 

it) Probably the modern use of landscape painting, and the modern 
use of water-colour, are wrong, then. The use of good landscape 
painting is to make the knowledge of nature easier, --aot the know) 
edge of art more difficult, — than it was in earlier days. 

(/) I do not myself observe any petulant claims on the part of 
modern art to take the universe for its province. It appear* to nie, on 
the contrary, to be principally occupied in its own dining-room, dress- 
ing-room, and drawing-room. 

lg> I have italicized this sentence, a wonderful idmjmioa from an 
Englishman; and indeed the gist of the whole matter. But the stabs- 




as 



F0I18 CLAVWERA. 



■mi) indifferent symphonies, quartets, mad ■oaga fsnsjsn be 
heard, nut mom imperfectly than picture* good, bad. and ie- 
differont an- seen at I lie Academy, and works to abiib aa a 

i' rl we --t listen fur live] it y mm ntc- wvrr t: :- gaMMi 

through in an many M OOP da or indeed by an oifua aa a 
few bars, can we doubt that pretty tunes wooid be mmc 
popular than tile finest symphonies of Beetborea, «v tbe 
lovelies! of Sohulmrt's songs? 

"It is surely possible (A) to find a man or mn«t»»31 

meiit that our pie'nren hum Iwen abaiSB Ijv oornelvea ts act wfcaEr 
trni\ It wan so, in the days when English mmiteurs filled tfc-dr fcaawv 
wu.li Ti'iiiri idiinii-., i.ii.i liuido, sad Bagtt pMn obaafis lj.- t- haadU 
Angolloo ami Titian, out «« have net been masterless at atae too*. 
tar (ruin it. The suddenly In minima idea that Art might p o aiMj be a 
lucrative oouupntioti, secured I he submission of England to seek bn- 
sttueiion a-, with that object, alie oould procure i and the PmfeaMcdrip 
of Sir Henry Cole nl Kensington has corrupted the system of art-Inn- 
ing all over KngUnd intu n state of abortion and falsehood from waieh 
it will tat* twenty years to recover. The Professorships also of <fnari 
Aguew at Maiichenttir ham covered the walls of that metropolis with 
"exchangeable property" on tba ((changes of which the dealer always 
made 111* commission, anil or which purbapa one canvas in a hundred 
is of -..inn' intrinsic value, anil may lie hereafter put to good and per- 
manent use. But tho first of all conditions, for thin object, ia that the 
Manchester men lAunhl. for a little while, ' oboose for themselves I 
That they nil. mid t.uy untiling wiMi intent to sell it again; and that 
they should buy it of the artist, only, face to face with him ; or from 
the exhibition wall by direct oorre*|nmdoueo with him,* 

(A) Perfectly |H>ssibln; if fi nit you will take the pains to ascertain 
that the person who in to guide you in painting, can paint, as you as- 
certain of Mr. Hallv that lie could play. You did not go to the man at the 
music shop, and pity hi m llfly giiinnii* <-iHiiiin»sii«i for reel mi mending yon 
a new tune, did you 1 Hut what slue than that, have you ever done, with 
respect to painting T I onou. for instance, myself, took the trouble to 
recommend thr burghers of Liverpool to buy a Raphael. As nobody had 
paid, or was to pay me, any commission for my recommendation, they 

* Ttltf existence of th* nnxttnTi nli'lurv ,lntlcr In Inijn— ink' in am i-IIy [:r oountrj where 
an It lu amiss*; hiir aaast ttnj I Sees I" nrnihtfr s "huTUJfca* '"T the ST. Goose's Com- 




FOBS CLAVIOEliA. 



69 



guide us in our study of pictures a 
iu our study of music, — who wi 
pictures, and carefully guard u 
tion of a dozen pictures in oil 



a Mr. Halle has guided us 
will place before us good 
s from seeing bad. A collec- 
and water colour, each excel- 
txpiauiLtioti of what its painter 
most wished to show, of his method of work, of bis reasons 
for choosing his point of view, and for each departure from 
the strictest possible accuracy in imitation, written by men 
of fit nature and training — such a collection would be of far 
greater help to those people who desire to study art than 
any number of ordinary exhibitions of pictures. Men who 
by ofteu looking at these few works, knew them well, would 
bare learnt more of painting, and won Id have a safer standard 
by which to judge other pictures, than is often learnt and 
gained by those who are not painters. Such a collection 
would not need a costly building for its reception, so that in 
each of our parks a small gallery of the kind might be formed, 
which might, of course, also contain a, few good engravings, 
good vases, and good casts, each with a carefully written ex- 
planation of our reasons fur thinking it good. Then, perhaps, 
in a few years, authority would do for these forms of art 
what it has done for music. But many other lessons could 
at the same time be taught. None is of greater importance 
than that beautiful form in the things that surround us can 
give us as much, if not as high, pleasure, as that in pictures 



looked on it as an impertinence ; printed it— thongb written as a private 
letter to a pen-onal frieud. — made what jest they could out of it, de- 
clared the picture was cracked, left it to crack farther, bought more 
David Coxes, and got an amateur lecturer ncut year to lecture (o them 
on the beauties of Raphael. 

But if you will get onoe quit of your precious British Idea that your 
security is in the dealer's commission on the oost. you may get help 
and authority easily enough. If yon look at Number VI. of my Alum- 
ingt in Florence, you will ecc that I sjMrak with somewhat mortified re- 
spect of my friend Mr. Charles F. Murray, as knowing more, in many 
ways, of Italian pictures than I do myself. You may give him any 
sum you like to spend in Italian pictures, — you will Find that none of 
it sticks lo his fingers : that every picture he buys for jou is a good one ; 
and ihnt he will charge you simply for bis time. 




70 



FQIIS CLAYIOERA, 



and statues ; — that our sensibility for higher forms of beauty 
is fostered by everything beautiful that gives us pleasure ; — 
and that the cultivation of u sense of beauty is not necessarily 
costly, but is as possible for people of moderate incomes as 



oild not the 



if cultivated lo' 
i that the diffe 



s in which pictures are 
urnished in which the 
of art live, so that we 



Whys 

shown be furnished i 
few English people i 
may learn from then 
and ugly wall papers, carpets, curtains, vases, chairs, and 
tables is as real as the difference between good and bad 
pictures ? In hundreds of people there is dormant a sensi- 
bility to beauty lhat this would be enough to awaken. 

" Of our working classes, comparatively few ever enter a 
gallery of pictures, and unless a sense of beauty can be 
awakened by other means, the teaching of ihe School of Art 
is not likely to be sought by many people of that class. In 
our climate, homo, and not gallery or piazza, is the place 
where the influence of art must be felt. To carry any forms 
of art into the homes of working people would a few years 
ugo have been iiupussibh-. Happily wu have seen lately the 
creation of schools and workmen's clubs, destined, we may 
hope, lo be as truly parts of their homes as public-houses 
have been, and as their cramped houses are. Our schools 
are already so well managed that probably many children 
puss in them the happiest hours they know. In those large, 
s place a few beautiful casts, a few drawings 
of subjects, if possible, that the elder children read of in 
their lessons, a few vases or pretty screens. By gifts of a 
few simple things of this kind, of a few beautiful flowers 
beautifully arranged, the love and the study of art will be 

iv lii -Ipi-d than by tin/ gift of twenty times their cost to 

tin' building fund of an art gallery." 

From the point where my last note interrupted it, the pre- 
lotter is all admirable ; and the passage respecting 

. I and explanation of pictures, the most valuable I have 

"<'ii printed in a public journal on the subject of the 
Out let me strongly recommend the writer to put out 







FORS CLAVIGBRA. 71 

of his thoughts, for the time, all questions of beautiful furni- 
ture and surroundings. Perfectly simple shelter, under the 
roughest stones and timber that wili keep out the weather, 
is at present the only wholesome condition of private life. 
Let there be no assumptions of anything', or attempts at any- 
thing, but cleanliness, health, and honesty, both in person 
and possession. Then, whatever you can afford to spend 
for education in art, give to good masters, and leave them 
to do the best they can for you : and what you can afford 
to spend for the splendour of your city, buy grass, flowers, 
sea, and sky with. No art of man is possible without those 
prink] Treasures of the art of God. 

1 must not close this letter without noting some of the 
deeper causes which may influence the success of an effort 
made this year in London, and in tnanv respects on sound 
principles, for the promulgation of Art-knowledge; the 
opening, namely, of the Grosvenor Gallery. 

In the first place, it has been planned and is directed by a 
gentleman * in the true desire lo help the artists and better 



Mi» 



at li 



ipeoi 



Since in this main condition it is right, I hope t 

it ; but in very many secondary matters it must be set on 

different footing before its success can be sure. 

Sir Coutts Lindsay is at present an amateur both in art 
and shopkeeping. He must take up either one or the other 
business, if he would prosper in either. If he intends to 
manage the Grosvenor Gallery rightly, ho must not put his 
own works in it until he can answer for their quality : if he 
means to be a painter, he must not at present superintend 
the erection of public buildings, or amuse himself with their 
decoration by china and upholstery. The upholstery of 
ili.- Grosvenor Gallery is poor in itself ; and very grievously 
injurious to the best pictures it contains, while its glitter as 
unjustly veils the vulgarity of the worst. 

In the second place, it is unadvisable to group the works 
of each artist together. The most original of painters re- 

• As also, by the way, the Finn-art gallery by my friead Mr. Huisb. 
•rbo means mj less well. 




. 



72 



FORS CLAVIOERA, 



■ough 
mes of 




peat themselves in favourite dexterities, — the most excellent 
of painters forget themselves in habitual errors : and it is 
unwise to exhibit in too close sequence the monotony of 
their virtues, and the obstinacy of their faults. In some 
eases, of course, the pieces of intended series illustrate and 
enhance each other's beauty, — as notably the Gainsboi 
Royal Portraits last year ; and the really beautiful 01 
the three stBters, by Millais, in this gallery. But in 
it is better that each painter should, in fitting places, take 
his occasional part in the pleasantness of the picture-concert, 
than at once run through all Ins pieces, and retire. 

In the third place, the pictures of scholars ought not to be 
exhibited together with those of their masters; more espe- 
cially in cases where a school is so distinct as that founded 
by Mr. liurne Jones, and contains many elements detiniteiy 
antagonistic to the general tendencies of public feeling. 
Mitch that is noble in the expression of an individual mind, 
becomes contemptible as. the badge of a party ; and although 
nothing is more beautiful or necessary in the youth of a 
painter than his affection and submission to his teacher, his 
own work, during the stnge of subservience, should never be 
exhibited where the master's may be either confused by the 
frequency, or disgraced by the fallacy, of its echo. 

Of the estimate which should be" formed of Mr. Jones's 
own work, I have never, until now, felt it my duty to speak ; 
partly because I knew that the persons who disliked it were 
incapable of being taught better ; and partly because I could 
not myseif wholly determine how far the qualities which are 
to many persons so repulsive, were indeed reprehensible. 

His work, first, is simply the only art-work ut present 
produced in England which "ill be received by the future 
as 'classic' in its kind, — the best that has been, or could be. 
I think those portraits by Millais may be immortal, (if the 
oolour is firm,) but only i 
Gainsborough and Velasqui 
Titian. But the action of imagin 
in Burne Jones, under tlie conditi 
beauty, and of social distress, wli 



mbordinate relation to 
i Bonifazio, for instance, to 
if the highest power 
icholarship, of social 
rily aid, thwart, 



FORS CLAVJQERA. 73 

and colour it, in the nineteenth century, are alone in art, — 
unrivalled in their kind ; and I know that these will be im- 
mortal, as the best things the mid-nineteenth century in 
England could do, in such true relations as it had, through 
all confusion, retained with the paternal and everlasting Art 
of the world. 

Secondly. Their faults are, so far as I can see, inherent 
in them as the shadow of their virtues ; — not consequent on 
any error which we should be wise in regretting, or just in 
reproving. With men of consummately powerful imagina- 
tion, the question is always, between finishing one concep- 
tion, or partly seizing and suggesting three or four: and 
among all the great inventors, Botticelli is the only one who 
never allowed conception to interfere with completion. All 
the others, — Giotto, Masaccio, Luini, Tintoret, and Turner, 
permit themselves continually in slightness ; and the result- 
ing conditions of execution ought, I think, in every case to 
be received as the best possible, under the given conditions 
of imaginative force. To require that any one of these 
Days of Creation should have been liuished as Bellini or 
Carpaceio would have finished it, is simply to require that 
the other Days should not have been begun. 

Lastly, the mannerisms and errors of these pictures, what- 
ever may be their extent, are never affected or indolent. 
The work is natural to the painter, however strange to us ; 
and it is wrought with utmost conscience of care, however 
far, to his own or our desire, the result may yet be incom- 
plete. Scarcelv so much can be saiil for any other pictures 
of the modern schools : their eccentricities are almost always 
in some degree forced ; and their imperfections gratuitously, 
if not impertinently, indulged. For Mr. Whistler's own sake, 
no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts 
Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in 
which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly ap- 
proached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen, and 
heard, much of Cockney impudence before now ; but never 
expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for 
flinging a pot of paint in the public's face. 





74 FORS CLAVIQSRA. 

Among the minor works carefully and honourably finished 
in this gallery, M. Heilbuth's are far the best, but I think 
M. Tissot's require especial notice, because their dexterity 
and brilliancy are apt to make the spectator forget their 
conscientiousness. Most of them are, unhappily, mere col- 
oured photographs of vulgar society ; but the 'Strength of 
Will,' though sorely injured by the two subordinate figures, 
makes me think the painter capable, if he would obey his 
graver thoughts, of doing much that would, with real bene- 
fit, occupy the attention of that part of the French and Eng- 
lish public whose fancy is at present caught only by Gustav 
Dor& The rock landscape by Millais has also been carefully 
wrought, but with exaggeration of the ligneous look of the 
rocks. Its colour as a picture, and the sense it conveys of 
the real beauty of the scene, are both grievously weakened by 
the white sky ; already noticed as one of the characteristic 
errors of recent landscape. Hut the spectator may still gather 
from them some conception of what this great painter might 
have done, had he remained faithful to the principles of his 
school when he first led its onset. Time was, he could have 
painted every herb of the rock, and every wave of the stream, 
with the precision of Van-Eyck, and the lustre of Titian. 

And such animals as ha drew, — for perfectness and ease of 
action, and expression of whatever in them had part in the 
power or the peace of humanity ! He could have painted 
the red deer of the moor, and the lamb of the fold, as never 
man did yet in this world. You will never know what you 
have lost, in him. JJut landscape, and living creature, and 
the soul of man,— you are like to lose them all, soon. I had 
many things to say to you in this Fbrs ; — of the little lake of 
Thirlmere, and stream of St. John's Vale, which Manchester, 
in its zeal for art, is about to drain from their mountain-fields 
into its water-closets (make pictures of those, will you then, 
iny Manchester friends ?) ; so also for educational purposes, 
here in the fine West of London, the decent burghers place 
their middle-class girls' school at the end of Old Burlington 
Street, and put a brutal head, to make mouths at them, over 
its door. There, if you will think of it, you may see the com- 




FORS CLAYIGERA, 75 

plete issue of Sir Henry Cole's professorship at Kensington. 
This is the best your Modern Art can write — of divine in- 
scription over the strait gate — for its girl-youth ! But I 
have no more time, nor any words bitter enough, to speak 
rightly of the evil of these things ; a.nd here have Fors and 
St. Theodore been finding, for me, a little happy picture of 
sacred animal life, to end with for this time. It is from a 
lovely story of a country village and its good squire and 
gentle priest — told by one of my dear friends, and every 
word of it true, — in Jiui/'/'s Magazine for this month.* It is 
mostly concerning a Derby Favourite, and is a strait lesson 
in chivalry throughout ; — but this is St. Theodore's bit of it. 
The horse had been sent down to Doncaster to run for the 
St. Leger, and there went off his feed, and became restless 
and cheerless, — so that every one thought he had been 'got 
ftt.' One of the stable-boys, watching him, at last said, 
"He's a-looking for his kitten." The kitten was telegraphed 
for, and sent down, two hundred miles. " The moment it 
was taken out of its basket and saw the horse, it jumped on 
his back, ran over his head, and was in the manger in a mo- 
ment, and began patting his nose." And the horse took to 
Lis feed again, and was as well as ever — and won the race. 
* Magazine— or MUtdlany. I forget which. 



FOBS CLAVIOERA, 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



I. Affaire of the Company. 

I have obtained tin- kind consent of Mr. Ceorge Baker (at present the 
Mayor of Birmingham*, to acoept Trusteeship (or ns, such Trusteeship 
being always understood as not implying any general consent in the 
principles of the Company, but only favourable sympattrj in its main 
objects. Our second Trustee will be Mr. Q. Talbot, virtually the donor, 
together with his mother, who baa bo zealously helped us in all ways, 
of our little rook-estate at Banaonth. I am just going down to see the 
twenty acres which Mr, Baker has also given us in Worcestershire. It 
is woodland, of which I have ordered (be immediate clearing of about 
the fourth part; this is being done under Mr. Baker's kind snperin- 
tcndt -lieu : the cheque for £100 under date 5th May in the subjoined 
accounts is for this work. 

At last our legal position is, I think, also secure. Our solicitors have 
been instructed by Mr. Barber to apply to the Board of Trade for a 
licence under see. &l of the "Companies Act, 1807." The conditions of 
licence stated in that section appear to have been drawn up precisely 
for the convenience of the St. George's Company, and the terms of 
it are clearer than any I have yet been able to draw up myself, as 

" The income arid property of the Association, whenccsoever derived, 
shall be applied solely towur.is tilt- promotion of the objects of the 
Association as set forth in this memorandum of association; and no 
portion thereof shall be paid or transferred directly or indirectly, by 
way of dividend, or bonus, or otherwise howsoever by way of profit, to 
the persons who at any time are or have been members of the Associa- 
tion, or to any of them, or to nuy person claiming through any of them. 

"' Provided that nothing herein shall prevent the payment, in good 
faith, of remuneration to any officers or servants of the Association, or 
to any member of the Association, Or other person, in return for any 
services actually rendered to tbe Association." 

There will not. in tbe opinion of oar lawyers, he any difficulty in ob- 
taining the sanction of the Boiird of Trade under this Act ; but I remain 
myself prepared for the occurrence of new points of formal difficulty ; 
and must still and always pray the Companions to remember that tbe 
real strength of the Society is in its resolved and vital unity ; not in the 
limits of its external form. 



FOBS CLAYIQERA. 



77 



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FOIiS CLAVIOBBA. 79 

r into more particulars than I have apace for, to-day, re- 
g the position of some of our pMM> Ootapt-BJoM, l>efore explain- 

rf *ome of the smaller items <>f wnjes in i hi- subjoined account. The 
principal soma have been paid to Mr. Swai for the gradual furnishing 
of the Museum ; and to artists at Venice for drawings made for its art 
gallery. But for £100 of the £150 last paid to Mr. Murray, f have also 
secured, with his assistance, a picture of extreme value that has heen 
hitherto overlooked iu Ihe Manfriui gallery ; and clearly kept for us by 
Fors, aa the exactly right picture on the possession of which to found our 
Sheffield school of art. It is a Madonna by Verroechio, the master of 
Lionardo da Vinci, of Lorenzo di Credi, and of Perugino, and the grand* 
est metal -worker of Italy. 

And it is entirely pure and safe for us ; hut will need cure fullest se- 
curing of the tempera colour on its panel before it can be moved : it 
cannot, therefore, reach Sheffield till the autumn. The other works 
bought for the Museum will be there in the course of this month. 

II. I have received several kind letters from correspond en Is. under 
the impression of my having definitely nrmouuo'd the discontinuance 
of Fori at the close of the year, encouraging me still to proceed with it. 
But I never said that it was to be discontinued ;— only that it was to he 
completed at least into a well-ali'.trncleda.nd Indexed first aeries of seven 
volumes. I cannot tell from day to day what I shall be able or shall 
be ordered to do or write : Fors will herself show me, when the time 

In the meantime, I have to (hank my renders for the help given me 
by their assurance that the book is of use, in many ways which are little 
manifest to me. 



'• Bristol, lOf/i April, 1877. 

"Mothers indeed need Erst to understand and value their own chil- 
dren—strange as it seems to say so. Whether rich oi poor, they seem to 
have no notion of what they are, or could be,— nor, cerlaiuly, of what 
they could il'i. 

" Delighting milch in ail ynu sny jihoul jj Ine-s ol work, generally, 

I rejoice in it especially, looking to what might be done by chil- 
dren, and what irill, I trust, he dune by them wleii rightly tnughtund 
trained. 

" Thoae active energies which now so often show themselves in 
• naugh tineas.' and cause teachers such terrihle trouble, might be 
turned to account for the heat and highest purposes. Children are 
perfectly cupihle of excellent work, of mnny kinds,— and, as you say, 
of finding ' play ' in it,— perhaps all that they would need, (though I 
am not quite prepared to suy that). 




FOIiS CLA VH3 ERA. 

"Theyoould be made to understand the need of help, and cottld 
give very real help indeed, in wayH which I ahull be only too happy to 
suggest, and make, a beginning in, when a little les. lied than at pres- 
ent. The difficulty is not at all with children, hut with their parents, 
who never seem to think of, or care for, general need*, an in EUiy way 
■bating educational work — at least, in its progress. And meanwhile, 
for lack of such Lraiuing as can only come through the earnest follow- 
ing up "[ i worthy aim . tin- i .imvitiimiil \inri. its. -If sutlers miserably. 

"I find myself speaking of children and parents, rather than girli 
and mothers, — which may be partly accounted fur Irom the fact that 
both b' jys and girls come under us in village schools, such as I have bad 
most to do with. And this leads me also (following yonr direction! to 
suggest, first, that ' mammas ' should teach their little girls to oaf* for 
tluir ItunMrr brotheri unit tistem, — which they would naturally do if 
not warned against them, an is. I tear, the rule. There ore indeed 
obvious danger-, in such mni;ut as would seem right and natural ; but 
here, again, your Oxford Lectures givo sufficient direction— if it were 
but applied. J moan where you *|ienk of tlie danger of travelling on 
certain parts of the Continent).* Kindly intercourse, even if some' 
what imperfect and scanty, would soon lead in tin: discovery of ways 
of helping, besides the sympathy implied in it, for more valuable, if 
genuine, than the upper classes seem to have any idea of. Hut I am 
ante I am not saying too much when I repent that, no far from being 
encouraged to Care for ' poor ' children, girls arc studiously kept away 
from them, excepting for superficial kindnesses— mere gifts, etc. But 
many things might !«.■ given, too, with the gieiitest advantage to both 
parties, and at the smallest cost, if any, (pecuniary, at least.l to the 
giver. Arc you aware of the shameful waste that goes on. quite as a 
role, in the houses of those who leave domestic management largely to 
housekeepers and upper servants '! — and I fear that this is an increas- 
ing number. I have not entered far into this matter, bat I know quite 
enough to make me miserable whenever 1 think of it. If 'young 
ladies ' were instructed in the barest elements of ' domestic economy ' 
rightly under.-toud. tiny would soon lessen this evil, without being, nec- 
essarily, either very wise or very good. And if they were at all good 
and kind, they would at once think of ways of benefiting 'poor' people 
through their own economy. 

"But nothing will stand in the place of free personal intercourse, 
for the securing of the full blessing- ; and this is the very thing that 
mammas shrink from entirely, for both themselves and their 
daughters 

" P.S. — I had meant to apare you a further inlliction. but wish ranch 
to add a word about the true relations of young gentlefolks to servants 
as nearest to them of the humbler class. Even nice girls are in tho 
habit of behaving most un becomingly towards i hem. und speak of them 
in a way which shows they are entirely at sea as to thoir real position 
•and duty towards these " neighbours,' And yet their power for good 
might be very great indeed in this direction, if but known and used - 
for, as you know, genuine sympathy will win its way at once with so- 
called inferiors. But is it not so throughout * ' Middle class ' people 
will never be won as long aa there is such a barrier placed in their way 






L 



1 forget, nod dua't uniieretfiud. 



FOBS CLAYIGEBA. 



81 



of pride anil eiclnsivenesB.* The greater and truer bond see ms en- 
tirely sacrificed to the lesser distinction. See Oxford alone in evidence, 
which should teach in everything." 

" Batter Monday. 

" Education land t will dare to use the word in writing to yourselfl 
U no hopeless drudgery, but full of life iind brightness, if at all property 
underwood. Some few of those who have 10 do with children would 
be able to follow me thoH far. But even Ibese few do not seem to iee 
[he conneci it in there is between their work and the more general one— 
that which St. George is taking in hand. 

" Everybody agrees that the jieople are to be helped upwards by ' ed- 
ucation ' (whatever may be meant by the wordl, and we are supposed 
1 1 be doing something in England to forward that cause. We know too 
well that the work ia not being done, all the time— looking W element- 
ary schools, at least; but even supposing it were, it taken years for 
each child lo be taught and trained, and the need of help ia pressing. 
< 'liildren cannot lie educated in a short <-r i inn: than iliry tan grow up to be. 
men and women ; but meanwhile, even in a single year, teaching of the 
right sort would speak for itself us to general belli' ring. And its 
effects would extend at once in a way which - .ducat its ' have no idea 
of at present, simply because they do not 1tmlr.rstn.n1l their craft. I 
know less than I though! I did n few years ago, but hope that this 
humble-luokiug admission will gain credence for me when I say that— 
though groping along with the rest — I linve felt my way to facts 
enough to make me far more than hopeful about what may be done 
when free scope for right work is once scoured. 

" There is no need of extraordinary outlay, or even special ability in 
the teacher; all that is required is that the children should in h nulled 
wisely and kindly, nod turned to account at once as firtjur* in tite inrrk 
Willi themselves. 

'■ I really cannot feel happy in taking up your time with going into 
detail, at present, but am must thankful to* be allowed to hear witness 
in this matter — so entirely mi sonde rstood, as it seems to me Through 
neglect of the grand rule gi vcu in St. Matt vi. M,\ so entirely applica* 
hie to aims with children, we conic .-hnrtof success as regards the hum- 
blest attainments, the highest ' standard ' in which, as set by Govern- 
ment, eould be reached with the greatest ease, if any right way were 

IV. The following fragment of a letter I have been just writing to 
an old farmer-friend who is always lecturing tue mi the impnssiLililv 
of reclaiming land on a small scale, may be perhaps of use to some other 




,' liutiu ■jajla the Holj 




82 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

" You have never got it dearly into your head that the St. George's 
Company reclaims land, as it would build an hospital or erect a monu- 
ment, for the public good ; and no more asks whether its work is to 
* pay/ in reclaiming a rook into a field, than in quarrying one into a 
cathedral. " 

My friend tells me of some tremendous work with Bteam, in the 
Highlands, by the Duke of Sutherland, of which I must hear more be- 
fore I speak. 



FOBS CLAYIGERA, 



LETTER LXXX 

li i . i i.i :i 1 1: 1. 1 1. Birmingham, T >\D, July. 1877. 

I never yet sate down to write my Fore, or indeed to 
write any thing, in bo broken and puzzled a state of mind as 
that in which, this morning, I have been for the last ten 
minutes idly listening to the plash of the rain ; and wash- 
ing the workmen on the new Gothic school, which is Fust 
blocking out the once pretty country view from my window. 

I have been staying for two days with the good Mayor of 
Birmingham : and he has shown me St. George's land, his 
gift, in the midst of a sweet space of English hill and dale 
and orchard, yet unhurt by hand of man : and lie has brought 
a representative group of the best men of Birmingham to 
talk to me ; and they have been very kind to me, and have 
taught me much : and I feel just as I can fancy a poor 
Frenchman of seme gentleness and sagacity might have felt, 
in Nelson's time, — taken prisoner by his mortal enemies, 
and beginning to apprehend that there was indeed some hu- 
manity in Englishmen, and some providential and inscruta- 
ble reason for their existence. 

Vou may think it strange that a two days' visit should 
produce such an effect on me ; and say, (which indeed will 
be partlv true,) that I ought to have made this visit before 
now. But. all tilings considered, 1 believe it has been with 
exactness, timely ; and you will please remember that just 
in proportion to the quantity of work and thought we have 
spent on any subject, is the quantity we can farther learn 
about it in a little while, and the power with which new 
facts, or new light cast on those already known, will modify 
past conclusions. And when the facts are wholly trust- 
worthy, and the lights thrown precisely where one asks 
for them, a day's talk may sometimes do as much as a year'a 
work. 



. 



64 



FORS CLAVIQERA. 



The one great fact which I have been most clearly im- 
pressed by, here, is the right-mindedness of these men, so 
far as they see what tliey are doing. There is no equivoca- 
tion with their consciences,— no silencing of their thoughts 
in any wilful manner ; nor, under the conditions apparent to 
them, do I believe it possible for them to act more wisely or 
faithfully. That some conditions, non-apparent to them, 
may give unexpectedly harmful consequences to their action, 
is wholly the fault of others. 

Meantime, recovering myself as a good ship tries to do 
after she has been struck by a heavy sea, I must say to my 
Birmingham friends a few things which I could not, while 1 
was bent on listening and learning ; — could not, also, in 
courtesy, but after deliberation had : so that, in all our de- 
bate, I was under this disadvantage, that they could say to 
me, with full pleasure and frankness, all that was in their 
minds ; but 1 could not say, without much fear and pause, 
what was in mine. Of which unspoken regrets this is the 
quite initial and final one ; that all they showed me, and told 
me, of good, involved vet the main British modern idea that 
the master and his men should belong to two entirely dif- 
ferent classes ; perhaps loyally related to and assisting each 
other ; but yet, — the one,, on the whole, living in hardship— 
the other in ease ; — the one uncomfortable — the other in 
comfort ; — the one supported in its dishonourable condition 
by the hope of labouring- through it to the higher one,— 
the other honourably distinguished by their success, and 
rejoicing in their escape from a life which must neverthe- 
less be always (as they suppose,) led by a thousand to one * 
of the British people. Whereas St. George, whether in 
Agriculture, Architecture, or Manufacture, concerns himself 
only with the life of the workman, — refers all to that, — 
measures all by that, — holds the Master, Lord, and King, 

* I do not use this an a rhetorical expression. Take the lower shop- 
keepers with the operatives, and add the great army of the merely help- 
less and miserable ; ami 1 lielieve "a thousand to one'' of the disgraced 
nnd unhappy poor to the honoured rich will be found a quite temper 
utely expressed proportion. 





FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



85 



inly as an instrument for the ordering of that ; requires of 
Master, Lord, and King, the entire sharing and understand- 
of tin.- hardship of that, — and his fellowship with it as 
only foundation of his authority over it. 
But we have been in it, some of us, — and know it, and 

have, by our patience ' 

' Won your escape from it.' I am rude — but I know what 
you would say. Does then the Physician — the Artist — the 
Soldier — the good Priest — labour only for escape from his 
profession? Is not this manufacturing toil, as compared 
with all these, a despised one, and a miserable, — by the con- 
fession of all your efforts, and the proclamation of all your 
iu yet go on, if it may be, to fill England, 
vith this unhappy race, out of which you 

?, artists, or soldiers. How 



:nded all but c 
hese dark str< 



. think 



; and the 



I the rest, to go forth alone into the 
is thinking, and ri 



Hut wo cannot all be physic! 
we to live ?' 
Assuredly not in liiultitudin 
the Maker of the world in 
nand of His creatures to live in 
one, triumphant ov> 
green fields ? 

This was what I v 

.11 the while my good host was driving me by Shenstone's 
home, the Leasowes, into the vale of Severn ; and telling me 
how happily far away St George's ground was, from all that 
present England's life, and — pretended — glory. Aa 
le hill a little farther towards Bewdley, 
r ' Beaulieu,' I find ; — J-bra undertakes for 
pretty names to us, it seems, — Abbey-dale, Beau-lieu, and 
I remember, or translate, rightly, the House by the Foun- 
tain — our three Saxon, Norman, and Celtic beginnings of 
abode,) my host asked me if I would like to see 'nailing.' 
"Yes, truly." So he took me into a little cottage where 
were two women at work, — one about seventeen or eigh- 
teen, the other perhaps four or five and thirty ; this last 
intelligent of feature as well coutd be ; and both, gentle 
and kind, — each with hammer in right hand, pincers in left, 



ing, all tin 
home, the 
how happi 
is our pre 
we drove 
(Worceste 
pretty ns: 
if I remer 
tain — our 







86 FOES i'LAVlGERA. 

(heavier hammer poised over her anvil, and let fall at need 
bv the touch of her foot on a treadle like that of a c 
grindstone). Between them, a small forge, fed to ( 
brightness bj the draught through thu cottage, above whose 
roof its chimney rose : — in front of it, on a little ledge, the 
glowing lengths of cut iron rod, to be dealt with at speed. 
Within easy reach of this, looking up at us in quietly silent 
question, — stood, each in my sight an ominous Fora, the two 
Olavigeife. 

At a word, they laboured, with ancient Vulcanian skill. 
Foot and hand in perfect time : no dance of Muses on Par- 
nassian mead in truer measure ; — no sea fairies upon yellow 
sands more featly footed. Four strokes with the hammer 
in the hand : one ponderous and momentary blow ordered 
of the balanced mass by the touch of the foot ; and the 
forged nail fell aside, finished, on its proper heap ; — level- 
headed, wedge-pointed,* a thousand lives soon to depend 
daily on its driven grip of the iron way. 

So wrought they, — the English Matron and Maid ; — so 
was it their darg to labour from morning to evening, — seven 
to seven, — by the furnace side, — the winds of summer fan- 
ning the blast of it. The wages of the Matron Fors, I found, 
were eight shillings a week ;f — her husband, otherwise and 
variously employed, could make sixteen. Three shillings a 
week for rent and taxes, left, as I count, for the guerdon of 
their united labour, if constant, and its product providently 
saved, fifty-five pounds a. year, on which they had to feed 
and clothe themselves and their six children ; eight souls in 
their little Worcestershire ark. 

Nevertheless, I hear of all my friends pitying the distress 
I propose to reduce myself to, in living, all alone, upon three 

* Flattened on two sides, I mean : they were nails for fastening the 
railroad metals to the sleepers, and made out of three-inch (or there- 
abouts) lengths of iron rod. wiii-ch I was surprised and pleased to find, 
in spite of ul! our fine machines, the women still preferred to out by 

\ for four days' work, the price of a lawyer's 



f Sixteen-penee a day. i 
letter Compare For* LXIV,, V . 172. 






FOBS CLAVIOERA. 87 

hundred and sixty, arid doing nothing for it but contemplate 
the beauties of nature; while these two poor women, with 
ntlier neb, pay what portion of their three shillings a week 
goes to provide me with my annual dividend. 

Yet it was not chiefly their labour in which I pitied them, 
but rather in that their forge-dress did not well set off their 
English beauty ; nay, that the beauty itself was marred by 
the labour ; so that to most persons, who could not have 
looked through such veil and shadow, they were as their 
Master, and had no form nor comeliness. And all the while, 
as I watched them, I was thinking of two other English- 
women, of about the same relative ages, with whom, in 
planning last Fori, I had been standing a little while before 
Edward iiurne Jones's picture of Venus's Mirror, and mourn- 
ing in my heart for its dullness, that it, with all its Forget- 
me-nots, would not forget the images it bore, and take the 
fairer and nobler reflection of their instant life. Were these 
then, here, — their sisters ; who had only, for Venus's mirror, 
a heap of ashes ; compassed about with no Forget-me-nots, 
but with the Korgetfulness of all the world? 

I said just now that the evil to which the activities of my 
Birmingham friends tended was in nowise their own fault. 

Shall I say now whose fault it is? 

I am blamed by my prudent acquaintances for being too 
personal ; but truly, I find vaguely objurgatory language 
generally a mere form of what Plato calls ir«ua/xa^ui, or 
shadow-fight : and that unless one can plainly say, Thou 
art the man, (or woman, which is more probable,) one might 
as well say nothing at nil. So I will frankly tell, without 
wandering into wider circles, among my own particular 
friends, whose fault it. is. First, those two lovely ladies who 
were studying the Myosotis palustris with me ; — yes, and bv 
the way, a little beauty from Cheshire who came in after- 
wards ; — and then, that charming — {I didn't say she was 
charming, but she was, and is) — lady whom I had charge of 
at Furness Abbey, (Fo-ra XI., p. 143 3 ) and her two daughters ; 
and those three beautiful girls who tormented me so on the 
23rd of May, 1875, (For* I. IV., p. 489,) and another one 




SS FOBS CLAVIOEBA. 

who greatly disturbed my mind at cliurcli, only a Sunday or 
two ago, with the sweetest little white straw bonnet 1 had 
ever seen, only letting a lock or two escape of the curliest 
hair, — so that I was fain to make her a present of a Prayer- 
book afterwards, advising her that her tiny ivory one was 
too coquettish, — and my own pet cousin ; and — I might 
name more, but leave their accusation to their consciences. 

These, and the like of them, (not that there are very many 
their like,) are the very head and front of mischief; — first, 
because, as I told them in Queen's Gardens — ages ago, they 
have it Ed their power to do whatever they like with men 
and things, and yet do so little with either ; and secondly, 
because by very reason of their beauty and virtue, they have 
become the excuse for all the iniquity of our days : it seems 
so impossible that the social order which produces such 
creatures should be a wrong one.* Read, for instance, this 
letter concerning them from a man both wise and good, — 
(though thus deceived !) sent me in comment on Fort for 
April, 1876, referring especially to vol, iii., pp. 171, 172 : — 

"My dear Buskin, — Thank you for Fort, which I have 
read eagerly, but without being quite able to make out what 
you are at. You are hard on Mr. Kehle and the poor lady 
who 'dresses herself ami her children becomingly.' If ever 
your genuine brickmaker gets hold of her and her little ones 
— as he very likely may some day, — he will surely tear them 
to pieces, and say that lie has your authority for thinking 
that he is doing God a service. Poor lady ! — and yet dress- 
ing becomingly and looking pleasant are a deal harder, and 
better worth doing, than brickmaking. You make no allow- 
b for the many little labours and trials (the harder to do 
and bear, perhaps, because they are so little), which she 
t with, and have to perform in that 'trivial round' 
jr and dressing. As it is, she is at least no worse 
than a flower of the field. But what prigs would she and 
her husband become if they did actually lake to dilettante 

* ' Would you have us less fair and pure then ? ' No ; but I would 
have you resolve that your beauty should uo more be bought with the 
disgrace of others, aor your safety with their temptation. Bead again 

ft»xLv,,p, aoe. 







F0H8 CLAVIGERA. 89 

(t.e., non-compulsory) brickmaking ! In their own way, 
almost all 'rich' people, as well as the so.called 'poor' — 
who, man, woman, and child, pay £5 each per annum in 
taxes on intoxicating drinks — tlo eat their bread in the sweat 
of their faces : for the word you quote ' is very broad,' and 
more kinds of bread than one, and more sorts of sweat than 
one, are meant therein." 

A letter this which, every time I read it, overwhelms me 
with deeper amazement : but I had rather, if it may be, hear 
from some of my fair friends what they think of it, before I 
farther tell them thoughts of mine ; only, lest they should 
hold anything I have in this Fors said, or am, in the next, 
likely to say, disloyal to their queenship, or their order, here 
are two more little pieces of Plato, expressing his eternal 
fidelity to Conservatism, which, like the words of Ins in last 
Fbrs, I again pray to be permitted, reverently, to take also 
for mine. 

" For at that time " (of the battle of Marathon, Mr. Lowe 
may perhaps be interested in observing,) "there was an 
ancient polity among us, and ancient dirimoim of rank, 
founded on. pos»e»sion ; and the queen* over us all was a 
noble shame, for cause of which we chose to live in bondage 
to the existing laws. By whieh shame, as often before now 
said, all men who are ever to be brave and good must be 
bound ; but the base and cowardly are free from it, and 
have no fear of it. 



"And these laws which we have now told through, are 
what most men call unwritten laws : and what besides they 
call laws of the Fatherland, are but the sum and complete 
force of these. Of which we have said justly that we must 
neither call them laws, nor yet leave them unspoken, — 
for these He in the very heart of all that has been written, 
and that is written now, or can be written for evermore : 
being simply and t|iiestionlessly father-laws from the begin- 




' Dcspotiu,' tbe feminine of Deapot. 



90 



FOItS CLAVIOEIIA. 



mug, which, once well founded and practised, encompass * 
with eternal security whatever folio wing- laws are estab- 
lished within these ; but if once the limits of these be over- 
passed,! and their melody broken, it is as when the secretest 
foundations of a building- fail, and all that lias been built (in 
them, however beautiful, collapses together, — stone ruining 

The unwritten and constant Law of which Plato is here 
speaking, is that which my readers will now find enough 
defined for them in the preface to the second volume of 



Bibliotheca Paslorttm, p. xsvi. 

Law of Life, in the perce-ption i 
which, all the life of States for 



being 



Guardian 



! which, and obedie 



rill i 



tipare the 



; tin 



page, respecting the more gross violati 
Adultery and Usury, with the farther not 
17, and then, read, connectedly, the 14l 
in Sidney's translation, J he will begin 
mingled weariness and indignation with which I 
receive letters in defence of Usury, from men wl 



And if now 
bottom of that 
of such law by 
. Usury in page 
id 15th Psalms 
inderstand the 



to 

I quite 



* More strictly, 'cover,' or 'hide' with security ; a lovely word — 
having in it almost tbe fulness of the verse, — '' in the secret of the 
tabernacle shall he hide ine." Compare the beginning of 1'art 1 1 L of 
«. Mark 1 * Hat. 

f The apparent confusion of thought between ' enclosing ' and ' sup- 
porting' is entirely accurate in this metaphor. The foundation of a 
great building is always wider than the superstructure ; and if it is on 
loose ground, tbe outer atones must grasp it like a chain. embediW 
themselves in the earth, motionlesaly. The embedded cannon-balls at 
the foundation of any of the heap* at Woolwich will show you what 
Plato means by these Earth, or Fatherland, laws ; you may compare 
them with tho first tiers of the Pyramids, if you can refer tc a section 
of these, 

\ Hrirt- /fi'in //■■■■ '.;ii (.-osi me nut] "iy printers' best reader more than 
Usual pains to get into form ; some errata have, nevertheless, es- 
caped us both; of which 'fodly' for 'fall.'in line 1 14, as spoiling a 
pretty stania, and ' 100 ' for ' 16(1/ in page 82, as causing some incon- 
venience, had better be at once corrected. It is also tbe hundred and 
firit, not the fifty-first psalm whose rhythm is analysed at page iliii. 
of the Preface. 







FOBS CLAYIQBRA. 91 

scholars enough to ascertain the facts of Heaven's Law ami 
Revelation for themselves, but will not, — partly in self-de- 

smug conceit, and shallow notion that they can discern in 
ten minutes objections enough to confound statements of 
mine that are founded on the labour of as many years. 

The portion of a letter from a. clergyman to Mr. Sillar, 
which I have printed for the third article of our Correspond- 
ence, deserves a moment's more attention than other such 
forms of the 'Dixit Insipidus,' because it expresses with pre- 
cision the dullest of all excuses for usury, that some kind of 
good is done by the usurer. 

Nobody denies the good done ; but the principle of 
liighteous dealing is, that if the good costs you nothing, yon 
must not be paid for doing it. Your friend passes your 
door on an unexpectedly wet day, unprovided for the occa- 
sion. You have the choice of three benevolences to him, — 
lending him your umbrella, — lending him eighteenpence to 
pay for a cab, — or letting him stay in your parloi 
rain is over. If you charge him interest on the 
it is profit on capital — if you charge him 
eighteenpence, it is ordinary usury — if yo 
terest on the parlour, it is rent. All three 
bidden by Christian law, being actually wor 
plausible and hypocritical sins, than if yoi 
refused your friend shelter, umbrella, a 



nterest on the 

are equally for- 

at once plainly 
 pence. You feel 
self to be a brute, in the one case, and may some day re- 
pent into grace ; in the other you imagine yourself an honest 
and amiable person, rewarded by Heaven for your charity : 
and the whole frame of society becomes rotten to its core. 
Only be clear about what is finally right, whether you can 
do it or not ; and every day you will be more and more able 
to do it if you try. 

For the rest, touching the minor distinctions of less and 
greater evil in such matters, you will find some farther dis- 
course in the fourth article of our Correspondence: and 
promises, past or future, with the practices 
demu, in receiving interest, whether on St. George's 




92 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

part or my own, I hold my former answer consistently suffi- 
cient, that if any of my readers will first follow me in all that 
I have done, I will undertake in full thereafter to satisfy 
their curiosity as to my reasons for doing no more* 



F0R8 CLAVIGEJtA. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



. Affairs of the Company. 
The first of the formal points of diflicul ty which, last month, I said I 



□cl a tii re. Since 
' Company,' but only 



should be prepared to meet, turns 

we take no dividend, we onnuot be registered as a 

a ' Society' — ' Institute'—' Chamber,' or the like. 

I accept this legal difficulty as one appointed by Fora herself; mn! 
submit to the measures necessitated by it even with satisfaction ; hav- 
ing for some time felt that the title of ' Company ' was becoming every 
day more and more ilis^r.iicful, auJ couM not much longer be attached 
to any association of honourable Englishmen. 

Fur instance, here is a little notification which has just been sent 
me.— charmingly printed, with old English letters at the top of the 
page, as follows : — respecting which I beg Mr. Ashley, being a friend 
whom I con venture a word to, to observe, that if he would take a 
leaf out of Fora's hooks, and inHist no all accounts being made public 
monthly, he would find in future that tin' mi-iriiiii^cnienl cyiiiit 1 .■ - 
'arrested,' instead of the mismanage^ which would be pleasanter for 



fimileu. 

INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE, 



Offices— 37. Great George Street, 
Westminster. S.W., 

July it/i, 1877. 
My Lordb, Ladies, and Gentlemen, 

We are desired by the Committee to address yon briefly at the 
present stage with respect to the nsped uf (lie Company's affairs. 

' idy made have proved the importance of the in- 
«j— U|[1l ini I and led to the arrest of the Company s Manager. 
Although waste, extravagance, and possibly fraud, have been disco*- 







94 FORS CLAVIOERA. 

ered, the Committee would advise the Shareholders not to sacrifice 
their Shares under the influence uf groundless pule, as there is good 
reason to believe that the ptouetty b 0* such intrinsic value that it may 
yet be placed upon a solid and satisfactory footing. 
We are, &o.. 

EVELYN A. ASHLEY, 



Now, as I never mean any of the members of St. George's 'Com* 
pany ' (so called at present) to be put to such exercise of tbeii- faith 
BU]>Mtin( iIj« intrinsic value of their property as the Committee of 
the General Dwellings Company here recommend, 1 am of opinion 
that the sooner we quit ourselves of this much dishonoured title the 
better; and I have written to our solicitors thnt they may register ns 
under the title of St. George's Guild : and that the members of the 
Guild shall be called St George's Guililsmen and Guilds wo men. 

I have a farther and more important reason for making this change. 
I have tried my method of Companionship fur six years and a half, 
and find that the demand "f the tenth part of the income is a prac- 
tical veto on the entrance of riot parson* through the needle's eye of oar 
Constitmion. Among whom, nevertheless. I believe 1 may find some 
serviceable lluildsmeu nod l_iuililsivtnnen, of whom no more will be re- 
quired than such nuidiudi-iy creditable subscription as the hitherto 
unbeard-of affluence described by Professor Goldwiu Smith may en- 
able them to spare ; while I retain my old ' Companions ' as a superior 
order, among whom from time to time I mny peril u[ s en toll some ab- 
surdly enthusiastic Zaccheus or Mary,— who. though undistinguished in 
the eye of the law from the members of cor gmenii Guild, will be rec- 
ognized by St. (itnrge for the vital strength of the whole Society. 

The subjoined :iu mints will, I hope, lie satisfactory : but I am too 
practically busy in pushing forward the arrangement of oui Museum, 
and co-uperalivo work. tit Sheffield, to spore time, this motitli, forgiv- 
ing any statement about them. 

Please note with respect to Mr. liagshawc'H subjoined account for 
the cheque of Juno 5th (see la.-t /'Wm, that the amount of stock sold 
to produce the £270,) out of which this cheque was paid, was CBSSI 



"3, High Sthki-.t, Siikkkili i>, tifh June, 18*7. 

" My dear Sir, — Yourself from Badger. 

" This purchase hue. been long delayed in completion for various rea- 
sons, the lust bring home little delay in remitting the cheque for the 
purchase-nnmey and vaiiiatinu. which 1 received only on Tuesday last. 
However, I have paid over 1 lie purchase- money ami amount of valna. 
tion this morning, and the cuiivevauce t/> yourself lias been executed by 
Mrs. Badger and her husband, aud is in my possesion. The title deeds 



F0R8 CLAVIGKRA. 9o 

relate to other property as well as to that purchased by you, and there- 
fore the vendor return* I hem. mid has en lered in to 11 covenant to pro- 
duce them Id the usual form. The certificate of Mrc Badgers ac- 
knowledgment of [he ton v<*yaiJue 1" fere eomniisBiouera has to be filed, 
and upon receiving an olllcc copy of it to attach to the conveyance, the 
latter shall he forwarded to Messrs. Tarrant ifc Co., aa yon requested, 
together with the deeds of tho property lately purchased from Mr. 
Wright, at Walkley, which are atill in my safe. 

" On tbe other side I givo a short cash statement, of the t 
for your guidance. 



"Professor Rctskin." 

£ >. a. 

To amount of cheque received, 5th June, 1877, from Mr. 
Cowper Temple, signed by himself and Sir T. D. Ac- 
laud 2287 16 a 

By purciia-e-inouev of Mirk ley prop-rty paid 

OTer to Mrs. Badger, Nth June. 1S?7. . . . .£2300 

By amount of valuation Tor tillage and fix- 
tures 74 6 

By Btninpti, law stationers' charges, and rail- 
way fare to Totley, on my attending- to 
take possession of the property on your 
behalf 13 11 4 

Bv balance remitted to vou by cheque here- 
with IB 8 

£3887 16 8 

II. Affairs of the Master. 

I am being very much tormented just now by my friends; and to 
make them understand how, I will print u short letter from one of the 
least wise nmmy them, by which I think the rest may perceive, beyond 
the possibility of mistake, what measure of absurdity may be more or 
leu involved in their own tientineut of roe, 

" Dear Mr. RuskitJ,— You have never answered my latter letters, bo 
I suppose you are inexorably angry with me for something or other. 
Nevertheless I should like to see you, and show you my own pretty 
little girl Won't yon see me just five minutes? 

•'Yours ever truly." 

Now this letter exhibit* in the Amplest possihte form the error which 
I find most of my friend- at present falling into ; namely, thinking Unit. 
they show their regard for me by risking me for sympathy, instead of 
giving it. They are sincere enough in the regard itself, but are always 
asking me to do what, in consequence of it. they should like them- 
selves, instead of considering whnt tiny can do, which / should like. 
Which briefly, for the moat part at present, is to keep cut of my way. 



I 



96 



F0R8 CLAVIGERA. 



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I 



FORH CLAVTGERA. 



97 



■ad let me alone. I am never angry with anybody unless they deserve 
it; and least of all angry with my friends :— but I simply at present 
can't answer their letters, having, I find, nine books in the press, be- 
sides various other business : and much as I delight in pretty little 
girls, I only like seeing them like Oltmdj ot flowers, as they chance to 
come, and not when I have to compliment their mothers upon them. 
Moreover, I don't much value any of my general range of friends now, 
but those who will help rae in what my heart is set on: so that, ex- 
cepting always the old and tried ones, Henry .-Vrriar.il. ami George Ilich- 
mond, and John Simon, ami Charles Norton, mid William Kingsloy, and 
Rawdoa Brown, and Osborne Gordon, and ISurue Jones, and Grannie' 
ond 'Mainline .' uml Mis- Inflow, ivii.li [heir respective belongings of 
family circle ; and my pets — who all kuow well enough how much I 
depend on them; and one or two newly made ones besides, but who 
can only yet be a* platan* or dreams to me, — with such, I hope enough 
comprehensive exception,— I don't care any more about my friends, un- 
less they are doing their best to help my work ; which, I repeat, if they 
can't, let them at least not hinder; but keep themselves ipiiut, and not 
be troublesome. 

III. The following letter, expressing a modem clergyman's sense of 
his privileges in being "a Gentile, mid 110 Jew," in that so long as he 
abstains from things strangled, and from fornication, he may fatten at 
his ease on rhe manna of Usury, — 1 cannot but rejoice in preserving, as 
an elect stone, and precious, in the monumental theology <>( the Nine- 
teenth Century: — 

" Dear Mr. Sillar. — Thanks for calling- my notice again to ihe Jewish 
law against usury. When we last talked and mote about this subject, 
I told you the Hebrew word for usury means biting, and our own word 
HM1 commonly means uitbui-ful profit. 

" But our conversation thin morning has led to this thought, 'I am a 
Gentile, and not a Jew.' And Gentile Christians are living under the 
rules laid down with respect to the peculiar laws of Judaism in Acts 
xv., where there is no mention made of the .Jewish usury law, I refer 
you to verses 10, 26, and 20. This, to my mind, quite settles the 
matter. 

" You want me to preach against hanker 
interest I'pon my cousci.-iice, I cannot pn 
of their fellow-men. 

" Let me give you a cose in point. 1 have myself received great 
benefit from lenders of mnney at interest. A year or two ago I bought 
a new block of chambers near the new Law Courts. 1 gladly borrowed 
£8.000 to help me to pay for them. Without that ass^tuuue I could 
not have made the porchase, which is » very advantageous one to me 
already ; and will he much more so when the Law Courts ar« completed. 

'• How can the trustees of the settlement under which the money 
■u r>ut out, or the person who ultimately receive, the interest, be con- 
1 in the day of judgment, according to your theory r 
Vol. IV— 7 



ach against the beuefactors 




I 



FORS CLAVIOERA. 



"They have not wronged, nor oppraaMd, nor bit ma; bntbsve really 
conferred a great ht-nefit upon me. Ami I hope 1 am not to be con- 
demned for paying them a reasonable interest, which I very willingly 
du. •• Yours very aiocerely. *' 

IV. Though somewhat intimately connected with the ' affaire of tit 
Master,' the following letters art' to important in their relation to the 
subject of usury in general, thai I think it well to arrange them in a 
se] i [i rate article. 

I received, about three months ngo, in Venice, a well-considered and 
well-writt' n letter, asking me how, if I felt it wrong to remain any 
longer a holder of Bank slock.. I yet could consent to hold Consols, and 
take interest on those, whioh was surely no less unify than the accept- 
ance of ray Hank dividend. To this letter 1 replied lis follows, begging 
my correspondent to copy the letter, that it might be inserted in 
Fori:— 

"My dear Sir. — I tin much pleased by your intelligent question, 
which you woo Id have s,-. : ii at any rah: nuswei.-il at length, as soon as I 
got oat of Venice, where I must keep my lime for Venetian work- 
also 1 did not wi*h to confuse my statement of facia with theoretical 
priuoiplca. 

"All interest is usury; hut there is a vital difference between exact- 
ing the interest of an already contracted debt, mid taking part in a 
busiu ess which consist* in enabling new ones to be contracted. Asa 
banker, I dcrangi- and corrupt, the entire system of the commerce of 
the country; but as a stock -holder 1 merely buy the right to tax it 
annually — which, under present circumstances, 1 inn entirely content 
to do, jnat as. if 1 were a born Highlander, I should contentedly levy 
black-mail, as long a-i there was no other way for Highlanders to live, 
unless 1 thought that my death would put an end lo the system;— 
always admit tin- myself a thief, but an outspoken, wholesome, or brave 
thief;" so also, as n .stock -hciMer. Iain an outspoken and wholesome 
usurer ;— as a soldier is an outspoken and wlml.somc murderer. Sup- 
pose I had been living as a hired bravo, stabbing for hire, and had 
written. — ' I must quit myself of thin murderous husiuc-s. — I shall go 
into the army.'— you might nsk me. What. — are you not still paid an 
annual income, to kill anv body Ml Disraeli orders you to? ' Yes," 1 
should answer; -but n-'ir outspokenly, and, as I think soldiering is 
managed, without demoralizing the uai me of oilier people. But, as a 
bravo, I demoralized both myself and the people I served.' 

"It is quite true that raj pkrtut 'to quit myself of usury and the 
Bank of En^la-jd.' implied t J i  t ( stock interest, was not usury at all. 
But I could not modify the sentence intelligibly, and left it for after 
explanation, 

"All national debts, you must have seen in Fori abused enough. 
Hut the debt existing, and on such terms, the value of al! money pay- 
ments depend- mi it, in ways whioh 1 cannot explain to you by letter, 
but will oh Fbrt goes on. 

" Very truly yours." 

L« Uomjuj* #*»*, LMterXLV., p. %4, ..ml nolo. 



FORS CLAYIGERA. 

To this letter I received last month the following reply:— 

'" Mj dear Sir, — I am very grateful to you for jour 
candid letter in reply to mine ot the 1 1th ok. It is with pleasure that 
I have made, ill accordance with your request, the copy of it enclosed 

" May I again trespass on your kiiidnesn and ask you still further to 
meet the difficulties into which your touching on usury linn plungid rae, 

" If a national debt be wrong on principle, is it right of you to en- 
courage its prolongation by lending the country money * Or is the 
fact of it" he in g ' already contracted ' a siifiVicut miMiu for your tax- 
ing the [wople annually, and thereby receiving- money without working 
for it? 

"Again, in the case of the Highlander quite analogous f You hare 
another • way to live  apart from taking: any ' intercut ' or ' nsury ' ; 
and should you not, to be quite consistent with your teaching, rather 
live on your principal as long as it lasts 1 {For* LXX-. pp. 30T-8.) 
You speak of yourself as ' uu oiitsp.kcn mid wholesome u-urer ' ; — if I 
read aright, you taught in Fori LXYUI. pp. 2G7-68, that the law 
enunciated in Leviticus nv. 3.i — 87, ' ia the simple law for all of us— 
one nf those which Christ. Maaredly came not to destroy hut to fulfil.' 
If 'oil Interest is usury.' is not the nooeptnncc of it — even when derived 
from t'onaols— contrary to the law of Christ, and therefore sinful f 
Can there be auy " wholesome ' sin, however outspoken f 

" Pardon my thus trespassing on your time, and l*lieve me, 

"Gratefully and faithfully youra." 

The questions put by my correspondent iu this second letter have all 
been answered in For* already, (hail he re.nl carefully . i and that several 
times over ; hut lest he should think such answer evasive, I will go over 
the ground once more with him. 

Firat. iu reply to hia general question,  Can there he any wholesome 
sin*' No; but the violation of a general law is not always sin. 'Thou 
■halt not kill ' is a general law. But Phinehas ia blessed for slaying, 
and Saul rejected for sparing. 

Secondly, Of acts which under certadn conditions would be sin, 
there is every degree of wholesomeuess rtnd nun hole-oineness, accord- 
ing to the absence or pro.cn )f those eiuiditions. For the most part, 

open aiu jswholesomer than secret; yet some iniquity is fouler for being 
drawn with cordi of vanity, and some blasphemy baser for being de- 
liberate and insolent, like that of our modern men of science. So 
ag:iin. all sin that is frsudfu! is viler than that which is violent; but 
the venal fraud of Dalilah is not to he conf used with the heroic treachery 
of Judith. So. again, all robbery is Bin, but the frank pillage of Franca 
by the Germans is not to l»- degraded into any pamllel with the vampire 
lotteries of the modern Italian Government. So. again, all rent is 
usury, bnt it may often be wise and right to receive rent for a field,— 
never, to receive it for a gambling table. And for application to St. 
Goorge'i business, finally, — so long as oar National debt exists, it n 







100 FORS CLAVIQKRA. 

well that the good Saint -lion Id buy as much stock of it as he iron ; and 
far better (but he sboulil take tbe interest already agreed (or, and spend 
it in ways helpful to the nation, than at once remit it, so as to give 
more encouragement to the contraction of debt. 



" Last Sunday morning my father and brothers went to the funeral 
of an old workman who ba^ been in my father's service for forty years. 
The story of his life is rather an unusual one in these days. The out 
side of his life, an 1 know it, is just this. lie was a boy iu tbe works to 

which my father was uppreul iced to learn . : mid when my father 

bought , Tom went with him, and had ijeen foreman for many 

y earn when In- died, lie .-.pen I Lis wlmli' lif.i in luiuext. faithful labour, 
chiefly, it seems to me, for other [leople's beueht. but certainly to bis. 
own entire satisfaction. When mj brothers grew up and went into the 
business, 1. 1 1 - - 1 often complained, half in joke, that Tom considered him- 
self of much more importance there than they; and even after they 
were made partners, he would Insist upon doing things his way, and in 
bis own time. His only Interest was their interest; and they knew 
that, in spite nl his occasional stubbornness, they COOM Kb without 
lieniL'ii inn on his nlisoluti 1 faith ft] In.'" to them. They say, ' fine of the 
old sort, whom we can never replace.' 

" Bat tbe leisure side of Tom's life is to mo grievous, — so pleasure- 
less, narrow, dull. He came from Wales, and has lived ever since in the 

street where the is, — a dirty, wretched, close street in one of the 

worst neighbourhoods in — — , peopled by the lowest class, — a street 
where he can never have seen one green leaf in spring or Mower in sum- 
mer, where the air is poisoned with bad smells, and the very sunlight 
only shines on ugliness, filth, and poverty. And here Tom lived— not 
even taking a country walk, or going to breath fresher air in the wider 
streets. He was once offered a ticket for an entertainment of some 

sort at Hall, only a it-.w minutes' walk from the -, and was not 

sure of the way then- ! He never went away hut once, to the funeral of 
a, relative in Wales ; ami mux', twenty -four years ago, to take charge of 
a house out of town for in y father, and then of cour.«e came to his work 
every day. He was never known to be drunk, and never away from 
work for a day's illness in his life — until the very end. Tom was a 
great reader and politician. I believe, and in reading found bts sole 
recreation from the monotony of daily toil. Ought one to pity n 
the man who was content (apparently) with such a poor, bare life, un- 
conscious of the pleasures lliiii lay outride it, waiting to be enjoyed, or 
theerowilsoln-.il.-", di-j.-eiin hi.d people who raniMe yearly all over 
the world, in vain search for new excitements, 'change of air' and 
scene ? " llJnes my correal miident really doubt ?l 

"Tom's illness seemed to become alarming all at onoe. His wife 
could not persuade him to -tny mini from work until tbe last few days, 
and he would not take a r--ul holiday 11 v lather wanted him to go to 
Wales, and try his native air. hut Tom said it would kill him. The only 
indulgence he would lake, when i|Uite nimble to work, was a rule in the 
amnihxitex once i-r Itii-i with his wife, anil a sail across the rii 
it was too late, and he died after a very short illness, almost ii 



FORK CL±tt$ASA Mlb 

His wife's word* to my brother are very touching ! ' T ran away with 
him, mid my friends were very angry, but I've never regretted it. It'a 
thirty-nine years ago, bnt my heart has never obangtd to him. He 
was very kind to me always ; be couldn't have been kinder if he had 
been a gentleman ! ' I suppose she thinks gentlemen are always kind to 
their wives. 

" Foot Tom ! I wonder if he has had said to him, ' Well done, good 
and faith I ul servant ! ' But I can't help wi piling his life had not been 
so colourless ami pleasureless here. 1 do uot like to tliink that a 
steady, honest. iiidiistriniis working man should either lie obliged, or 
should ever be content, to live like a machine, letting the bent, faculties 
of a man for enjoyment and improvement " ll should have been very 
much pufcilwJ to • improve ' Tom, my dear, if you luid sent him to mu 
with that viewi " be ignored ; and die knowing nothing of the infinite 
loveliness of God's world, though he may know much of the beauty of 
faithful ooss, and the blessedness of honest work. It seems such a 
needles* sacrifice and waste; for surely these conditions of life are 
needless, or else our civilization ami Christianity are utter failures." 

Possibly not quite, my dear, — in so far as they have produced Tom, 
to begin with; and are even beginning to make you yourself per- 
ceive the value of that ' production.' 

VI. The following letter, from another Companion, says, in more 
gentle terms, nearly all I wish to say, myself, concerning church ser- 
vice in modem days ; — 

" My dear Master,— I want to tell you, if you've no objection, how 
tiresome, and like a dull pantomime, Christmas grows to me — in its 
religious sense. The Bethlehem story is revived, with music and pict- 
uring, simply to mock and cheat one s heart, 1 think , for people can't 
live for ever on other people's visions and messages. If we want to 
■ee fine things, and bear high and gracious ones, such as the shepherds 
did, we must live under the same conditions. We, loo, mutt have the 
simple, healthy lives, — the fields near, the skies pure, — and then we 
■hall understand, for ourselves, nativity mysteries, belonging to our 
own immediate time, directly sent from heaven. But it would he 
troublesome to give us those things, while it is profitable to get up a 
mimic scene of past glories. Well, 1 cannot care for it. and so instead 
of going painfully to Bethlehem, I come to Venice— or wherever the 
master is ; for you would uot cheat nor mock, but give the real good. 
That people don't care for tile good, is a sad thing for them, but there 
were not many whit carod for the actual, simple truth in the Bethle- 
hem days. It is n very differeut thing the caring for things called after 
them. We are so prone to be apish, tmnohow or other | for ever mim- 
ioking, acting— never thinking or feeling for ourselves. If you are 
quite faithful to the truth, you cannot fail ; and it is so priceless a 
blessing that one amongst us is truo. 

" I hive a little incident ..|" mi/ splendid < 'hri-tuias Day to tell yoa, — 
a mere straw, but showing which way the wind hlows. 

" We went to church on Christinas morning — my sister and I. All 
was in orthodox fashion. There were the illuminated Scriptures, and 
the choir sang abont 'Unto you is bom this day,' etc. The sermon 




 If^l 



\ ".•: • jtoife&LkVrQ&iigA. 



wandered from tbe point a little, but it kept returning to the manger 
and ita mystery. 

" Well, 011 leaving, a violent, storm of sleet and hail OHM on, and we 
were glad to cake shelter in a. train u ay far close by. along with quit* a 
little company of elm red -leavers. While tbe car waited its time for 
starting, three ragged little bids were swept up, like birds drifted by a 
storm-gnat ; and they too scrnnilded into the ear, one ot them saying to 
the most miserable of the three, ' Come in, Jim ; I'll pay a penny for 
you.' They looked like dissipated little Christinas- boxers, who had 
been larking in the streets all night, waiting for the dingy duwu to go 
begging in Huddled up shivering in a corner, and talking about their 
money in hoarse tones — like young ravens, they were tbe pictures of 
birds of prey. As they 1 untie reil hoarsely an mug themselves, they con- 
trasted so much with the little treble siugers in the choir, that they 
hardly seemed to be children. I heard them j>ro|>ose buying penny 
pies ; and after twisting about, like eels, they suddenly became still ! — 
apell-bounil, I imagine, with the thoughts of penny pies. 'Jim.' tbe 
very ragged one with no money, looked anxious about bis fare. 
presently. as if at a signal, the other two got up and went out softly, 
— like little Judases — wil limit a word to their companion! On reach- 
ing the pavement, they called to the conductor, ' Hi, you 11 have to turn 
that lad out. — he's no money ; ' then they scampered off at full speed. 
Jim gathered his rents and nigs together for a descen'. into the storm 
and slush of the street. I was just Opposite, so gave him the fare, and 
bid him sit still. Ami just then some more very net church folks came 
in— bo full of thoughts about the child of Bethlehem, I imagine, for 
whom there was such s-:int room, that they were uilmly oblivious of poor 
Jim. and the little room ha might want. Two of them squeezed him. 
without looking at him, into merely nothing ; and a third, also without 
looking, fairly sat upon him, it. see tin-d to me, lint, lie got himself behind 
cleverly. These were grandly d mused people. Next came, as we bad 
started, the conductor, for fares, and 1 felt rattier glad our ragged com- 
panion was so smothered up. But when his little thin, duty arm caroe 
forth with his penny, thera was a shameful scene. The conductor 
ordered him roughly out on to the steps at the back, but took bis fare, 
wiving there was no roooi for him. Not one of us said anything. 1 wan 
very angry, but I suppose didn't like to make a little scene by asking 
the man to let him come in. I am remorseful yet about it. 8o the 
poor bairn went out. However (this is nicer), a minute after came in 
a young workman —quiet, joirl deiiaata looking. As he glanced round, 
he spied the child, :iud impure.] immediately about him. ' There must 
be mtitir room ' he replied to the conductor's shaiiiofared excuse. And 
the man looked rmmd with such repronoh and severity that master Jim 
was asked in. in less than no time, and invited to ' Take a seat, my 
boy." It was rather funny tuo ; but I was pleased exceedingly, and I 
teli it to yon for [he sake of the young workman. //' had not been to 
church, —we. had. That puzzles me — or rather it makes it clear to me." 

e from another Companion, with a nice little 



.tie ['ei.timi, and 
nan who is bed- 



FOBS GLAVIOBRA. 103 

ridden, and her hands in crippled she can't do any work with them. 
All she has to depend on is lit. a week frum the parish, out of which she 
has to pay 2». M Weekly i  to whom ? ' links tit George; tor the rent of 
her room ; no that till •/■<■ has to support her is -ill. a week, and a loaf 
from the punch (Kensington i rinv week. She linn an idiot daughter 
who sometimes earns a few haJfjieiice lor mangling. 

"Mrs E (i lie old woman i is so devoted in I lowers ; arid she has a few 
pots in the window beside her lied, ami sin* wriggles herself to them 
with difficulty, but can just manage to pick off a fading leaf ; and after 
a long aleepless night of pain, spoke of it an a great reward that she 
hiid net unity *tf» .1 hint upemitg .' Do speak to St. George !— I know 
he'll listen to you ; and if he gave even a shilling a week, or balf-a- 
erowo, with certainty, this poor old woman's heart would indeed re- 
joice. 1 can give more particulars if wanted." 



I read all tbis to St. George ; win 
the same as nsk'ng tta*. to pay the re 
himself I— landlord ; but gave his half- 






.bled 



1 little, saying it was all 
 — — (here he checked 
last, uuder protest. 



" The swarm of bees came down, by passenger train from 1 /union, a 
week before wc came home, and Mrs. Allen and Grace managed to put 
them in their place without being stung. The people at the station 
were much tickled at the notion of a awnrm of bees coming by train. 
The little things have been very busy ever since. Hugh and I looked 
into their little house, and saw that th«y had built the best part of 
eight rows of comb in ten days. Tbey are very kind and quiet. We can 
ait down by the side of the hive fur :iny length of time, without harm, 
and watch them come in loaded. It is funny to see a certain number 
of them at the entrance, whose duty it is to keep their wings going as 
fans, to drive cool air into the hive [people say), but I don't know: 
anyhow, ihere were lines of them fanning last night; and the others, 
as they came in loaded, passed up between them, 

"A lady asks if you couldn't write 011 domestic servants. A smith 
at 1 Irpiligton, on being canvassed by a gentleman to give his vote in 
favour of having a School Hoard here, replied. ' We don't want none of 
your School Boards here.' As it is, if yon want clerks, you can get as 
many as you like at your own price ; but if I want a good smith to- 
morrow, I couldn't get one at any price. "Q. ALLEN." 

IX. I must needs print the last worda of a delicious letter from a 
young lady, which I dearly want to answer, oud which I think she ex- 
pected me to answer.- yet gave me only tier name, will) out her address. 
If sbe sends it— will she also tell me what sort of ' unkind or wicked ' 
things everybody says? 

*• I did not mean to write all this, hut 1 could not help it— you have 
been like a personal friend to me ever since I was sixteen. It i» (rood 
of you lo keep on writing your beautiful thoughts when everybody is so 
ungrateful, and says such unkind, wicked things about you." 




I 



FOBS CLA VIGERA. 



LETTER I.XXXI. 

Bhantwooo, 13rt August, 1877. 

The Thirteenth, — and not a word yet from any of my lady 
friends in defence of themselves ! Are they going to be as 
mute as the Bishops ? 

Hut I have a delightful little note from the young lady 
whose praise of my goodness I permitted myself to quote in 
the last article of my August correspondence, — delightful 
in several ways, but chiefly because she has done, like a good 
girl, what she was asked to do, and told me the "wicked 
things that people say.™ 

"They say you are ' unreasoning,' ' intolerablv conceited,' 
'self-asserting; 1 that you write about what you have no 
knowledge of (Politic. Econ.) ; and two or three have posi- 
tively asserted, and tried to persuade me, that you are mad 
 mad ! ! They make me so angry, I don't know 



.do 



•ith 



n-self." 



The first thing to be done with yourself, I should say, my 
dear, is to find out why you are angry. You would not be so, 
unless you clearly saw that all these sayings were malignant 
sayings, and come from people who would be very thank- 
ful if I were mad, or if they could find any other excuse for 
not doing as 1 bid, and as they are determined not to do. 
But suppose, instead of letting them make you angry, you 
serenely ask them what I have said that is wrong ; and 
make them, if they are persons with anv pretence to educa- 
tion, specify any article of my teaching, on any subject, 
which they think false, aTid give you their reason for think- 
ing it so. Then, if you cannot answer their objection your- 
self, send it to me. 

You will not, however, find many of the objectors able, 
and it may be long before you find one willing, to do any- 
thing of this kind. For indeed, my dear, it is precisely be- 







FOJIS CLAVIGBRA. 



105 



cause I am not self-asserting, and because the message that 
I have brought is not. mine, that they are thus malignant 
against me for bringing it. " For tliis is the message that 
ve have bean! from the beginning, that we should love one 
another." Take your first epistle of St. John, and read on 
from that eleventh verse to the end of the third chapter : 
and do not wonder, or be angry any more, that " if they have 
called the Master of the house, Baalzebub, they call also 
Ihose of Ins household." 

I do not know what Christians gem-rally make of that lirst 
epistle of John. As far as I notice, they usually read only 
from the eighth verse of the first chapter to the second of 
the second ; arid remain convinced that they may do what- 
ever thev like all their lives long, mid have everything made 
smooth by Christ. And even of the poor fragment they 
choose to read, they miss out always the first words of the 
second chapter, " My little children, these things I write unto 
you that ye sin Hot:" still less do liiey ever set against their 
favourite verse of absolution — " If any man sin, he hath an 
Advocate," — the tremendous eighth verse of the third chapter, 
" He that committeth sin is of the Devil, for the Devil sinneth 
from the beginning," with its before and after context— 
"Little children, let no man deceive you: he that dotth 
righteousness is righteous ; " and " whosoever doeth not 
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his 
brother." 

But whatever modern Christians and their clergy choose to 
make of this epistle, there is no excuse for any rational per- 
son, who reads it carefully from beginning to end, and yet 
pretends to misunderstand its words. However originally 
confused, however afterwards interpolated or miscopied, the 
message of it remains clear in its three divisions : (1) That 
the Son of God is come in the flesh, (chap. iv. 2, v. 20, and so 
throughout) ; (2) That He hath given us understanding, 
that we may know Him that is true, (iii. 19, iv. 13, v. 19, 20) ; 
and (3) that in this understanding we know that we bave 
passed from death to life, because we love the brethren, (Hi. 
14). All which teachings have so passed from deed and 



14). All w 






106 



■utli i 



FORS CLAVIGERA. 



nbelieved phrase, that : 
a hring the force of tht 
? these, then, vour sisters 



into mere monotony c 
English now is literal enoug 
home to my readers' minds. 
I asked of our fair English w 
n ace- labourers. They do nt 
suppose, 'Our sisters it) God, certainly,' meaning thereby 
that they were not at all sisters in Humanity ; and denying 
wholly that Christ, and the Sisterhood of Christendom, had 
"come in the Flesh." 

Nay, the farthest advanced of the believers in Him are yet 
so misguided as to separate themselves into costumed ' Sister- 
hoods,' as if these were less their sisters who had forge- 
aprons only for costume, and no crosses hung round their 

But the fact is assuredly this, — that if any part or word of 
Christianity be true, the literal Brotherhood in Christ is true, 
in the Flesh as in the Spirit ; ami that we are bound, every- 
one of us, by the same laws of kindness to every Christian 
man and woman, as to the immediate members of our own 
households. 

And, therefore, we are bound to know who are Christians, 
and who are not, — and the test of such division having been 
made verbal, in defiance of Christ's plainest orders, the entire 
body of Christ has been corrupted into such disease, that 
there is no soundness in it, but only wounds and bruises and 
putrefying sores. Look baek to Fn 
How is it that no human being ha 
to the charge on the 100th page? 



waste to yo 

God, doublh 

sent 

me, in that Ii 



, pp. 99-101. 
1 me a word 
• You who never sowed 
/er spun a yard of thread, devour and 
nd think yourselves better creatures of 
i this poor starved wretch." No one has 
ut see what terrific confirmation came to 
from a good, wise, and Christian man, 
which I printed in last Fors, who nevertheless is so deceived 
by the fiends concerning- the whole method of division be- 
tween his own class and the poor brethren, that he looks on 
nil his rich brethren as seed of Abel, and on all his poor 
brethren as seed of Cain, and conceives nothing better of tha 



F0R8 OLAVIQKRA. 107 

lahourer but that he is in his nature a murderer. "Ho will 
tear your pretty lady in pieces, and think he is doing God 
service." When was there ever before, in the human world, 
such fearful Despising of the Poor ?* 

These things are too hard for me ; but at least, as now 
the days shorten to the close of the seventh year, I will 
make this message, so far as I have yet been able to deliver 
it, clearly gatherable. Only, perhaps, to do so, I must deliver 
it again in other and gentler terms. It cannot be fully given 
but in the complete life and sifted writings of St. John, 
promised for the end of our code of foundational Scripture, 
(Furs, vol. iii., p. 9(5, and compare pp. 343, 244,)— never- 
theless it may be that the rough or brief words in which 
it has already been given, (pp. 102, 111, 132, 12G, 15'), and 
1T1 ; and, of chief importance, pp. 240 and 248,) have been 
too rough, or too strange, to be patiently received, or in 
their right bearing understood : and that it may be now 
needful for me to ceaso from such manner of speaking, and 
try to win men to this total service of Love by praise of 
their partial service. Which change 1 have for some time 
thought upon, anil tills following letter,f — which, being a 
model of gentleness, has exemplary weight with ine myself, 
— expresses hetter than I could without its help, what I sup- 
pose may be the lesson I have to learn. 



" M»scnEsTEa, July 2."j/A, 1877. 
"My dear Sir, — T have long felt that I ought to write to 
you about Font Clavigera, and others of your later books. 
1 hesitated to write, bin ail that I have heard from people 
who love you, and who are wise enough and true enough to 
he helped by you, and all that I have thought in the last few 
years about your books, — and I liave thought much about 

* Compare /");-- LXI.. page 118: " Here, the uncerof ' those low shoe- 
makers' is for ever on tlic lip," and the mm of the gwuct lady at 
Forricus. vol. i.. puge H3. 

f This letter is by the author of the e ■■.-■ 
in the July number of F-f, of which » o 
the correspondence of this mouth. 






108 



FOItS CLA\TQERA. 



them, — convinces me that my wish is right, and my hesita- 
tion wrong. For I cannot doubt that there are not very- 
many men who trv harder to be helped bv vou than I d». 
I should not wish to write if I did not know that most of the 
work which you are striving to get done, ought to be done, 
and if I did nut see that many of the means which you say 
ought to he used for doing it, are right means. My dulness 
of mind, because I am not altogether stupid, and my illness, 
because I do not let it weaken my will to do right, have 
taught me some things which you cannot know, just because 
you have genius and mental vigour which give you knowledge 
and wisdom which I cannot hope to share. 

"May 1 not try to make my humble knowledge of t 



it,* aid your high 



Eeople, through whom alone you i 
noivledge of what has to be done ? 
" Since, eight or nine years ago, I read Semitic '""l Xdttet, 
I have had the reverence and love for you which one feels 
only for the men who speak in clear words the commands 
which one's own nature has before spoken less clearly. And 
1 say without self-conceit that I am trying to do the best 
work that I know of. It could not then be quite useless 
that you should know why I often put down Furs and your 
in despair, and why 1 often feel that, in being 
with men whose training has been so different 
md who are what they are only partly hy iheir 
in forgetting that still it i: 



own fault ;■ 
that ' thev 
of the means wh 
you are making 
by any other mi 

°" May I show 
because I a 



„'»g for 
had the training, the help, 
that sin ? 

" If 1 were a soldier in 
powerful fo. 



not what they do ; ' and in choosing some 
.ch you do choose fur naming :i cood object, 
a ' refusal ' almost greater than can be made 
n, in choosing to work for evil rather than 

you that sometimes Fbrt wounds me, not 
ful, but because 1 know that the men whom 
r because they have not 
freed you and me from 



:d by you against a 
y duty to tell you if words 




acts of yours weakened our courage and prevented other 
m from joining yotir standard ? 1 ask you to let me tell 

Herein lien my currCHjioiident'n thief mistake. I have neither in- 
tiion, nor hope, of nctint; thi-nugh any of the people of whom lie 
Bp~nkn ; but if at all. with others of whom I suppuau myself to know 
more,— nut leea, — than he. 






FOR.S CLAVIGEJtA. 109 

you, in the same spirit, of the effect of your words in 
Fors, 

"You do not know, dear Mr. Rusk in, what power for 
good you would have, if you would see that to you much 
light has been given in order that through you other men 
may see. You speak in anger and despair DeeftUM they show 
that they greatly need that which it is your highest duty to 
patiently give them. 

" Pardon me if all that 1 have written seems to you to be 

iritten it because I know, from the strong effect 



ol th 


praise w 


inch you ga\ 


e my 


letter 


n the July Fors, 


ando 


f the kind 




note 


that in 


no other way can 


I hope to do so 


iiuchgood as 


■hoi 


Id do, i 


anything I could 


say s 


lould lead you to try 


to be 


not t 


e leader of men 




Iv good tt 


id wise, free 


from 


all hun 


an weakness, but 


the leader, for 


every man a 


I.d wc 


man ii 


England, of the 


good 


ess and wisdom which 


are i 


i them, 


in the hard fight 




lave to wage against what ir 


them 


a bad and foolish. 




' 


I am, dear .\ 


r. Ru 


kin, yo 


irs very truly." 


Th 


s letter, I 


repeat, seem 


s tor 


le deserving of my most 


grave 


respect a 


d consideration ; * 


but its 


v liter has entirely 


ignored the firs 


fact respect 


ngm. 


self, stated in Fort at its 




— that 1 do not, and ca 


nnot, 


set my 


elf up for a polit- 



ical leader ; but that my business is to teach art in Ox- 
ford and elsewhere ; — -that if any persons trust me enough 
to obey me without scruple or debate, I can securely tell 
them what to do, up to a certain point, and be their ' make- 
shift Master' till they can find a better ; but that I entirely 
decline any manner of political action which shall hinder ine 
from drawing leaves and flowers. 

And there is another condition, relative to this first one, 
in the writing of Fort, which my friend and those others 
who love me, for whom he speaks, have never enough ob- 

* The follmvinu passage in a more recent note adda to tins feeling on 
my part, and necesHitutes the fulnea* of my reply : — 

'" I (eel ho mire that what I said in my first letter very many people 
who love yon would say,— hove said innmlibly.— thnt thu words hard- 
Ij seem any longer *•" '"-* niine. It waa (riven to me to speak for many. 
So if you think the words printed can be of any aae, they are of course 
entirely at your nervine." 




110 



FORS 0LA7IOBBA. 



rved : . 



i letter 



lely, that fbrs is a letter, and written 
should be written, frankly, and as the mood, or topic, 
chances ; so for as I finish and retouch it, which of late I 
have done more and more, it ceases to be what it should be, 
and becomes a serious treatise, which I never meant to un- 
dertake. True, the play of it, (and much of it is a kind of 
bitter play,) has always, as 1 told you before, as stern final 
purpose as Morgiana's dance ; but the gesture of the mo- 
ment must be as the humour takes me. 

Hut this farther ansxver I must make, to my wounded 
friends, more gravely. Though, In Fors, I write what first 
comes into my head or heart, so lung as it is true, I write no 
syllable, even at the hottest, without weighing the truth of 
it in balance accurate to the estimation of a hair. The lan- 
guage which seems to you exaggerated, and which it may be, 
therefore, inexpedient that I should continue, nevertheless 
expresses, in its earnestness, facts which you will find to be 
irrefragably true, and which no other than such forceful ex- 
pression could truly reach, whether you will hear, or whether 
von will forbear. 

Therefore' Furs Clitnirfrr<t is not, in any wis* 
counsel adapted to the present state of the put 
it ia the assertion of the code of Eternal La 1 
public mind must eventually submit itself to, 
have really no more to do with the manners, 
ings, or modified conditions of piety in the modern England 
which I have to warn of the accelerated approach either of 
Revolution or Destruction, than poor Jonah had with the 
qualifying amiabilities which might have been found in the 
Nineveh whose overthrow he was ordered to foretell in forty 
days. That I should rejoice, instead of mourning, over the 
ich prophecy, does not at all make it at present 
lew passionate in tone. 

For instance, you have been telling me what a beloved 
Bishop you have got in Manchester; and so, when it was 
said, in page 124 of vol. iii., that "it is merely through 
thy. quiit beitiai ignorance of the Moral Late in which the 
English Bishops have contentedly allowed their Hocks to be 



ntended as 
mind, but 
which the 

die ; and I 







FORS CLAVIUERA. 



Ill 



brought up, that any of the modern conditions of trade are 
[Mjssible," you thought perhaps the word 'bestial' inconsid- 
erate ! But it was the most carefully considered and ac- 
curately true epithet 1 could use. If you will look back 
to the 265th page of vol. ii., you will find the following 
sentence quoted from the Secretary's speech at the meeting 
of the Social Science Association in Glasgow in that year. 
It was UhacJ visibly allowed by me to remain m small print: 
it shall have large type now, being a. sentence which, IB the 
monumental vileness of it, ought to be blazoned, in letters 
of stinking gas-fire, over the oondemaed cells of every felon's 
prison in Europe : 

"Man has tsntSTOBi BIBS defined as an animal 

THAT EXCHANGES. IT WILL HE SEEN, HOWEVER, THAT HE 
NOT ONLY BXG II ANGUS, BUT FROM THE FACT OF HIS BELONG- 
ING, IN PART, TO THE ORDER CAKNIVOHA, THAT HE ALSO IN- 
HERITS TO A CONSIDERABLE DEGREE THE DESIRE TO POSSESS 
WITHOUT EXCHANGING ; OR, IN OTHER WORDS, BY FRAUD OR 
VIOLEXCE, WHEN 8UCH CAN RE USED FOR HIS OWN ADVAN- 
TAGE, WITHOUT DANGER TO HIMSELF." 

Now, it is not at all my business, nor ray gift, to ' lead ' 
the people who utter, or listen to, this kind of talk, to bet- 
ter things. I have no hope for them, — any quantity of 
pity you please, as I have also for wasps, and puff-adders : 
— but not the least expectation of ever being able to do them 
any good. My business is simply to state in accurate, not 
violent, terms, the nature of their minds, which they them- 
selves ("out of thine own mouth will 1 judge thee, thou 
wicked servant") assert to be 'bestial,' — to show the fulfil- 
ment, in them, of the words of prophecy : " What they 
know naturally, as brute-beasts, in those things thev corrupt 
themselves,"— and to fasten down their sayings in a sure 
place, for eternal scorn, driving them into the earth they are 
born of, as with .fael's hammer. And tills I have held for 
an entirely stern duty, and if it seems to have been ever done 
in uncharitable contempt, my friends should remember how 
much, in the doing of it, I have been forced to read the writ- 
ase natural stupidity is enhanced always by 







112 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

their settled purpose of maintaining the interests of Fraud 
and Force,* (see Fors, vol. iii., page 365, line 1), iuto 
such frightful conditions of cretinism, that having any 
husiness with them and their talk is to me exactly as if nil 
the slavering Swiss populace of the high-air-cure establish- 
ment at Interlaken had been let loose into my study at 
once. The piece of Bastiat, for instance, with analysis of 
which I began Fors seven years ago, — what can you put be- 
side it of modern trade -literature, for stupidity, set off with 
dull cunning? — or this, which in good time lias been sent 
me by Fors, (perhaps for a coping-stone of all that I need 
quote from these men, that so I may end the work of nail- 
ing down scarecrows of idiotic soul, and be left free to 
drive home the fastenings of sacred law) — what can you 
put beside this, for blasphemy, among all the outcries of the 
low-forehoaded and long-ton guei'l races of demented men? — 

"Had mankind given obedience to that prohibition. t 

THE RACK WOULD LONG SINCE HAVE DISAPPEARED FROM THE 
FACE OF THE EARTH. FOR WITHOUT INTEREST THE AC- 
CUMULATION OF CAPITAL IS IMPOSSIBLE, WITHOUT CAPITAL 
THERE CAN BE NO CO-OPERATION OF ANTERIOR AND TRESENT 
LABOUR, WITHOUT THIS CO-OPERATION THERE CAN HE NO SO- 
CIETY, AND WITHOUT SOCIETY MAN CANNOT EXIST." (Bastlat, 

Harmonica of l'olitiad FsonoiHtj vol. ii., page 105. Eng- 
lish edition.) 

With this passage, and some farther and final pushing 
home of my challenge to the Bishops of England, which 
must be done, assuredly, in no unseemly temper or haste, — 
it seems probable to me that the accusing work of Fors may 
close. Yet I have to think of others of its readers, before so 
determining, of whom one writes to me this month, in good 
time, as follows : — 

"In reading the last (June) Fors, I see— oh, so sorrow- 
fully ! — that you have been pained by hearing 'complaints' 

* That is to say, the L framework of Society." It is a perfectly 
cooflcientions feeling on their pnrt " We will reason hb far an we can, 
without unying anything that ahull Involve any dauber to property." 

f The Prohibition ol Usury. 




FOBS CLAVIGEI1A. 



113 



that should never have been felt — much less spoken, and 
least of all for you to hear. It is bad enough for those who 
love every word of your teaching to find Fur.* mis-read. But 
1 for one feel it to be just unpardonable that anything so mis- 
taken should reach you as to lead you to think you are ' multi- 
plying words in vain.' 

" 'In vain '? — Dearest Master, surely, surely you know that 
far and near, many true hearts (who — known or unknown to 
you — call you by that sacred name) watch hungrily for the 
corning of your monthly letter, and find it Bread, and Light. 

"Believe me, if the 'well-to-do' — who have never felt the 
consequences of the evils you seek to cure — 'can't under- 
stand ' you, there are those 'who can, and do. 

"Perhaps, for instance, your 'well-to-do friends," who can 
get any fruit they wish for, in season or out of season, from 
their own garden or hothouse, may think the ' Mother Law ' 
of Venice about Fruit only beautiful and interesting from an 
antiquarian point of view, and not as having any practical 
value for English people to-day : but suppose that one of 
them could step so far down as to be, one of ' the jjoor ' {not ' the 
working 1 classes) in our own large towns — and so living, to 
suffer a fever, when fruit is a necessity, and find, as I have 
done, thai the price of even the commonest kinds made it just 
impossible for the very poor to buy it — would not lie or she, 
after such an experience, look on the matter as one, not only 
of personal but of wide importance ? I begin to think it 
is only through their own need, that ordinary people know 
the needs of others. Thus, if a man and his wife living, with 
no family, on say ten shillings per week, find that in a town 
they can't afford to buy, and can get no garden in which to 
grow fruit — they will know at once that their neighbours 
who on the same sum must bring up half a dozen children, 
will have to do without vegetables as well as fruit ; and hav- 
ing felt the consequences of their own privation, they will 
know that the children will soon — probably — suffer with skin 
and other diseases, so serious as to make them ask, why are 
fruit and vegetables so much scarcer and dearer than they 
were when we w.-re children? And once any one begins 
to honestly puzzle out that, and similar questions (as I tried 
to do before Fors was given us), they will be, I know, 
beyond all telling, thankful for the guidance of Fors, and 
quite ready to ' understand ' it. 

" Ah me ! if only the ' well-to-do ' would really try to find 

E'er, only to the seemingly simple question asked above, 
Vol. TV.-8 



i 



114 



FORS CLAVIQERA. 



L 



1 would have more hope than now for the next generation of 
' the lower classes.' For they would tind that dear vegetables 
means semi -starvation to countless poor families. One of 
the first facts I learnt when I came here was,— ' Poor folks' 
children don't get much to eat all winter but bread and po- 
tatoes.' Yet, last October, I one day gave twopence for three 
ordinary potatoes; and, all winter, could buy no reallv 

food ones. Under such conditions, many children, and in- 
nn and sick people, could be but half fed ; and half-fed 
children mean feeble, undersized, diseased men and women, 
who will become fathers and mothers of sickly children, — 
and where will the calamity end? Surely the 'food supply' 
of the people is every one's business. {' That can't concern 
you, my dear,' is the putting down We women get, you know, 
if we ask the ' why ? ' of a wrong to other people.) I can't, 
when 1 hear of sicklv children, but ask, very sadlv, what kind 
of workmen and soldiers and sailors will they and their chil- 
dren be in another century? 

" You will think 1 am looking a long way forward ; yet if 
one begins only to puzzle out this question (the scarcity of 
fruit and vegetables), they will find it takes them back, far 
away from towns, far off the ' very poor,' until they come to 
the beginning of the mischief, as you show us ; and then the 
well-to-do will find they have had much to do with the ques- 
tion, and find too a meaning in the oft-read words, ' We are 
every one members one of another.' 

"There, I fear I'm very rude, but I'm not a little angry 
when people who are blind say there is no light to see by. 
I've written so much, that I'm'now afraid I shall tire vou too 
much ; but I do so want to tell you what I feel now, even 
more than when I began— no words can tell you — hotc close, 
and true, and tried a friend Jibrs is. 

" Last winter there was great distress in this town. Many 
persons were thrown out of employment because there was 
 great depression in the shoe trade : ' of course among some 
classes there was great suffering. Yet, with children literally 
starving because their fathers could get no work to do, all the 
winter through, and up to the present time, a 'traction en- 
gine' (I think they call it) was at work levelling, etc., the 
streets, and a machine brush swept them,— past the very door 
of a house where there was a family of little children starv- 
ing. ' They have pawned about everything in the house but 
the few clothes they have on, and have Had no food since 
yesterday morning,' I was told on Chrittmm l>uy. All the 




FORS CLAVIQERA. 115 

winter through I could not get one person who talked to me 
of ' the distress in the shoe trade ' to see that it was only like 
applying a plaster to a broken limb, instead of setting the 
bone, to give coal and bread tiekets to these poor starving 
people, and was not really ' feeding the hungry.' People are, 
as far as /know, never half-red by such means, but over-fed 
one day in the week, and left foodless the other six.* 

" I talked earnestly to a 'Board' schoolmistress who is 
' educating ' near three hundred children ; but, alas ! she per- 
sisted in saying, ' It would be a disgraceful thing if we had 
not the engine and brush, when other towns have got them 
long ago.' Will yon not believe that in such a winter it was 
good to get Jfbrtt People do listen to you. 

" John Guy's letter i- glorious. 1 am so thankful for it. 
I would like to tell him so, but fear he may not read the name 
' Companion ' as I do." 

I should not have given this letter large type for the por- 
tions referring to myself ; but I wish its statement of the 
distress for food among the poorer classes — distress which is 
the final measure of decrease of National wealth — to be com- 
pared with the triumphant words of Mr. Goldwin Smith in 
contemplation of the increased number of chimneys at Read- 
ing, (and 1 suppose also of the model gaol which conceals 
from the passing traveller the ruins of its Abbey). And I 
will prav my first correspondent to believe me, that if once he 
thoroughly comprehends the quantity of fallacy and of mis- 
chief involved in these thoughtless expressions of vulgar 
triumph, and sets himself to contradict and expose them, he 
will no longer be sensitive to the less or more of severity in 
the epithets given to their utterers. The following passage 
from another of his letters on this subject, with my following 
general answer, may, I think, sufficiently conclude what is 
needful to be said on this subject. 

" To quite free my mind from the burden which it has long 
earned, I will speak, too, of what you have said of Goldwin 
Smith, and Mill. I know that nien'who fail to see that politi- 
cal change is purely mischievous f are so fur 'geese* ; but I 

• Compare Letter LXI , page 9ft. 

t I had not the (slightest Intention uf alluding to I ha failure of theirs, 
which happens to ba my own also. 






11 



FOBS CLA VIG ERA, 



know, too, that it is wrong to call them geese. They are not 
entirely so ; and of the geese or half-geese who follow them 
in flocks, about the noblest quality is that they are loyal to 
and admire their leaders, and are hurt and made angry when 
names which they do not like are used of those loaders." 

Well, my dear air, I solemnly believe that the less they like 
it, the better my work has been done. For you will find, if 
you think deeply of it, tliat the chief of all the curses of this 
unhappy age is the universal gabble of its fools, and of the 
flocks that follow them, rendering the quiet voices of the wise 
men of all past time inaudible. This is, first, the result of 
the invention of printing, and of the easy power and extreme 
pleasure to vain persons of seeing themselves in print. When 
it took a twelvemonth's hard work to make a siugle volume 
legible, men considered a little the difference between one 
book and another ; but now, when not only anybody can get 
themselves made legible through any quantity of volumes, Id 
a week, but the doing so becomes a means of living to them, 
and they can fill their stomachs with the foolish foam of their 
lips,* the universal pestilence of falsehood fills the mind of 
the world as cicadas do olive-leaves, and the first necessity 
for our mental government is to extricate from among the 
inscctile noise, the few books and words that are Divine. 
And this has been my main work from my youth up, — not 
caring to speak my own words, but to discern, whether in 
painting or scripture, what is eternally good and vital, and 
to strike away from it pitilessly what is worthless and venom- 
ous. So that now, being old, and thoroughly practised in 
this trade, I know either of a picture — a book — or a speech, 
quite securely whether it is good or not, as a cheesemonger 
knows cheese ; — and 1 have not the least mind to try to make 
wise men out of fools, or silk purses out of sows' ears ; but 

* Just think what a. horrihle condition of life it in that any man nt 
vulgar wit. who knows English grammar, c:m pet, for a couple 
of sheets of chatter in o. nnigaiiue. two-thinl* of what Milton got alto- 
gether for Paradise Lout .' all this revenue being of oouree stolen from 
the labouring poor, who are the producers of all wealth. (Compare ihe 



itral passage of Fan XI., page 144. 1 







FORS CLAYIdERA. 



117 



my one swift busim 
get them out of the « 



o brand them of base quality, and 
md I do not care a cobweb's weight 
whether I hurt the followers of these men or not, — totally 
ignoring them, and caring only to get the facta concerning 
the men themselves fairly and roundly stated for the people 
whom I have real power to teach. And for qualification of 
statement, there is neither time nor need. Of course there 
are few writers capable of obtaining any public attention who 
have not some day or other said something rational ; and 
many of the foolish est of them are the amiablesl, and have 
all sorts of minor qualities of a most recommendable charac- 
ter, — propriety of diction, suavity of temper, benevolence of 
disposition, wide acquaintance with literature, and what not. 
e thing I have to assert concerning them is that 
they are men of eternally worthless intellectual quality, who 
r ought to have spoken a word in this world, or to have 
been heard in it, out of their family circles ; and whose books 
rely so much floating fogbank, which the first breath 
of sound public health and sense "ill blow back into its 
e ditches for ever. 



F0R8 CLA11QEIIA. 



NOTES AND COKKKSPON'DENCE. 




(Before entering on general business, I must pray the reader's air- 
i the following letter, addressed by me to the Editor of the. 
fWntllfirnl on the 24th of August :— 

•' To the Kililor ,.j (fa OOMtont 

"Brant wood. Oonistoh, Lancashire, 
"2itA Avgtut, 1877. 
been directed to nn article in your columns 
of the 39nd inst. referring hi a supposed correspondence between Mr. 
Lowe ami me. Permit me to Utah- that the letter ill question is not 
Mr. Lowe s. The geneial value of your article as a review of my work 
and methods "i writ in/, wiil I mist h« rather enhanced than diminished 
by the correction, duo to Mr. Lowe, of this original error; and the 
more that yonr critic in the course of his review eipresBCB his Dot nn 
justifiable convict km t hut no corre-ipondcnf,. between Mr. Lowe and 
me is possible on any intellectual subject whatever. 
" I am. Sir, 

" Yonr obedient servant, 

"Jons Buskin.") 
I. Affairs of the Company, 

I shall retain the word ' Company' to the close of the seventh vol- 
e of Fvr; and then enhstitnto -whatever name our association may 
have been registered under, if mala registration can he effected. Sup- 
posing it can not, the name which we Khali afterwards use will be 
' Guild,' ns above stated. 

I regret ihut the Abbey Dale pr»[icrly still stands in my name ; but 
our solicitors havo not yet replied to my letter requesting them to ap- 
point new Trustees; anil I hope that the registration of the Guild 
may soon enable me to transfer the property at once to the society as a 

1 ought, by rights, as the Guild's muter, to be at present in Abbey 
Dale itself ; but us the Guild's founder, I have quite other duties. See 
the subsequent note ou my own affairs. 

s follow, (see pages 1211 to 1 2 J . > which loan only hope will 
!»■ satisfiii'tory, as. in the*: stately forms. I don't understand them my- 
self. The practical outcome of tliem is, that we have now of entire 
property, five thousand Consols, (and something over); — eight hundred 
pounds balance in cash ; thirteen acres freehold at Abbey Dale, —twenty 



FORS CLArTOEBA. 



119 



at Bewdley, two at Barmouth, and the Walkley Museum building, 
ground, and contents. 

I mast personally acknowledge a kind gift of three guineas, to enable 
RL George, with no detriment to bis own packet, to meet the appeal in 
the correspondence of Fan LXXX , page 103. 

II. Affairs of the Master. 

I said i u.-t. now that I ought to lie at Abbey Dale ; and truly 1 would 
not fail to bo there, if I had only the Guild's bi/Mneu to think of. But 
I have the Guild's schools (o think of, and while I know there are thou- 
sands of men in England able to conduct our business affairs better than 
I, when once they sec it their duty to do so, I do not believe there is 
another roan in England able to organize our elementary lessons in Nat- 
ural History and Art. And I am therefore wholly occupied in exam- 
ining the growth of Anngallis tenella, and completing some notes on SL 
George's Chapel at Venice ; and the Dalesmen moat take care of them- 
selves for the present. 

Respecting my own money matters, I have only to report that thing* 
nre proceeding, and likely to proceed to tho end of this year, as 1 in- 
tended, and anticipated : that is to say, I am spendingat my usual rate, 
(with an extravagance or two beyond it, ) and'earning nothing. 

Ifl. The following notes on the existing distress in India, by corre- 
spondents of the MoHrliiry (liiittle, are or profound import. Their 
slightly prcdieatory ohwMtai must be [pardoned, us long as our Bishops 
have no time to attend to these trilling affaire of the profane world. 

" Afflictions spring not out of (he ground, nnr is this dire famine an 
accident that might not huvo been averted. David in the numbering 
of Israel sinned in the pride and haughtiness of hi* heart, and the ret- 
ribution of Heaven was a pestilence that from Dan to Bcersheha slew 
in one day seventy thousand men. Tho case of India is exactly par- 
allel. This rich country has been devastated hy bail government, and the 
sins of the mlera are now visited on the bcEids of the nut- iff ending anil 
helpless people. These poor sheep, what have they done? It cannot 
be denied that, taking the good yean and the bud together 

capable of supplying imn-l >re eoni than sihe eau possibly o 

and besides, she can have abundant stores left fi.n exportation. But tho 
Mrlcoltioxal resources of the land are paralysed by a vile system of 
nuance, the crops remain insufficient, the teeming population is never 
properly fed. but is sustained, even in the best of times, at the lowest 
point of vitality. So that, when drought conies, the Food supplies fall 
short at once, and the wretched hungry people are weak and prostrate 
in (our-and twenty hours Tho ancient ruler- of India by their wise 
forethought did much, by the aturagc of water and by irrigation, to 
avoid these fri(;b t fill famines ; mid the i itiim ■•]' Ihiir rm n-iAr* iiinten- 
•ioit, ir/iicf, iritt f" (hi* liny, ttntijij ulifa '•• tluir <ri-vli»H. it nit t"(httuprem« 






120 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

Br. SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT, from 



1877. £ s. d. 

Jan. 1. To Cash in hand £16 3 1 

8. kt Mrs. Hannah Grant 10 

Feb. 10. " J. Rnakin (cheque) 50 

May 1. " Ditto ditto 60 

JuneSO. " Ditto ditto 50 

166 4 1 



£166 4 1 



FOBS CLAVIOERA. 
January 1 to June 30, 1877. 



Current Expenses. 

By Curator's salary ..£25 

" Fire insurance. 4 6 

" Gas 1 14 3 

" Water rate 5 7 

 Property tax 7 3 

" Curator's salary 35 

" District rate. 119 

" GaBftemiiiirnrily tr^ipluyrd in heat- 
ing ; will not be used during en- 
suing winter) G 9 

" Water 5 8 

'• Poor rate 13 5 

" Ditto in addition of land 1 

I 

Building and Grounds. 
By J. Tunnard (wooden gate and 

joinery) B 14 9 

" W. Webster (gateway and wall- 
work) 8 4 7 

" B. Bagahawe (transfer of fresh 

land) 1 16 3 

" J. <_'. and J. S. Ellis (on account) 10 

" J. Swift (wood and zinc) 8 

" J. C. and J. S. Ellis (balance, hot 

water apparatus) 10 14 

" J. Smith (drains) 13 

■' Fisher, Holmes and Co. (grass 

seed) 8 

" E. Richardson (tree planting). ... 200 

" Geo Cres wick (gravel) 1 17 6 

" C. Ellis and J. S. Smith (labour on 

path and road) 13 2 

Cases and Fittings. 

By W. Chaloner (on account) S 

" Ditto (bakuiee. table and fittings). 6 4 6 

" Leaf and Co. (velvet*) 4 13 6 

" B. Diion(silk) 5 

•' B. Diion (silk) 12 8 

" Brooks and Son (silk) 12 

Carriage of goods and postage 

Petty eipenses 

Cash in hand 



J«n. 


11. 


Feb. 


13. 


March 10. 


M.y 


23. 
30. 
1. 




122 



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FOBS CLAVIOERA. 125 

in these first principles. The ancients reserved from the ' fat ' yearn 
•ome part of their produce against the inevitable " lean ' yearn which 
they knew would overtake them. When, therefore, the 'lean' ye urn 
came, their granaries were comparatively full. You, with your boasted 
wisdom ot Vlt wfntleenrfi century, in reality degenerate into the mad- 
ii BBS of blind improvidence. You do even worse. You draw On the 
future, by loans and United de»lCM, in order to repair the errors aud 
shortcomings of the present Tho pant was once the present, and you 
drew on what wan then the future ; that future is now the present, the 
bill is at maturity, there are no resources cither in the storehouse or in 
the till, and famine cornea of consequence. Nor is this nil — the greater 
part of the folly and crime remains to be told. You have desolated 
the fairest portion of the land liy the iniquities of usury. The culti- 
vating classes are in hopeless indebtedness, the hereditary money- 
lender holds them firmly in his grasp, and the impoverished ilfllf H 
have neither the means nor the heart properly to cultivate the soil. 
The rulers sit quietly by, while i lie mi mm! .stale fjf thing- Is that agri- 
culture — the primitive industry of the land— is carried ou under the 
vilest system of  high finance 1 ; where loans are regularly contracted 
even for ih<' piii'-hase of entile, und of implements of husbandry, and 
the rata of ustiry run frmn thirty t» eighty per rent. Agriculture is 
thus stunted and paralyzed by usury, and not by droughts ; aud as links 
in a natural chain of sequences, the earth refuses her increase, and the 
people perish. The blight and curse of 1 ndia is usury. You and all 
your subordinates know it is so. mid ymi do not, and dare not, inter- 
pose with dignity or effect. Your fathers planted that tree, so fair to 
behold, aud so seemingly desirable, to make the partakers thereof rich ; 
but it is forbidden, as was tho tree iu the early Paradise of man. 
Every great statesman who has written his fame in the history and ia 
the laws of the world, has denounced aud forbidden it. Are you wiser 
than they ? Was Lycurgus a fool when he forbade it ? Was Solon a 
f metic when he poured his bitterest denunciations on it * Were t'ato. 
I'iato, and Aristotle mad when with burning- words they taught its ini- 
ijuities? Were the Councils of the Churc.li of Koine drunk with insane 
pi .-judifos, when one after another they i uiidemued it as a mortal sin ? 
We the Protestant I 'hmvh of England in deadly error, or in petty war- 
fare agjinst the antnniw of noiitieal uoiiumy, against truth or against 
mursjity. when she declared it to bo the revenue of Satan '! Was Ma- 
homet wrong when he strictly forbade it ? or the Jewish Church when 
it poured its loudest anathemas on it as a crime of the first magnitude P 
They all with one avconl. in all ages, under the Influence*, of every 
form of civilization and religion, denounced and forbade it even in the 
smallest (legm ; and it has destroyed every nation where it bos been 
i. -Uihlisbed. In India it is no- one per eeut. which is inherently wrong. 
end insidiously destructive. It is eighty ptr cent., with the present 
penalty of a deadly famine, and a sharp mid romplete destruction im- 

*■ But this wisdom of Joseph in Egypt was not so rnre in ancient 
trmns, Themlersof these epochs had not been indoctrinated with 
Adam Smith and the other political economists, whoso fundamental 
maxim is, ' Every man for himself, and the devil for the rest. 1 Here 
is another illustration, and as it helrim'-- l>. Indian history, it is peculiarly 
pertinent here. The Sultan, Ala-ud din, fixed the price of grain, and 





126 FORS CLAVIGERA. 

received it us tribute; hy theee nieuia so much royal grain came in 
DelU, that there never wan n time when there were not two or three 
royal granaries full «f grain in the city. When there wn a dcficicm.-y 
of ruin, the royal stores were opened ; com was never deficient in the 
nmrket, "ii'l never rose above the jired price. If the rains had fallen 
regularly, and the seasons had always been favourable, there would 
have been nothing- ho wonderful in grain remaining- at one price ; but 
the extraordinary fact was, that though during the reign of Ala ud -din 
there were yearB in which the rain was deficient, yet, instead of the 
usual scarcity, there waa no want of corn in Delhi, and there Was nu 
rise in the price, either of the grain brought out of the royal (frauuries 
•>r of that imported hy the dealers. Once or twice when the rains failed 
to some extent, a market overseer reported that the price had riaen 
hall a jitul, mul In- ;■•(.-. in, I i irrttttj /ili'ir.- iriih n aliel.. Thai was an at'i- 
mirohle administration for the people ; Our own is snpreme folly in 
cumparisnu. Perhaps if every time there were nn Indian famine we 
were to administer twenty blows with a stick to a finance minister and 
a politico! economist, and were l.i han^ up in every village t. lie principal 
usurer, the nations might, hy the aid of these crude methods, arrive at 
a perception of the wisdnm of ancient rule. We certainly would do 
much to prevent the rcciirieijr'C of Indian famines after the establish- 
ment of that stern but salutary discipline. 

" Talking of usury in India, lhr> (jlnbi hits just piiblisbed for public 
education another illustration of thin rampant iniquity. "In a case 
which lately came be fore the Calcutta Small Cause I'ourt, it was proved 
that during two years the debtor 1 i-nJ paid 1 . l."i(.l rupee." fur the interest 
and amortiiiit i<>n of nu original dent uf IJOii rupees. Yet the creditor 
bud so nrrnn-iil I In- aco-nut. that he was able to make a final claim of 
■l.'ili rupees on uoeoutil of principal, and "Jo rupees as overdue interest. 
Thus, in the course of only t wo years, the loan of fil)0 rupees had swai 
lowed u|i 1,!)2<( rupees, or at the rat" of ',»>■' rupees per annum. After 
deducting the amount of the original advance, the interest charge* 
came to H8f rupees o annas a. year, so that the creditor really recovered 
the debt, with 13J per cent interest, in the course of twelve months, 
and yet held as kir^e a claim nu evir against his victim. Owing to the 
non-existence of usury laws in India, the judge was compelled to give 
judgment against the defendant for the full mm claimed; but he 
marked his sense of the transaction by allowing the balance to be paid 
off in small monthly instalments. At the same time he expressed 
a regret, in which we heartily agree, that the Indian Civil Code con- 
tains no restrictions on the practice of usury.' 

" I would ' heartily agree" also, if the regret were intended to fructify 
in a measure to pint down usury altogether, and abolish the money- 
leuder with all his functions. There will be no hope for India till that 
shall be done ; and what is more, we shall have a famine of bread in 
England very shortly, if we do not deal effectually with that obnoxious 
gentleman at home." 



IV. The following more detailed exposition of my Manchester cor- 
respondent's designs for the founding of a museum for working men in 
that city, should be read with care. My own comments, as before, are 
meant only to extend, not to invalidate, his proposals. 






FORS CLAVIGERA. 



1ST 



" It U many yearn since the. brightest sunshine in Italy and Switzer- 
land began to make me see chiefly the gloom and foulness of Man- 
chester; since the purest music has been mingled for my ear with notes 
of t.he obscene songs which are all the music known to thousands of Our 
workpeople; since the Tale of Troy and all other tales have been 
■polled for me by the knowledge that ' for our working classes no such 
tiles exist, ' Do not doubt that I know that those words are sorrow- 
ful, i-lint I know that while tbey are tnie, gladness cannot often be 
felt except by fools and knaves. We are so much accustomed to allow 
conditions of life to exist which make health impossible, and to build 
infirmaries and hospitals for a few of the victims of those conditions ; — 
to allow people to be drawn into crime by irresistible temptations, which 
we might have removed, and to provide prison chaplains for the most 
tamfaHMM criminals;— cur beneficent activity is so apt lo take tbe 
form o[ what, in Mrs. Fry's case. Hood so finely called 'nugatory 
teaching;,' that it is quite useless to urge people of our class to take up 
the work of making healthy activity of body and mind possible for the 
working classes of our towns, and n life less petty than that whioh we 
are now living, possible too for the rich. They prefer to work in 
hospitals and prisons, (a) Tbe most hospital-like anil therefore inviting- 
name which I can find for tbe work which 1 have mentioned — a 
work to which I shall give what strength I have— is the ' enre of 
drunkenness.' tinder the 'scientific treatment of drunkenness' I can 
find a place for ever}* change that seems to me to be most urgently 
needed in Manchester and all manufacturing towns. Pray do not think 
that I am jesting, or that 1 would choose a name for the sake of 
deception. The name I have chosen quite accurately describes one, 
aspect of the work to be done. I must write an explanation of tbe 
work, as I am not rich enough to do more than a small part by myself. 

" There is, I believe, no douht that in the last seventy or eighty 
years the higher and middle olataM of English people, formerly as re- 
markable for drunkenness an our workmen now are, (b) have become 
much more temperate. I try to show what are the causes of the 
change, and how these causes, which do not yet affect the poor, may be 
made to reach them. I must tell you very briefly what we are already 
doing in Manchester, and what I slmll try to get done. The work of 
smoke prevention goes on very slowly. The Noxious Vapours Associa- 
tion will have to enforce the law, which, if strictly enforced, would 
make all mill chimneys almost smokeless. But the 'nuisance sub- 
committees ' will not enforce the law. We sball show as clearly and 
effectively as possible how grossly they neglect their duly. I believe 
that in a year or two all that tbe law can help us to do will be done, 
and the uir will then tie much purer. (£) 



"UlAfsctltm of eonnrlpnfw tiy phy-Jrltmc iwx»pli? I 




(•■, i 'niii| H n 7*« fiwuor Hit, rilirt, f{ MB, 1411. 
George furWiK nu( the uwjke only, but moch mure— Ihe fire. 



work it i. imlovsnt, St. 



FORS CI.AVtOHRA. 



•a&eA. The mood, which I know 



\ kncn 



' t temptatio 



n by workpeople— the mood in which n 



i to talk, but o: 



i ti, . 



All 



He have music to protect us. which calls u}< our best thoiudita and feel- 
ing and memories. The poor have — the public-house. — where their 
thoughts and feeling* are at the mercy of any one who chooses to talk 
or sing onseeuely ; and ttn.'y are ordered to leave even that poor refuge 
if thi-y don 'I order b.-.r; as idieii un tin; land In rd thinks tin y ongtlt I" mi. 
In every large English town there are scores of nth people who know 
what Austrian beer -garden* are, — how much better Uua anything in 
England ; and yet nowhere Ills one been started, i am trying now to 
get a few men to join ma in opening one. I should prefer to have tea 
mid eotfec and coCon insteud id h.i.r. as our beer is much more stupify- 
ing than that which is dm nk in Austria. All that is needed is a large. 
well-lighted, well- ventilated room; ('/) where every evening three or 

font g 1 musicians shall play such music as one hears in Austria, — 

music of course chosen by us, and not, as it is in music-halls, virtually 
hy the lowest blackguards, tri A penny or twopence will be paid at 
the door, to qaitt cover the tjont of the music ; and tea, etc., will bo 
■old to people who want it ; but no one will have to order anything for 
'the good of the house.' Then there will be a place where a decent 
workman can take his wife nt daughter, without having to pay more 
than he can well alford. and when' lie will lie perfectly sure that they 
will hear no foul talk or songs. I don't know of any place of which 
that can now be said. 

" Mr. Ward probably told you of my plans for a museum. I shall be 
very grateful to you if you will tell me whether or not they are 
good. ( / I I want to make art again a teacher. I know that while our 
town children are allowed to live in filthy house*, to wear filthy clothes, 
to play in filthy streets, look up to a filthy sky, and love filthy parents, 
there can be very little in them —compared, at least, with what under 
other conditions there would be— that books, or art, or after-life can 
'educate.' But still there is something, — far more than we have 
any right to expect. How very many of these children, when they grow 
up, do not become drunkards, do not beat their wives 1 When I see 
how good those already grown tip are, how kind, as a rule, to each 



|.I) Ainu, my kindly Irii 




KOIiS CLAVIGERA. 



x tender to their children. I feel not only shame that we have 



y people with 



kindness b 



; us will enable us to give them effec 






 ' After all. ti.ivn uiiililn n MiinctiiiieB sen brightness. To day the sky- 
was radiantly blue: looking straight tip, it wax hardly possible to see 
that there was smoke in t.li •■ air. though my eyes were full of ' blacks ' 
when I left off watching the clouds drift. 

"So long an people arc helpful to each other and tender to their 
children, is there not something in them that art can strengthen and 
ennoble? Can we not Bud pictures, old or new. that "ill Mag before 
thcin iu beautiful forms their best fci-liug-i iukI thoughts Y I speak of 
pictures with great diffidence. For what in them directly reveals noble 
human feeling I oare deeply ; but my s-yes and brain are dull for both 
form and colour. I venture to speak of them at all to you only because 
I have thought jiniHi of rln- pos-ibility of using them as means for 
teaching people who can barely read Surely piettires must bo able to 
tell tale.s, lg) even to people whose eyes have been trained iu a Man- 
chester back street. The plan which I wish to try is. to take, with the 
help of other men, a warehouse with some well-lighted walls. On these 
1 would hang iirst the tale of the life of Christ, told by the copies pub- 
lished by the Arundel Society, as far as they can bo made to tell it ; 
and with the gaps, left, by them, filled by copies made specially for us. 
Under the whole series the same history Would lie told in words, and 
under each picture there would be a full explanation. There are hun- 
dreds of English people who have never heard this tale : but it is the. 
tale that is better known tbnn any other. Other tales told by pictures, 
I hope, can be found. 

"You speak hopelessly of the chance, of finding piiiuters for the 
actions of great Englishmen, but could we not fuel painters for English 
hills and woods? (A) I should like to make other people, and myself, 
look with their bride-, eventually even with tbeif hearts, at what they 
now see only with their eyes. So I would have drawings made of the 
prettiest places, near Manchester to which people go on holidays. They 
should be so painted that, if rocks are seen, it may be easy to know 
what kiud of rocks they ore ; if trees, what kind of trees. Under or 
near these picture*, there should be sketches iu outline giving the names 
of all the principal things — ' clump of oaks,' ' new red sandstone. ' On 
the opposite wall I wonld have cases of specimens — large-scale drawings 
of leaves of trees, of their blossom and seeds. For pictures of hills 



(a) T™, proviiinl 








FOBS CLAV7QEI1A. 






a think of the wonderfulneas of the earth if we had dra 
— say of a valley in the coal DWWin district as it now in, ami another 
of what it probably was when the coat plants were still growing. If 
each town ha.il such u wii™ of plotUM and explanatory drawings, they 
might be copied by chromo-lithography, and exchanged. 

"We wmi]. I have On! j.lnti ,.^r:i! iIih which you have described in For*. 
or. better. coloured copies of the pictures, wit h nli I lint you have written 
about them. Might we not have alno good sJunMnvtrl bognplM of good 
drawings, so that we might learn what to buy for our houses? 

" I apeak as if [ thought that one museum ennU He nsswiHi good 
in a huge city. I speak so because I hope that there are rich people 
enough, nick at heart of the misery whicii they now helplessly watch, 
to open other museums, if the first were seen to do good; or enough 
such people to lead the jmor in forcing the authorities of the city to pay 
for museums from the rates. 

"I would have gooH music in the museum every evening, and I would 
have it open on Sunday afternoons, and let fine music he played then 
too. I would do this for the stunt) reason which makes me think little 
of 'temples.' How can churches help us much now? I have heard no 
lirnii'lu r Ull us, m C'ltiiiiifui nr hi an-i-r, that it i* the dull/ of mir clan — 
Ktili the iiilitiy rliirt—tu t/irt thf, \HVjie light nndpare air, and all that light 
(I ltd pure ii ir, mid only tint/, ir/nild bring iril/t them, (i) Until preachers 
have the wi.sdom to sec, and the courage to say, that if, while the 
people are being stilled, in body and mind, for air now, and only tnij/ 
want more water seven years hence, and probably will not want a 
Gothio town-hnll even seventy years hence, we spend half a million 
pounds sterling on a town-hall, and I don t know how mauy millions 
for your Thirlmere water, we are guilty of grievous sin, — until they 
see and say this, how can the religion of which they are the priest* 
help us? The poor and the rich ure one people. If we can prevent the 
poor from being brutes, and do not, we are brutes too, though we be 
rich and educated brutes. Where two or three, nr two or three hun- 
dred such, arc gathered together — it matters not in what name — God 
is not in the midst of thein- Sonic day I hope we shall be able again 
to meet In churches and to thank tied — the poor for giving them good 
rulers, and wo for giving us tlio peace which we shall not find until we 
have taken up our duty of ruling. At present mauy workmen, after 
drinking on Saturday till public- houses close, lie in bed on Sunday until 
public-houses open. Then they rise, and begin to drink ngaiu. Till 
churches will help many. J want museums to help a few. Till Sunday 
be a day which brings to ns r.11 a livelier sense that we are bound to 
God and man with bonds i.f love and duty. I would have it be at least 
a day when working men may see that, there are some things in the 
world very good. The first day will do as well us the seventh for that. 
How can people, (rained as Our working classes now are, rest on Sun. 
day f To me it s ems that mir Sunday resi . which finds us with stores 
of knowledge and wisdom that we could nor have, had not hundreds of 
people worked for us, is ns much out of the reach of workmen as the 
daintily cooked cold meats which we eat on Sunday when we wish to 
be very good to our servants-' 1 



L 




F0118 CLAVIGERA. 181 

V Perhaps, after giving due attention to tbese greater designs, my 
readers may hnve pleasure in hearing of tin- prtjgrf>s of lil tie Harriet's 
liotauica) museum | see b'»'t LX1. , page 118. 

" I have told Harriet of the blue ' Flag flowers * that grew in onr 
garden nt home, on the bank by tbe river, and I was as pleased as she. 
when among the roots given us, I found a Flag (lower. One morning, 
wheo Harriet found a bud on it, she went half wild with delight. 
•.Vow 7 shall see one of the flowers you tell about.' She watched it 
grow day by day, and said, ' It HJH be  grand UrlMag when It bursts 
open.' She begged ine to let her fetch hi:r ' father and little brother' 
up to look at the wonderfully beautiful (to her) flower on its 'birthday.' 
Of onurse i agreed; but, aloe! almost ua soon as it was open, a cat 
broke it off. Poor little Harriet ! — it was a real grief to her: said 
flower was, like all our [lowers, (the soil U so rery bail,) a most pitiable, 
colourless tliiug. hardly to be known ns a relative of country flowers ; 
but they are all ' moat lovely ' to Harriet : she tells me, ' We shall have 
such a garden as never was known.' which is perhaps very true. 

" Harriet's plants don't ever live long, but she is learning to garden 
by degrees — learning even by her mistakes, lier first daisy and but- 
tercup roots, which you heard of, died, to her surprise, in their first 
winter. 'And I took ever such care oftbem,' she said; ' for when 
the snow came I scraped it, all elf, and covered them up uice and warm 
with loot and a*ke», and AM they died ! ' " 

VI. Finally, and for hopeful Jeat piece of this month's Fori, I com- 
mend to my readers every word of the proposals which, in the follow- 
ing report of the " Brcad-wi oners' League.' 1 are beginning to take form 
in America; and the evidence at last beginning to be collected respect- 
ing the real value of railroads, which I priut in capitals. 

" 'The Bread-winners' League '— on organisation of workmen and 
politician- extending thnHiyhont the State nf New York — publishes the 
following proclamation : — 

*" ' Riots are the consequence of viciou- laws, enacted for the benefit 
of the powerful few to the injury of the powerless many. 

'■ • Labour, having no voice iu our law-making bodies, will, of neces- 
sity, continue to strike. 

'• ' Riot and bloodshed will spasmodically re-occur until these ques- 
tions are squarely put before the American people for popular vote and 
legislative action. 

11 ' U is an iniquity and absurdity that half a doien railroad magnates 
can hold the very existence of t.lii- nation in their hands, and that we 
shall continue to be robbed by national hanks and other moneyed cor- 
porations. That *' resumption i>f labour" must tie hud is self-evident ; 
ana if the industrial ami labouring classt-s desire to protect their just 
interests and independence, tin  v r must first emancipate themselves 
from party vassalage and secure direct and honest representation in 
the councils of the natiou, state, and municipality. 

'The directors that by negligence or crime steal the earnings of 




I 



132 



FOR.S CLAVIGBRA. 



the poor from savings banks, and render life insurance companies hanlr- 
nipt, invariably e.-eiipe punishment. Anil utni-r existing Iiiks there if 
no adequate protection i.ir tin lla|MI»Hmfl or the insured. 

"Jnstui Wchwab, the most prominent I .'onimuiiistie InelW in the 
country, lays it down as part of the platform of bin part; that — 

" 'The Bo vera rue nt musl immediately take, control, ov.ii, and oper- 
ate the railroads and work the mines. The only monopoly must be the 
fluitrniiunt ' 

"At the Communistic meeting held in Tompkins Square n few 
nights ago, it was resolved that — 

•' 'To secure the greatest a-lvantages of economy and convenience 
resulting from the improvements of the age. and to tfutird against 
the cupidity of contractors, the fraudulent principle of interest on 
money, the impositions of the banking system, and the extortion* 
practise,] by railroad*, i/as conii>auies. and oilier organized monopolies, 
the system of contracting public work should be abolished, and all 
public improvements, such as poetroade, railroads, gasworks, water- 
works, mining operations, canals, post-offices, telegraphs, expresses, 
etc, should be public property, and br c/iitl'irted by Goreritmtiit at 
reasonable rates, for the interest of society,' 

" Thus, you observe, the Ohio Republican*, in ll:iii official declara- 
tions, are at oue with the Communists. 

•■ Judpe West, the candidate of the Ohio Republicans for the office 
of Ooveruor, in a speeth upon receiving the no mi nation, said : — 

" 'I desire to say. my fellow-citizens, to you a word only npon a 
subject which I know is uppermost in the minds and in the heart" of 
most of you. It is that the industry of our country shall be so re- 
warded as that labour shall at least receive that compensation which 
shall be the support and sustenance of the labourer. I do not know 
how it may certainly be brought about. But if I had the power, I 
would try one experiment at least. I would prohibit the great rail- 
road corporations, the great thoroughfares of Imsiness and trade, from 
so reducing their rales by ruinous, competition a- 10 disable themselves 
from i laying a just comiKiisulioii to their opprnturs, 

" ' I would g'i further, and would arrange and fix a minimum of 
prices for all who labour in the mines and upon the railroads, and then 
require that from all the net receipts and the proceed- of the capind 
invested the labourer at the end of the year should, in addition to his 
fixed rooipen-ation. receive a certain per cent, of the profits. 

" ' Then, if the profits were insufficient to compensate you as liber- 
ally as yon might otherwise desire, you would bear with your employ- 
ers a portion of the loss. But if these receipts be siitTicieiit to make a 
division, we would in G oil's name let the labourer, who is worthy of 
Ml hire, share a portion of the profits.' 

" Three other facta are worthy of attention: — 



"1. There are B 

THBSE ONLY 160 TH. 

vkak. In sixteen 
York, and only 30 

AND ONLY 7 PAID A E 

L dividend; and boo 



3adh in Tns United States, akd op 

ND TERRITORIES NOT A SINtlLE RAIL- 
THERE ARE 71 RAILROADS IN NEW 
I PAID A DIVIDEND; 53 IN ILLINOIS, 

a dividend ; IB in Wisconsin, and only 1 paid a 



FOBS CLAVIQERA. 133 

" 3. The number of commercial failures throughout the 
whole country during the fir8t half of this tear was 4,749 ; 
during the first half of 1876 it was 4,600 ; during the first 
half of 1875 rr was 3,563. Business grows worse instead of 

BETTER. 

" 3. congre88, at its coming 8e88ion, will be asked to vote 
a 8ub8idt of $91,085,000, in the shape of a guarantee of in- 
terest on bonds, to build 2,431 mile8 of the texas and pacific 
Railroad, and the job will probably be successful." 



134 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 



LETTER LXXXII. 

Brantwood, 13th September, 1877. 

I really tnougbt Fors would have been true to its day, 
this month ; but just as it was going to press, here is some- 
thing sent me by my much-honoured friend Frederic Gale, 
(who told me of the race-horse and kitten,) which compels 
me to stop press to speak of it. 

It is the revise of a paper which will be, I believe, in Baily's 
Magazine by the time this For* is printed ; — a sketch of 
English manners and customs in the days of Fielding ; (whom 
Mr. Gale and I agree in holding to be a truly moral novelist, 
and worth any quantity of modern ones since Scott's death, 
— be they who they may). 

But my friend, though an old Conservative, seems himself 
doubtful whether things may not have been a little worse 
managed, in some respects, then, than they are now : and 
whether some improvements may not really have taken place 
in the roads, — postage, and the like : and chiefly his faith in 
the olden time seems to have been troubled by some reminis- 
cences he has gathered of the manner of inflicting capital 
punishment in the early Georgian epochs. Which manner, 
and the views held concerning such punishment, which dictate 
the manner, are indeed among the surest tests of the nobility 
or vileness of men : therefore I will ask my friend, and my 
readers, to go with me a little farther back than the days of 
Fielding, if indeed they would judge of the progress, or de- 
velopment, of human thought on this question ; — and hear 
what, both in least and in utmost punishment, was ordained 
by literally i Rhadamanthine ' law, and remained in force over 
that noblest nation who were the real Institutors of Judg- 
ment,* some eight hundred years, from the twelfth to the 
fourth century before Christ. 

* The Mosaic law never having been observed by the Jews in liter- 
alness. 



FOBS CLAVIOERA. 135 

I take from Miiller's Dorians, Book III., chap, ii., the fol- 
lowing essential passages, (indies always mine): — 

"Properly was, according to tlie Spartan notions, to be 
looked upon tix it mo/trr <•/ iridijf'erettce ; in the decrees and 
institutions attributed to Lycurgus, no mention was made of 
this point, and the ephors were permitted to judge according 
to their own notions of equity. The ancient legislators had an 
evident repugnance to any strict regulations on this subject ; 
thus Zaleueus — who however first made particular enactments 
concerning the right of property — <vyrfY'&y/y interdicted cer- 
tificate* ■•/'/■/>/. 

"The ephors decided all disputes concerning money and 
property, as well as in accusations against responsible officers, 
provided they were not of a criminal nature ; the kings de- 
cided in cases of heiresses and adoptions. Public offences, 
particidoriy of tin k'ui-j* tun/ ollo'r aut/ioritien, were decided 
by an extreme course of judicature. The popular assembly 
had probably no judicial" (meaning only elective) "func- 
tions : disputes concerning the succession to the throne were 
referred to it only after ineffectual attempts to settle them, 
and it then passed a decree. 

"Among the various punishments which occur, the fines 
levied on property would appear ridiculous in any other state 
than Sparta, on account of their extreme lowness. Perseus, 

in his treatise on the La < hi an government, says that 

'the judge immediately condemn* i OS rich man to the loss of 
a dctsert (iirai*\in') ; the poor he orders to bring a reed, or a 
rush, or laurel leaves for a public banquet.' Nicocles the 
Lacediemonian says upon tlie same subject, ' when the ephor 
has heard all the witnesses, be either acquits the defendant or 
condemns him ; and the successful plaintiff slightly fines him 
in a cake, or some laurel leaves,' which were used to give a 
relish to the cakes. 

" Banishment was probably never a. regular punishment in 
Sparta, for the law could hardly compel a person to do that 
which, if he had done it voluntarily, would have been pun- 
ished with death. On the other hand, banishment exempted 
a person from the most severe punishments, and, according 






130 FORS CLAVtQBRA. 

to the principles of the Greeks, preserved him from every 
persecution ; so that even a person who was declared ari out- 
law by the Amphictyons was thought secure when out of the 
country. There is no instance in the history of Sparta, of 
any individual being banished for political reasons, so long as 
the ancient constitution continued. 

"The laws respecting the penalty of death which prevailed 
in the Grecian, and especially in the Doric, states, were de- 
rived from Delphi. They were entirely founded upon the 
ancient rite of expiation, by which n limit was first set to the 
fury of revenge, and a fixed mode of procedure in such cases 
was established. 

"The Delphian institutions were, however, doubtless con- 
nected with those of Crete, where Rhadamanthus was re- 
ported by ancient tradition to have first established courts of 
justice, and a system of law, [the larger and more important 
part of which, in early times, is always the criminal law].* Now 
as Hhadauianthus is said to have made exact retaliation the 
fundamental principle of his code, it cannot be doubted, after 
what has been said in the second book on the connexion 
of the worship of Apollo, and its expiatory rites, with Crete, 
that in this island the harshness of that principle was early 
softened by religious ceremonies, in which victims and liba- 
tions took the place of the punishment which should have 
fallen on the head of the offender himself. 

" The punishment of death was inflicted either by strangula- 
tion, in a room of the public prison, or by throwing the 
criminal into the C;eadas,f a ceremony which was always 
performed by night. It was also in ancient times the law of 
Athens that no execution should take place in the daytime. 

* I have endowed this sentence in brackets, because it is the German 
writer's parenthesis, from his own general knowledge ; and it shows 
how curiously unconscious he hud remained of the real meaning of the 
' retaliation ' or Ithadnmanthus. which was of good for good, not of evil 
for evil. See the following note. 

t I did not know myself what the Ouadim was; so wrote to my dear 
old friend, Osborne Gonlon, who tells me it was probably a chasm in 
the limestone rouk ; but his letter is so interesting that I keep it for 





FORS CLA11GEHA. 137 

So also the senate of the Eolic Come (whose antiquated 
institutions have been already mentioned) decided crimi- 
nal cases during the night, and voted with covered balls, 
nearly in the same manner as the kings of the people of 
Atlantis, in the Critias of Plato. These must not be con- 
sidered as oligarchical contrivances for the undisturbed ex- 
ecution of severe sentences, but they must be attributed 
to the ilread of pronouncing and putting into execution 
the sentence of death, and to an unwillingness to bring 
the terrors of that penalty before the eye of day. A similar 
repugnance is expressed in the prsictice of Spartan Ge- 
rnsia, which never passed sentence of death without sev- 
eral days' deliberation, nor ever without the most conclusive 
testimony." 

These being pre-Christian views of the duty and awfulness 
of capital punishment — (we all know the noblest instance of 
that waiting till the sun was behind the mountains) — here is 
the English eighteenth century view of U, as a picturesque 
and entertaining ceremony. 

" As another instance of the matter-of-course way of doing 
business in the olden time, an old Wiltshire shepherd pointed 
out to a brother of mine a place on the Downs where a high- 
wayman was hung, on the borders of Wilts and Hants. 'It 
was quite a pretty sight., 1 said the- old man ; ' for the sheriffs 
and javelin men came a-horseback, and they all stopped at 
the Everleigh Arms for refreshment, as they had travelled a 
long way.* ' Did the man who was going to be hanged have 
anything?' ' Lord, yes, as much strong beer as he liked; 
and we drank to his health ; and tben they hung he, and 
buried him under the gallows. 1 " 

Now I think the juxtaposition of these passages may enough 
aliow my readers how vain it is to attempt to reason from 
any single test, however weighty in itself, — to general con- 
clusions respecting national progress. It would be as absurd 
to conclude, from the passages quoted, that the English 
people in the days of George the Third were ill all respects 
brutalized, and in all respects inferior to the Dorians in the 
days of Rhadamanthus, as it is in the modern philanthropist 




13S FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

of the Newgatory* school to conclude that we are now 
entering on the true Millennium, because we can't bear the 
idea of hanging' a rascal for his crimes, though we are quite 
ready to drown any quantity of honest men, for the sake of 
turning a penny on our insurance ; and though (as I am 
securely informed) from ten to twelve public executions of 
entirely innocent persons take place in Sheffield, annually, 
by crushing the persons condemned under large pieces of 
sandstone thrown at them by steam-engines ; in order that 
the moral improvement of the public may be secured, by 
furnishing them with carving-knives sixpence a dozen cheaper 
than, without these executions, would be possible. 

All evidences of progress or decline have therefore to be 
collected in mass, — then analyzed with extreme care,— then 
weighed in the balance of the Ages, before we can judge of 
the meaning of any one ; — and I am glad to have been forced 
by J-brs to the notice of my friend's paper, that I may 
farther answer a complaint of my Manchester correspondent, 
of which I have hitherto taken no notice, that I under- 
estimate the elements of progress in Manchester. My 
answer is, in very few words, that I am quite aware there 
are rainv amiable persons in Manchester— and much general 
intelligence. Hut, taken as a whole, I perceive that Man- 
chester can produce no good art, and no good literature ; it 
is falling off even in the quality of its cotton ; it has reversed, 
and vilified in loud lies, every essential principle of political 
economy ; it is cowardly in war, predatory in peace ; and as 
a corporate bodr, plotting at last to steal, and sell, for a 
profit^ the waters of Thirlmere and clouds of Helvellyn. 

• Ab a literary study, thia exquisite pun of Hood's, (quoted by mj 
correspondent in lust Fort.) and intensely <■ hi urn. '[.eristic of the man, de- 
nerves the most careful memory, as showing what a noble and instrnc 
tive leasou oven a pun may lit-cume. whuii it is deep in its purpose, and 
founded on a trutli which is perfectly illustrated by the seeming 
equivocation, 

t The reader mnst note — though I cannot interrupt the text to explain, 
that the Manchester (or typioally commercial,— compare F-iri. Letter 
LXX.. p 3(M», 1 heresy in political economy is twofold.— firrt, what may 
specifically be called the Judasian heresy.— that the value of a thing if 




FOBS CLAVJGKJiA. 



139 



And therefore I have 
thine verdict * on that society, being- 
would be, not that the Lake of Thirlm 
to the top of the town of Manchester, 
Manchester, or at lea: 



bt that the Rhadaman- 
distinctly retributive, 
ere should be brought 
but that the town of 

mid be 



.'orporation thei 
put at the bottom of the Lake of Thirl mere. 

You think I jest, do you ? as you did when I said I should 
lik.' to destroy the New Town of Edinburgh,— (see notes in 
Correspondence, on the article in the •Svotsiuu/i,) and the city 
of New York ? 

My friends, I did not jest then, and do not, now. I am no 
Roman Catholic, —yet I would not willingly steal holy water 
out of a font, to sell ;— and being no Roman Catholic, I hold 
the hills and vales of my native land to be true temples of 
God, and their waves and clouds holier than the dew of the 
baptistery, ami the incense of the altar. 

And to these Manchester robbers, I would solemnly speak 

what it will fetch in the market; •' Tiiie ointment might have been 
gold for much, — this lake may be Hold Tor m noli, — this England may be 
■old for much, — this Christ maybe sold for — little ; but yet, let us have 
what we can get." etc ; aud. secondly, wbat may specifically be called 
the ' heresy of the tables '—i.e. of the money-changers— that money 
begets money, and that exchange is the root of profit. Whereas only 
labour is the root of profit, and ITnTl1|pi inemly (nausea Iocs to the pro- 
ducer by tithe to the pedlar. 

Whereupon I may al>o note, for future romparison of old aud new 
times, the discovery made by another of my good and much- regarded 
friends, Mr. AJfred Tylor, who is nlwuys helping me, one way or other ; 
■nd while lately examining some documents of the old Guilds, for 1 
forget what purpose of his own, it suddenly flashed out upon him, aa a 
general fact concerning Miuin. linn thry lu-vi-r looked for ' profit' — (and. 
practically, never got it.) — but only cared that their work should be 
good, and ouly expected for it, and got surely, dny by day, their daily 

* More properly, i 



s, the Min 



M verdict. Though I do not 
care for ' discoveries,' and never plume myself on them, bnt only on 
clear perception of long-known facts ; yet, aa I leave ray work behind 
me. 1 think it right to noie of new tiling's in it what seem to me worthy, 
— and the analysis of the powers of the three Judges, — Minos, the 
Punisher of Evil j RhadamautliUH. (he Itcivnrdur of liood ; and -Eacua, 
the Divider of Possession, ia, I believe, mine exclusively. 




140 



FORS CLAVIGEIiA. 



again the words wliich Plato wrote for prelude to the law» 
forbidding crimes against the Gods, — though Crimea to him 
inconceivable as taking place among educated men. " Oh. 
thou wonderful," (meaning wonderful in wretchedness.) " this 
is no human evil that is upon thee, neither one sent by the 
Gods, but a mortal pestilence and uistms* begotten among 
men from old and uncleansed iniquities : wherefore, when 
such dogmas and desires come into thy soul, that thou desir- 
est to steal sacred things, seek first to the shrines for purifi- 
cation, and then for the society of good men ; and hear of 
tlieiu what they say, and with no turning or looking baok, fly 
out of the fellowship of evil men : — and if, in doing this, thy 
evil should be lightened, well; but if not, then holding death 
the fairer state for thee, depart thou out of this life." 

For indeed f " the legislator knows quite well that to such 
men there is ' no profit ' in the continuance of their lives ; 
and that they would do a double good to the rest of men, if 
they would take their departure, inasmuch as they would be 
an example to other men not to offend, and they would relieve 
the city of bad citizens.'* 

I return now to what I began a week ago, thinking then, 
as I said, to he in the best of time. And truly the lateness 
of Fora during the last four or five months has not been ow- 
ing to neglect of it, but to my taking more paitis with it, and 
spending, I am grieved to say, some ten or twelve days out 
of the month in the writing of it, or finishing sentences, when 
press correction and all should never take more than a week, 
else it gets more than its due share of my shortening life. 
And this has been partly in duty, partly in vanity, not re- 
membering enough my often-announced purpose to give more 
extracts from classical authors, in statement of necessary 
truth ; and trust less to myself ; therefore to-day, instead of 
merely using Plato's help, in talking of music, I shall give 

• There is no English word for this Greek one. Kymbolicnl of the forms 
iging fury which uien must b« transformed to beasts, before they 

| The closing sentence from this point is farther on in the book. I 
give Jowett's translation, p. 373.— The inverted commas only are mine. 







FOItS CLAVI'tXUA. 



141 



little more than his own words, only adding such notes n 
necessary (or their application to modern needs. But 
he has wild is so scattered up and down the two great ti 
of the Republic and the Laws, and so involved, for the force 
and basis of it, with matter of still deeper import, that, ar- 
range it how beat I may, the reader must still be somewhat 
embarrassed by abruptness of transition from fragment to 
fragment, and must be content to take out of each what it 
brings. And indeed this arrangement is more difficult be- 
cause, for my present purposes, I have to begin with what 
Plato concludes in, — for his dialogues are all excavatory work, 
throwing aside loose earth, and digging to rock foundation ; 
but my work is edificatory, and I have to lay the foundation 
first. So that to-day I must begin with his summary of con- 
clusions IB the twelfth book of the Laws,* namely, that " the 
Ruler must know the principle of good which is common to 
the four cardinal virtues, I'rudence, Justice, Fortitude, and 
Temperance ; and which makes cacli and all of them virtue : 
aud he must know, of what is beautiful and good, the prin- 
ciple that makes it beautiful, and makes it good ; and know- 
ing this, he must be able to set it forth first in words, and 
follow it out in action. Therefore, since of all beautiful 
things one of the most beautiful is the fact of the existence 
and power of the Gods ; although it may be pardoned to the 
common people of the city that they know these things only 
by fame, no man may be a governor who has not laboured to 
acquire every faith concerning the existence of the Gods : 
and there should be no permission to choose, as a guardian 
of the laws, any one who is not a divine man, and one who 
has wholly gone through the sum of labour in such things," 



* My own edition ot Plato is Rekker's, printed by Valpy. IH'-'O; and 
my own references, made during the Inxt fifteen years, are all to page 
and line of this octavo edition, and will be £,-iven here, — after naming 
the book of each --erie*; thus, in the present ease, Lnwa, XII. 833. H, 
meaning the twelfth book of the Laws, 9t,h tine of 833nd pn«e in Belt- 
ker's Ktb volume: but with this reference I will also give always, in 
brackets, that to the chapter in Mtephnniis, so that the full refernnw 
-Laws, XII 033- tl [MHiJ. 







142 FORK OLAVIGBRA. 

— (meaning, having laboured until lie has fought his way into 
true faith). 

" And there are two lines of knowledge by which we ar- 
rive at belief in the Gods : the first, the right understanding 
of the nature of the soul, that it is the oldest and divinest of 
all the things to which motion, taking to itself the power of 
birth, gives perpetual being ; and the other, the perception 
of order in the movements of matter, in the stars, and in all 
other things which an authoritatively ruling mind orders and 
makes fair. For of those who contemplate these things nei- 
ther imperfectly nor idiotically, no one of men has been born 
so atheist as not to receive the absolutely contrary impres- 
sion to that which the vulgar suppose. For to the vulgar it 
seems that people dealing with astronomy and the other arts 
that are concerned with necessary law, must become atheists, 
in seeing that things come of necessity, and not of the con- 
ception formed by a will desiring accomplishment of good. 
But that has been so only when they looked at them " (in the 
imperfect and idiotic way ) " thinking that the soul was newer 
than matter, instead of older than matter, and after it, instead 
of before it, — thinking which, they turned all things upside- 
down, and themselves also : so that they could not see in the 
heavenly bodies anything but lifeless stones and dirt ; and 
filled themselves with atheism and hardness of heart, against 
which the reproaches of the poets were true enough, likening 
the philosophers to dogs uttering vain yelpings. But indeed, 
as I have said, the contrary of all this is the fact. For of 
mortal men he only can be rightly wise and reverent to the 
Gods, who knows these two things — the Priority of the Spirit, 
and the Masterbood of Mind over the things in Heaven, and 
who knowing these things first, adding then to them those 
necessary parts of introductory learning of which we have 
often before spoken, and also those relating to the Muse, shall 
harmonize them all into the system of the practices and laws 
of states." * 

* The Greek sentence is bo confused, and the real meaning of it bo 
rjilirely dependent on the reader '■ knowledge of uli.it bn- long preceded 
it that 1 am obliged aliyhtly to modify mid complete, it, to nmke it clear. 




FOBS GLAVIQBRA, 143 

The word ' necessary ' id tlie above sentence, refers to a 
most important passage in the seventh book, to understand 
which, I must now state, in summary, Plato's general plan of 
education. 

ft is founded primarily on the distinction hetwoen masters 
and servants ; the education of servants and artisans being 
not considered in the Laws, but supposed to be determined 
by the nature of the work they have to do. The education 
he describes is only for the persons whom we call ' gentlemen ' 
— that is to say, landholders, living in idleness on the labour 
of slaves. (The Greek word for stave and servant is the 
same ; our word slave being merely a. modern provincialism 
contracted from ' Sclavonian,' See St. Mark?* Jlest, Sup- 
plement I.) 

Our manufacturers, tradesmen, and artisans, would there- 

Lest the reader should suspect any misrepresentation, hero in Mr. Jow- 
•tt'fl more literal rendering of it, which however, in carelessly omitting 
tme word |ui)ulj|, and writing " acquired the previous knowledge, " 
instead of " acquired tha previous necnuuiry knowledge,' 1 has lost the 
clue to the bearing of the sentence on former teaching : — 

" No man can be a true worshipper of the Gods who does not know 
these two principles— that the kouI in the eldest of all things which are 
born, and is immortal, and rules over all bodies ; moreover, as I have 
now said several times, he who baa not contemplated the mind of nature 
which i- said to etist in thi.i stars, and nwpiirrd i hi- pri' viont ku.>wlcdj/e, 
and seen Che connection of them with iiiuaia, and harmonized them all 
with laws and institutions-, is not able to give B reason for audi things 
as have a reason." I'ompare the Wisdom of Solomon, xiii 1 — D : — 
•' Surely vain are all men by nature, who ore ignorant of God, and could 
not out of the good things that are seen, know him Unit is : neither by 
considering the works did they acknowledge the workmaster ; but 
deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air. or the circle of the stain, 
or tbe violent water, or the lights of heavea, to be the gods which gov- 
ern the world. With whose beauty if they being delighted took tbem 
to be gods; let them know how much better tbe Lord of them is : for 
the first author of baanfej hath created them. But if they were aston- 
ished at their power and virtue, let th<-m understand by them how much 
mightier he is that made them. For hy the greatness and beauty of the 
creatures proportion-ably tbe maker of them is seen. But yet for this 
they are the less to be blamed : for they pernd venture eir. seeking Hod. 
and desirous to find him. For being conversant in his works they 
search him diligently, and believe their sight : because the things are 
beautiful that are seen. Howbeit neither are they to be pardoned. For 
if they were able to know so much, tlutt they con Id aim at the world, 
how did they not sooner find out tha Lord thereof r " 






1-14 



FOBS CLAVIGEliA. 



fore be left out of question, i 
agricultural labourers all bi 
the word 'Blaves'* — a wo: 
ulgar historians and theologian; 



>ur domestic servants and 
id by Plato simply um!.-r 
Inch the equivocation of 
always translates exactly 



as it suits their own viewa : "slave," when they v 
depreciate Greek politics ; arid servant, when they are trans- 
lating the words of Christ or St. Paul, lest either Christ or 
St. Paul should be recognized as speaking of the same per- 
sons as Plato. 

Now, therefore, the reader is to observe that the teaching 
of St. George differs by extension from that of Plato, in so 
far as the Greek never imagined that the blessings of educa- 
tion could be extended to servants as well as to masters : but 
it differs by absolute contradiction from that of Mr. Wilber- 
force and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in t/ieir imagination that there 
should be no servants and no masters at all. Nor, except in 
a very modified degree, does even its extended charity differ 
from Plato's severity. For if you collect what I have said 
about education hitherto, you will find it always spoken of 
as a means of discrimination between what is worthless and 
worthy in men ; that the rough and worthless may be set to 
the roughest and foulest work, and the finest to the finest ; 
the rough and rude work being, you will in time perceive, 
the best of charities to the rough and rude people. There 
is probably, for instance, no collier's or pitman's work so 
rough or dirty, but that — if you set and kept Mr. Ayrton to 
it, — his general character and intelligence would in course 
of time be improved to the utmost point of which they are 
capable. 

A Greek gentleman's education then, which, in some modi- 
fied degree, St. George proposes to make universal for Eng- 
lishmen who really de 
perfect discipline in 
but with these, if he i 
lie duties, he had als 
those of 
astronomy,) which i 




■A essentially in 
nusic, poetry, and military exercises ; 
ere to be a perfect person, fit for pttb- 
i to learn three ' necessary ' sciences : 
:e, and motion, (arithmetic, geometry, 
called ' necessary,' not merely as being 



" Laws. VII. 303. 17 [800]. 



FORS CLAVIGERA. 145 

3 complete human usefulness, but also as be- 
ing knowledges of tilings existing by Divine Fate, which the 



Gods themselve 

contend, and "without the 

become a God, an angel, ot 



, againBt which they cannot 
awledge of which no one can 
hero capable of taking true 



None of these 
with painful toil, or to any 

sight of practical duty. " Fo 
indeed the unwillingness to 
the laying bold of any of th 
it is not a terrible thing, nor by- 
evils, nor even a great evil at Jill 
any of these things. But to 1 
much learning, with evil leadi 
that." This noble and evermo 






o be learned either 



'though partly I fear 

much more do I fear 

in an evil way. For 

eans the greatest of 

ve no experience of 

lave much experience and 

■, is a far greater loss than 

to be attended sentence is 



(at least in the fulness of it) untranslateable but by expan- 
sion. I give, therefore, Mr. Jowett's and the French trans- 
lations, with my own, to show the various ways in which dif- 
ferent readers take it ; and then I shall be able to explain 
the full bearing of it. 

(1) " For entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an 
evil, and is far from being the greatest of all ; too much 
cleverness, and too much learning, accompanied with ill 
bringing up, are far more fatal." 

The word which Plato uses for ' much experience ' does 
literally mean that, and has nothing whatever to do with 
'cleverness' in the ordinary sense ; but it involves the idea 
of dexterity gained by practice, which was what Mr. Jowett 
thought of. "Ill bringing up" is again too narrow a ren- 
dering. The word I translate literally 'leading' f is tech- 
nically used for a complete scheme of education ; but in this 



(VII. 818), having referenei 



* This most singular 
rank in immortility nttniuahle by jjruiit bmnau spirits. ( —. ~..~ . x.- 
1ns et vagus Hercules. " etc.) will bo much subject ot future inquiry. 
Bee, however, the note farther on. 

f It U virtually the rt t d of the word [)e drogue— the person who ltd 

Vol. IV.— 10 







146 FOItS CLAVIGEBA. 

place it means the tendency which is given to the thoughts 
and aim of the person, whatever the scheme of education 
may be. Thus we might put a boy through all the exercises 
required in this passage — (through music, arithmetic, ge- 
ometry, and astronomy,) and yet throughout give him an 
evil 'leading,' making all these studies conducive to the 
gratification of ambition, or the acquirement of wealth. 
Plato means that we had better leave htm in total ignorance 
than do this. 

{French) " L'ignorance absolue n'est pas le plus grand des 
uiiiux, ni le plus a redouter : une vaste ctendue de coun&is- 
sancea mal digfirees est quetque chose de bien pire." 

The Frenchman avoids, you see, the snare of the technical 
meaning ; but yet his phrase, ' til digested,' gives no idea of 
Plato's real thought, which goes to the cause of indigestion, 
and is, that knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtu- 
ous : nor does he mean at all that the knowledge itself is im- 
perfect or * ill digested,' but that the most accurate and con- 
summate science, and the most splendid dexterity in art, 
and experience in politics, are worse evils, and that bv far, 
than total ignorance, if the aim and tone of the spirit are 
false. 

"Therefore," — he now goes on, returning to his practical 
point, which was that no toilsome work should he spent on 
the sciences, such as to enslave the soul in them, or make 
them become an end of IL fe — "Therefore, children who are 
to be educated as gentlemen should only learn, of each sci- 
ence, so much as the Egyptian children learn with their read- 
ing and writing, for from their early infancy their master* 
introduce the practice of arithmetic, giving them fruits and 
garlands of flowers," (cowslip-balls and daisy-chains), " to fit 
together, fewer or more out of equal numbers ; and little 
vessels of gold, silver, and bronze, sometimes to be mingled 
with each other, sometimes kept separate;" (with eatUMte 
of relative value probably in the game, leading to easy com- 
mand of the notion of pounds, shillings, and pence,) "and 
so making every operation of arithmetic of practical use to 
them, they lead them ou into understanding of the number* 





FOBS CLAYHfERA., 



1+7 



ing and arranging °t camps, and leadings* of regiments, 
and at last of household economy, making them in all more 
serviceable and shrewd than others." Such, with geometry 
and astronomy, (into the detail of which I cannot enter to- 
dav,) being Plato's ' necessary ' science, the higher conditions 
of education, which alone, in Ins mind, deserve the name, are 
those above named as relating to tlie Muse. 

To which the vital introduction is a passage most curiously 
contrary to Longfellow's much-sung line, "Life is real, life 
is earnest," — Plato declaring out of the very deep of Ins 
heart, that it is unreal and u»earnest. I cannot give space 
to translate the whole of the passage, though I shall return 
for a piece presently ; but the gist of it is that the Gods 
lions are great, and have great things to do ; but man is a 
poor little puppet, made to be their plaything ; and the vir- 
tue of him is to play merrily in the little raree-show of his 
life, an as to please the Gods. Analyzed, the passage con- 
tains three phases of most solemn thought ; the first, an am- 
plification of the "What is man that thou art mindful of 
him?" the second, of the "He walketh in a vain shadow, 
and disquieteth himself in vain ; " tlie third, that his real duty 
is to quiet himself, and live in happy peace and play, all his 
measure of days. "The lambs play always, they know no 
better;" and they ought to know no better, he thinks, if 
iliev are truly lambs of God r the practical outcome of all 
being that religious service is to be entirely with rejoicing, — - 
that only brightness of heart can please the Gods ; and that 
asceticism and self-discipline are to be practised only that 
we may be made capable of such sacred joy. 

The extreme importance of this teaching is in its opposi- 
tion to the general Greek instinct, that 'Tragedy,' or song 
in honour of the Gods, should be sad. An instinct which, 
in spite of Plato, has lasted to tliis day, in the degree in 
which men disbelieve in the Gods themselves, and in their 
love. Accepting cheerfulness, therefore, as the fulfilment 
of sanctity, we shall understand in their order the practical 

• The iam« won] again— the end of pedagogue, :ipplii it tu suldii'n 
hutead of children. 




148 



FOBS CLAYIGERA. 



pieces both about music* and about higher educatie 
which take this first (VL 76G>. 

" For everv sprout of things bom, o 
wards the virtue of its nature, fulfils i 
tliis being true of all plants, and of ai 
and of man ; and man, as we hare  

if only be receive right education, together with fortunate 
nature ; and so becomes the divinest and the gentlest of 
things alive ; but if not enough or not rightlv trained, he 
becomes, of all things that earth brings forth, the savagest." 

The "together with fortunate nature" in this passage, 
refers to the necessity of fine race in men themselves ; and 



nee tlarttd fairly to- 
t in prosperous end ; 
imals wild or gentle, 
lid, is indeed gentle, 



* I thought to have collected into this place the passages about the 
demoralizing effect of sad music, (Verdi's, fur instance, the most cor- 
rupting type hitherto known. | from the Republic as well is the Laws : 
but that mast be for next month ; meantime, here ia a little bit about 
tragedy which MM be read dojw. though I'm terribly sorry to gite it 
only in small print. It must not hare small print, so 1 separate it only 
by a line from the text. 

"Concerning comedy, then, enough said; but for tin? 
earnest poets of (he world occupied in tragedy, if perchance 
3 to us, and ask thus: 'Oh, ye 
; to go into your city and your 
3 bring our poetry to you and act 
■mined by you of the doing 1 such 
uld we answer, answering rightly, 
For in my thoughts it is fixed that 



of these should t 
strangers 
land, or I 

it to you, or how is it detei 
ttuDM?' What ther 
10 Mm- .livim 






should answer thus : 'Oh, noblest of strangers,' should 
we say, * we ourselves also affording to our power are poets 
of tragedy, — the most beautiful that we can and the best. 
For all our polity is but one great presentment of the best 




FOBS CLAYIGKRA. 



149 



limits the future question of education to such, Plato not 
concerning himself about such as are ill born. Compare the 
Vulgate of the birth of Moses, " vhiens eum elegantem." 

The essential part of the education of these, then, — that 
properly belonging to the Muse, — is all to be given by the 
time they are sixteen ; the ten years of childhood being 
exclusively devoted to forming the disposition ; then come 
three years of grammar, with the collateral sciences, in the 
manner above explained, and then three years of practice 
in executive music : bodily exercises being carried on the 
whole time to the utmost degree possible at each age. After 
sixteen, the youth enters into public life, continuing the 
pursuit of virtue as the object of all, life being not long 
enough for it. 

The three years of literary education, from ten to thirteen, 
are supposed enough to give a boy of good talent and dis- 
position all the means of cultivating Ins mind that are need- 
ful. The term must not be exceeded. If the boy has not 
learned by that time to read and write accurately and 
elegantly,* he is not to be troubleil with such things more, 



id the best 

ntagonists 
.ma, which 

therefore 
u to pitch 

you that 



and most beautiful life, which we say to be ind 

and truest tragedy : poets therefore are you, i 

alike poets of the same things, antartists, and 

to you as our hope is of that most beautiful d 

the true law only can play to its end. Do in 

think that we at all thus easily shall allow y 

your tents in our market-place ; and yield t< 

bringing in your clear-voiced actors, speaking greater things 

than we, you should speak to our people, — to our wives and 

to our children and to all our multitude, saying, concerning 

the same things that we speak of, not the same words, but 

for the most part, contrary words.' " 

* Every day, I percoivc more mid more thu importance of accurate 

Verbal training. If the Dulce of Argyll, for instance, bud but had i .■ 

well taught him at school the relations of the words lex, lego, toi, and 
loyal ; and of rex, rego. roi. and royal, >see Unto tliin l.ntl, page 73,) 
he could neither have committed himself lo the false title of his treatise 
ou natural history, ' reijin of lair,' nor to tin: liullmv Foundation of his 
treatise ou the tenure of loud in the assumption that the long establish- 






150 



FOBS CI.A ri'iKUA. 



innpletely — this being con- 

[Mirsnliii;; lt;i miliar, wliii.' 

py the same time of each 

memo, we begin at the 
II. 501. 1 [653], 



but left illiterate. Then, literary study is to be forego: 

three years even by those wlio are afterwards to take 

again, that they may learn mi 

sidered a sedentary study, a; 

the athletic exercises always occupy the a 

day, and are never remitted. 

Understanding this general scheme, 
beginning ; arid the following passage, 
defines for us Plato's thoughts, and explains t 
pressions relating to the discipline of childhood. 

"Now, I mean by education* that first virtue which can 
be attained by children, when pleasure and liking, and pain 
and disliking, are properly implanted in their souls while yet 
they cannot understand why ; but so that when they get the 
power of reasoning, its perfect symphony may assure them 
that they have been rightly moralied into their existing 
morals. This perfect symphony of the complete soul is 
properly called virtue ; but the part of its tempering which, 
with respect to pleasure and pain, has been so brought up, 
from first to last, as to hate what it should hate, and love 
what it should love, we shall be right in calling its education. 

"Now these well-nourished habits of being rightly pained 
and pleased are, for the most part, loosened and lost by men 
in the rough course of live ; arid the Gods, pitying the race 
born to labour, gave them, for reward of their toil and rest 
from it, the times of festival to the Gods. And the Gods 
gave, for companions to them in their festivals, the Muses, 
and Apollo, the leader of Muses, and Dionysus, that the 

pure instincts t li.-y tir.st li:ul learned might be restored to 
them while they kept festival with these Gods. 

"Now, therefore, we must think whether what is hymned f 
among us be truly said, and according to nature or not. 

ment of ;i human law. whether criminal or not, must mnke it divinely 
indisputable. See p. <S ot A Craek teith Ilk Qraea the Diiki vf Argyll. 
Setnn and Mackenzie, Edinburgh ; Wlnttaker, London, 

• Jowett thus translates; bur, the? word here in Plato means proiierlj', 
the result of edncntiou, spoken of as the habit fixed in the child; -good 
breeding' would Iw till' nearest I'uirliBli, but involve* the idea of racei 
which is not here touchud by the Greek. 

f A hymn is properly a uoag embodying stem) traditions; h«oce, 



familiarly, the thing commonly said of the Coda. 









FOBS CLAVIOEBA. 


151 


"And this 


iawha 


is said : that every youn 


* thing that 


lives is alike 


in not 


being able 


to keep quiet 


but must in 




veand 


utter itself, 


—for mere movement's sake. 


leaping and 


kipping, as if danc 


ng and at play 


for pleasure, 


—and for noise sak 


e, uttering 




Bound. And 


that, indeed. 


other 1 


ving creatures have no sen 


e of the laws 


of order and 


disord 


r iu mover 


lents which we 


call rhythm 


and harmonj 


; but 


o us, those 


Gotls whom 


ve named lis 


fellows with 


us in o 


ur choirs,* 


these are they 


who gave us 


the delightful sense 


of rhvthm 


and harmony 


in which we 



they lead our choirs, binding us together 
songs nnd dances, naming them choruses from the choral joy. 

"Shall we, then, receive for truth thus much of their 
tradition, that the lirst education must be bv the Muses and 
Apollo "r 

"JC. So let it be accepted, f 

"A. Then the uneducated person will be one who has re- 
ceived no choral discipline ; and the educated, one who has 
been formed to a sufficient degree under the choral laws. 

"Also the choir, considered in its wholen 
dance and song ; therefore a well-educated ] 
one who can sing and dance well. 

"K. It would seem so." 



And here, that we may not confuse ourselves, or weaken 
ourselves, with any considerations of the recent disputes 
whether we have souls or not, — be it simply understood that 
Plato always means by the suui the aggregate of mental 
powers obtained by scientific culture of the imagination and 
the passions ; and by the body the aggregate of material 
powers obtained by scientific promotion of exercise and 
digestion. It is possible for the soul to be strong with a 
weak body, and the body strong with a weak soul ; and iu 
this sense only the two are separately considered, but not 
necessarily, therefore, considered as finally separable. 

And understanding thus much, we can now clearly under- 
stand, whether we receive it or not, Plato's distinct assertion 

•Compare II. 539. 5 [685]. 

f Hence forB'-ird, 1 omit what seem to me needless of thn mere ei- 
pressions of varied assent which break the clau-ies t>( the Athenian's 
course of thought. 






152 



FOIiS VLAVItiERA. 






that, as gymnastic exercise is necessary to keep the body 
healthy, musical exercise is necessary to keep the si 
healthy ; and that the proper nourishment of the intellect 
and passions can no more take place without music, than the 
proper functions of the stomach and the blood without exercise. 
We may be little disposed, at first, to believe this, because 
we are unaware, in the first place, how much music, from the 
nurse's song to the military ba.nd and the lover's ballad, does 
really modify existing civilized life; and, in the second 
place, we are not aware how much higher range, if rightly 
practical, its influence would reach, of which right practice 
] must say, before going on with Plato's teaching, that the 
chief condition is companionship, or choral association, (not 
so much marked hy Plato in words, because he could not 
conceive of music practised otherwise,) and that fur persons 
incapable of song to be content in amusement by a profes- 
sional singer, is as much a sign of decay in the virtue and 
use of music, as crowded spectators in the amphitheatre 
sitting to be amused by gladiators are a sign of decline 



the v 



Of Y 



And now, wo take the grand statement of the evil of 
c/uint/c in methods of childish play, following on the general 
n of the evil of change : — 



 I i 



, thei 



that i 



allc 



that the kind of piny customary with the children is the 
cipal of the forces that maintain the established laws. 
tor when the kind of play is determined, and so regulated 
that the children always 'play and use their fancies in the 
same way and with the same plaything*, this quietness 
allows the laws which are established in earnest to I 
quiet also ; but if once the plays are moved and cast ii 
shapes, always introducing other changes, and none of the 
young people agreeing with each other in their likings, nor 
either in the com- 
posure of their bodies or in their dress, but praise in a 
I way any one who brings in a new fashion whether 
>sure or colour — nothing, if we say rightly, can bi 
sater plague (destructive disease) in a city ; for he who 
s the habits of youth is, indeed, without being noticed. 




FOtlS CLA\7QERA. 153 

making what is ancient contemptible, and what is new, hon- 
ourable, — and than this, 1 repeat, whether in the belief of it, 
or the teaching, there cannot be a greater plague inflicted 
on a city. 

"Can we do anything better to prevent this than the 
Egyptians did ; namely, to consecrate every dance and 
every melody, ordering first the festivals of the year, and 
determining what days are to be devoted to the Gods, and 
"o the children of the* Gods, and to the Angels.* And then 



to determine alsc 
and with what dai 
whatever rites and 



t song at each offering is to be sung ; 
tch sacrifice to be sanctified ; 
are thus ordained, all the c 
the Fates and to all the Gods, shall 



consecrate with Hbatio 

* I cannot, but, noirit out with surprise and regret the very mischievous 
error of Mr. .Iioveti. s translation in thin place of the worii ' laiuoit i ' — 
■heroes. ' Had Plato meant heroes, be would have said heroes, the 
word in this case being the samp in English as io Greek. He means 
the Spiritual Powers whirl] have lower office "!' minist ration to men ; in 
this sense the word dioroon was perfectly and O'listauilv understood by 
the Greeks, and by tin- Christian ('liun-li adopting Greek terms; and 
on the theory that the Pagan religion w;is entirely false, but that its 
spiritual powers hail re;.! e*i-tencc. the word dicmon m cessarily came 
among Christians to mean an evil angel. — just us niuuh an angel as Ra- 
phael or Gabriel — but of contrary powers. 1 cannot therefore use the 
literal word daemon, because it has this wholly false and misleading 
association infixed in it; but in translating it 'angel,' I give to the 
English reader its full power mid meaning in the Greek mind; being 
exactly what the. lev in iyytkai, or inc-scnger. was adopted by the Chris- 
tiana to signify, of their own •/•'■■t> -pn-its. There are then, the reader 
mast observe generally, four orders of /,;...,',(. r .spiritual powers, honoured 
by the Greeks : 

1 The Gods,— of various ranks, from the highest Twelve to the 
minor elemental powers, such as Tritons, or Harpies. 

II. The Sons of the Gods.— children of the Gods by mortal mothers, 
as Heracles, or Castor. Rightly s etimes called Demi-Gods 

III. Angels,— spiritual [lowers in constant attendance ou man. 

IV. Heroes, — men of consummate virtue, to whose souls religious 
rite* are performed in thankfulness by the peoples whom they saved or 
dialled, and whose immortal power rem.-iins for their protection. I 
have often elsewhere spoken of the beautiful custom of the Lucrians 
always to leave a vacant place in tlieir clunking ranks for the spirit of 
Ajax "ileus. Of these four orders, however, the first two naturally 
blend, because the sons of the Gods become Gods after death. Hence 
the real orders of spiritual powers a&MM humanity, are three — Gods, 
Angela, Heroes, 'as we shall find presently, in the passage concerning 
prayer and praise.) associated with the spirits on the ordinary level of 
humanity, of Home, and of Ancestors. (Jowpure Fort, Letter LSX, 

p. ;ii3. 









154 



FORS CLA VIQERA. 



"I say, then, there should be three choirs to fill, as with 
enchantment of singing, the souls of children while they are 
tender, teaching them many other things, of which we have 
told and shall tell, but this chiefly and for the head and sunt 
of all, that the life which is noblest is also deemed by the 
Gods the happiest. Saying this to them, we shall at once 
say the truest of things, and that of which we shall most 
easily persuade those whom we ought to persuade." With 
which we may at once read also this, — II. 540. 2 [665]: 
"That every grown-up person and every child, slave and 
free, male and female, — and, in a word, the entire city sing- 
ing to itself — should never pause in repeating such good 
lessons as we have explained ; yet somehow changing, ami 
so inlaying and varying them, that the singers may always 
he longing to sing, and delighting in it," 

And this is to be ordered according to the ages of the 
people and the ranks of the deities. For the choir of the 
Muses is to be of children, up to the age of sixteen : after 
that, the choir of Apollo, formed of those who have learned 
perfectly the mastery of the lyre, — from sixteen to thirty ; 
and then the choir of Dionysus, of the older men, from thirty 
to sixty ; and after sixty, being no longer able to sing, they 
should become mythologists, relating in divine tradition the 
moral truths they formerly had sung. II. 528. 12 [664]. 

At this point, if not long before, I imagine my reader 
stopping hopelessly, feeling the supreme 
a conception as this, in modern times, an 
ness to everything taught as practical among us. 'Belief 
in Gods ! belief in divine tradition of Myths ! Old men, as 
a. class, to become mythologists, instead of misers ! and 
music, throughout life, to be the safeguard of morality ! — 
What futility is it to talk of such things now. 

Yes, to a certain extent this impression is true. Plato's 
scheme wa3 impossible even in his own day, — as Bacon's 
New Atlantis in hut day — as Calvin's reform in /iw day — as 
Goethe's Academe in his. Out of the good there was in ail 
these men, the world gathered what it could find of evil, 
made its useless Platonism out of Plato, its graceless Calvin' 
ism out of Calvin, determined Bacon to be the meanest of 






FOIiS CLA VRiF.RA. 



in 5 



mankind, and of Goethe gathered only a luscious story of 
seduction, and daintily singable devilry. Nothing in the 
dealings of Heaven with Earth is so wonderful to me as 
the way in which the evil angels are allowed to spot, per- 
vert, and bring to nothing, or to worse, the powers of the 
greatest men : so that Greece must be ruined, for all that 
Plato can say, — Geneva for ail that Calvin can say, — Eng- 
land for all that Sir Thomas More and Bacon can say ;— 
and onlv Gounod's Faust to be the visible outcome to Europe 
of the school of Weimar. 

What, underneath all that visible ruin, these men have done 
in ministry to the continuous soul of this race, may yet be 
known in the day when the wheat shall he gathered into the 
garner. But I can't go on wilh my work now ; besides, I 
had a visit yesterday from the friend who wrote me that let- 
ter about speaking more gently of things and people, and he 
brought me a sermon of the Bishop of Manchester's to read, 
— which begins with the sweetly mild and prudent state- 
ment that St. Paul, while " wading in the perilous depths" 
of anticipations of immortality, and »ati#fied that there 
would he a victory over the grave, and that mortality would 
be swallowed up of life, wittily brought bis readers' thoughts 
back from dreamland to reality, by bidding them simply be 
steadfast, immovable — -always abounding in the work of the 
Lord, — forasmuch as they know that their labour would 
not be in vain in the Lord ; and in which, farther on, the 
Bishop, feeling the knowledge in modern times not quite 
so positive on that subject, supports his own delicately sug- 
gested opinions by quoting Mr. John Stuart Mill, who "in 
his posthumous essays admits that though the doctrine of 
the immortality of the soul is probably an illusion, it is mor- 
ally so valuable that it had better be retained," — a sentence, 
by the way, which I recommend to the study of those friends 
of mine who were bo angry with me for taxing Mr. John 
Stuart Mill with dishonesty, on the subject of rent. (Time 
and Tide, pp. 104, 105.) 

Well, all this, the sermon, and the quotations In it, and 
the course of thought they have led me into, are entirely 




156 yoiM ci.AViatsiiA. 

paralyzing to me in the horrible sense they give me of loath« 
some fallacy and fatuity prevaditig every syllable of our 
modern wards, and every moment of our modern life ; and 
of the uselessness of asking such people to read any Plato, 
or Bacon, or Sir Thomas More, or to do anything of the 
true work of the Lord, forasmuch as tliey d-on't know, and 
seem to have no capacity for learning, that such labour shall 
not be in vain. But I will venture once more to warn the 
Bishop against wading, himself, in the "perilous depths" of 
anticipations of immortality, until he has answered my sim- 
ple question to him, whether he considers usury a work of 
the Lord? And he will find, if he has "time" to look at 
them, in last Fore, some farther examples of the Lord's work 
of that nature, done by England in India just now, in which 
ilia diocese of Manchester is somewhat practically concerned. 

I cannot go on with my work, therefore, in this temper, 
and indeed perhaps this much of Plato is enough for one 
letter ; — but I must say, at least, what it is all coming to. 

If you will look back to the 46th page of Time and Tide, 
you will find the work I am now upon, completely sketched 
out in it, saying finally that "the action of the devilish or 
deceiving person is in nothing shown quite so distinctly 
among us at this day, not even in our commercial dishones- 
ties, or social cruelties, as in its having been able to take 
away music as an instrument of education altogether, and to 
enlist it almost wholly in the service of superstition on the 
one hand, and of sensuality on the other. Arid then follows 
the promise that, after explaining-, as far as I know it, the 
signilicance of the parable of the Prodigal Son, (done in 
Tint* and Tide, ss. 175—178,) I should "take the three 
means of human joy therein stated, fine dress, rich food, and 
music, and show you how these are meant all alike to be 
sources of life and means of moral discipline, to ail men, and 
bow they have all three been made by the devil the means of 
guilt, dissoluteness, and death." 

This promise I have never fulfilled, and after seven vearsa.ro 
only just coming to the point of it. Which is, in few words, 
that to distribute good food, beautiful dress, and the practical 





FORS CLAVTQERA. 157 

habit of delicate art, is the proper work of the fathers and 
mothers of every people for help of those who have been lost 
in guilt and misery : and that only by direct doing of these 
three things can they now act beneficently or helpfully to any 
soul capable of reformation. Therefore, you who are eat- 
ing luxurious dinners, call in the tramp from the highway 
and share them with him, — so gradually you will understand 
how your brother came to he a tramp ; and practically make 
your own dinners plain till the poor man's dinner is rich, — 



or you are no Christians ; and you who a 


e dressing in fine 


dress, put on blouses and aprons, till yo 


x have got your 


poor dressed with grace and decency, — or 


you „r. no Ckri.. 


lians ; and you who can sing and play on 


nslruments, hang 


Your harps on the pollards above the t\\ 


ers you have poi- 


soned, or else go down among the mad 


nd vile and deaf 



things whom you have made, and put melody into the souls 
of them, — else you are no Christians. 

No Christians, you ; no, nor have you even the making of 
a Christian in you. Alms and prayers, indeed, alone, won't 
make one, but they have the bones and substance of one in 
the womb ; and you — poor modern Judasiau — have lost not 
only the will to give, or to pray, but the very understand- 
ing of what gift and prayer mean. "Gire, and it shall be 
given to you," — not by God, forsooth, you think, in glori- 
ous answer of gift, but only by the Jew money-monger in 
twenty per cent., and let no benevolence be done that will 
not pay. "Knock, and it shall be opened to you," — nay, 
never by God, in miraculous answer, but perchance you 
mav be allowed to amuse yourself, with the street boys, in 
rat-tat-tatting on the knocker ; or perchance you may be 
taken for a gentleman, if you elegantly ring the visitors' bell, 
— till the policeman Death comes down the street, and stops 
the noise of you. 

Wretch that you are, if indeed, calling yourself a Christian, 
yOU son find any dim fear of God, or any languid love of 
Christ, mixed in the dregs of you, — then, for God's sake, 
learn at least what prayer means, from Hczekiah and Isaiah, 
and not from the last cockney curly-tailed puppy who yaps 




15S FOIiS CLAVIOEBA. 

and snaps in the Nineteenth Century,* — and for Christ's sake, 
learn what alms mean, from the Lord who gave you His Life, 
and not from the lady patronesses of the last charity ball. 

Learn what these mean, Judasian Dives, if it may be, — 
while Lazarus yet lies among the dogs, — while yet there is 
no gulf fixed between you and the heavens, — while yet the 
stars in their courses do nat forbid you to think their Guide 
is mindful of you. For truly the day is coming of which 
Isaiah told — "The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness 
hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell 
with the devouring fire ? who among us shall dwell with ever- 
lasting burnings ? " And the day of which he told is coming, 
also, when the granaries of the plains of heaven, and the 
meres of its everlasting hills, shall be opened, and poured 
forth for its children ; and the bread shall be given, and the 
water shall be sure, for liim "that walketh righteously, and 
speaketh uprightly — that despise th the gain of oppressions 
— that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes — that stop- 
peth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes 
from seeing evil. He shall dwell on high — his place of de- 
fence shall be the munitions of rocks." Yea, blessing, beyond 
all blessing in the love of mortal friend, or the light of native 
land, — "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty ; they 
shall behold the Land that is far away." 

* Nevertheless. I perceive at last a change coming over the ipirit of 
our practical literature, and commend nil the recent papers by Lord 
JSlm-kforri, Mr Os^nhurn, Mr. Mallock, and Mr. Hewlett, very earne*tly 
to my own readers' attention. 





FOBS CLAVIGKRA. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



I. Affairs of the Company. 
Prospering. The Companions must take this brief statement, fot 

once, with an much faith aa if it were the- chairman a of an insolvent 
iai!way, for I have no space to tell them more. 

II. Affairs of the Master. 
Too many for him : anil it U quito certain he can't continue to ride so 

many horses at once, or keep so many balls in the air. All that he 
thinks it needful, in thin Fort, to any, is that, whatever he may oease 
hope of doing 1 , be will not fail from St. George's work, as long aa he has 
It TtBgth for any work at all. 

III. I give n genera! answer to the following letter, asking my corre- 
spondent's pardon for anything which may seem severe, of inapplicable 
in his own special case. There are also, I (ear, one or two words mis- 
printed or misplaced in the loiter — but I h»ve carelessly lost the MS., 
and cannot correct, 

'" Dear Sir, — I venture to address yon upon a matter that concerns 
me very much viz. . the leisore time of my existence. Xine hoars of 
each day are taken up as employer (sedentary business) ; three hours of 
which, perhaps, working myself. One hour and a half, each, devoted 
to the study of music and drawing or [minting. Five hours yet remain- 
ing walking to or from 'business;, mauls, physical exercise.— this last of 
tho usual gymiiustio useless pattern. 

" I oannot but think that there most l>e many others like situated— 
perhaps compelled to plunge with the stream of the questionable morality 
of modern commerce, or in other various ways making it utterly im- 
possible, during that portion of the day, to follow out the life you 
teach us to live, — yet who feel and desire that that portion of day they 
oan really call their own, should ha spent in a true, rounded manly de- 
velopment, and as far as may be in harmony with that which is eter- 
nally right. I do not know of any prescribed detail you have made 
with special reference to this compromised class, and this is the only 
excuse I can offer for writing to you — you that are the source of all that 
I feel deepest in religion and morality: fathom It I cnunnt, yet feel 
deeper and stronger each succeeding year, all that I love in nature and 
art I owe to you ; and this debt of gratitude has made me bold to try 

titer. " Ever gratefully yours." 






160 



FOJtS CZAVTOEBA. 



If we know there is a God, aud mean to please Sim. or if even 
(which is Lhe utmost we can f.-enorally say, for tlie beat of our faith, 
if we think there in ho much hope, or danger, of there being a God as 
to make it prudent in us to try to discover whether there be or not, in 
the only way He hue allowed us to ascertain the fact, namely, doing us 
we have heart) that He baa bidden >is, > we may be sure He can nevet 
be pleased by the form of compromise with cirouui stances, that all the 
business of our day shall be wrong, on the principle of sacrificial atone 
meat, that the play of it shall be right ;— or perhaps not even that ou/d 
right, but in my correspondent's cautious phrase, only " as far as may 
be, in harmony with what is right." 

Now the business 'necessities' of the present day are the precise 
form of idolatry which is, at the present d»y, crucially forbidden by 
Christ ; precisely as falling down to worship graven images, or eating 
meat offered to idols, was eriiciaUg forbidden in earlier times. And it 
is by enduring the persecution, or death, which may be implied in 
abandoning ' business necessities * that the Faith of the Believer, 
whether in the Cod of the Jew or Christian, must be now tried aud 

Bat in order to make such endurance possible, of course our aide must 
be openly taken, and our companions in the cause known; this being also 
needful, that our act may have the essential virtue of Witness-dom. or 
as we idly translate it, Martyrdom. 

This is the practical reason for joining a guild, and signing at least 
the Creed of St, George, which is so worded as to be acceptable by all 
who are resolved to serve God, and withdraw from idolatry- " 



lint for the i 
First. Keep 




i mediate (guest ion in my 
working man's drees a 
bo able t 
Instead of the fashiouao 
forge work, and 1 



the office, and always walk 
put your hand to anything 

i vanities of competitive gym- 
>lauc and saw well ; — then. 



if you titic] in the city you live in, that everything which human hands 

able, and human mind willing, to do, of pulling, pushing, 

carrying, making, or cleaning— (see in last Furs the vulgar BOhoolrais- 

n of the civilization implied in a mechanical broom.) — is done 

by machinery, —you will come clearly to understand, what 1 have never 

been able yet to beat, with any quantity of verbal hammering, into my 

renders' heads, — that, as lone; as living breath -engines, and their glo- 

is souls and muscles, stanii idle in the streets, to dig coa! out of pita 

« drive dead steam-engines, is an absurdity, wost«, aud wickedness, for 

wet. from Krin* 



The awgnlfli-isit chut which tit 


Ito.ll plsrcJ 


m war- Is, In making them Imaglna i 




rely pflnt-liig (ill fpirltiu.1 tncanlag 


rom tha word 



L'lil I- -l!!i n 1'tlutcll. ill thu UIW. 




FORS CLAVtOEHA. 



m 



which— I am bankrupt in terms of contempt,— and politely finish my 
paragraph — " My brethren, these tbfuys ought not ao to be." 

Secondly. Of simple exercises, learn to walk and run at the utmost 
speed consistent with health ; do this by always going at the quickest 
pace you can in the streets, and by steadily, though minutely, increas- 
ing your pace over a trial piece of ground, everyday. Lenin also 
dancing, with extreme precision ; and wrestling, if you have any likely 
strength '. in summer, al»o rowing in sea-boats : or barge-work, on 
calm water ; and, in winter, (with skating of course, I quarterstaff mid 
sword- exercise. 

IV. The following extract from the report of the Howard Association 
is of great value and importance: — 

■• iNDUSTniAi, Eiu'cation ternu Chime.— Several yeare ago the 
Secretary of the Howard Associal i>m. having to visit the chief prisons 
of Holland and Belgium, took occasion to notice other nodal institu- 
tions of those countries, and on his return to England invited attention 
(in many newspapers) to the very useful tendency of the cheap tech- 
nical schools of Holland, fur the industrial training of poor children. 
Many circumstances indicate that public and legislative attention Li 
more than ever needed to this question. Fur the evumsiou of intellec- 
tual teaching through the  Board Schools.' valuable aa it is, haa not, 
as yet. been accompanied by an adequate popular uimvictnin that mere 
head knowledge, apart from Aiinrficraft skill, is a very one-sided aspect 
of education, and if separated from the latter, may in general he com- 
pared to rowing a boat with one our. (Far worse than that, to loading 
it with rubbish till it sinks. — J. It.  Indeed, popular intellectual edu- 
cation, if separated from its two essential complements— rdigutu* and 
industrial training — is an engine fraught with terrible mischief. 

"An instructive leading article in the Hid 1 , l\ii-kit (of May 11th, 1877) 
eon i plains of I gnat increase of juvenilu crime in that large town, 
where, at times, the spectacle has been witnessed of ' gangs of young 
thieves lining the front of the dock, several of them so small that they 
had to be placed upon a box or stool to enable the magistrates to see 
them,' And the- crime- vf thine rhddra, hit lu.ti.nhj mare numerous but 
wore leriuus than formerly The Editor adds, ' It it singular that ths 
rapid increase should dale from lit,? time th,il the Education Art corns 
ii<t» faree.' Here again U indicated the- necessity for irnniu.il training in 
aililitt'on to head knowledge.' 

" In connection with industrial education, it may also be mentioned 
that during the year a veteran member of this. Assoeiutiuii, ex-Sheriff 
Watson (of Ratho. N.B.) has published :, pamphlet. I'oujunsin and In- 
dustrial Ed m-otio., in- A>.erdre'i>lni-*{ Blackwood), in which be shows that 
a rery remarkable diminution of crime and (pauperism ha* taken place 
in that particular county as compared with tin' rest ,.f Scotland, owing 
mainly to ihdostri.d day schrmls. The children came frniii their own 
homes at seven or eight o'clock a.m.', had break fast, dinner, and sup- 
per; were employed three hours daily in learning, and religious instruc- 
tion, and tive hours in manual industry, and retained to their owr 







162 FOUS CLAVIQBSA. 

homes at night It is staled, 
and skilfully applied, success 5 
out, failure U equaUy tntre.' " 

(I do not quite know what the writer means by 'learning' in this 
passage. But I can assure him, whatever he mni by it. th.il element 
may be left out harmlessly, if only the child be taught good manners, 
religious faith, and manual skill, — ,1. It.) 

V. I have not time, alas, to comment on the following two letters ; 
except only to say that the introductory one is from a Companion of 
the Guild ; and that the introduced one is the moat extraordinary testi- 
mony to the practical powers- of children, rightly educated, which I 
have over seen or hoard of. Hero is little Hercules, again visible to us 
in his crndle, and no more in myth, but a living symbol 1 If any prac- 
tical reader should be too much pained by the sentimental names of the 
children, let him read, to refresh himself, the unsentimental oration of 
the Scotsman in the Inst article of our Correspondence. 

"24th July, 1877. 
" Dear Mr. Huskin,— When Mr. Ward wss here the other evening, we 
were reading a letter from a cousin of ours who has been several years 
in California ; and he said he thought you would like it for Fen ; so I 
semi soiin: exi-riiets — more perhaps lhan are suitable for Fort, — but I 
thought you might like to see them. The gentleman was an Eugli-h 
doctor, and practised for many yonra in Ceylon, and has been almost 
all over the world. He married n gentle, well-educat'd English lady, 
and they have seven children. ' Keenee's ' name is "Irene Dolores;' 
the hoy they call ' Buddha' is " Everest,' after the highest mountain in 
Hindostnn. ' Nannie ' is • lanthe.' Every word of the letter is true, 
for '(.Ills' couldn't exaggerate or prevaricate in the slightest possible 
dogree. Ever yours sincerely." 



" 15fA May, 1^77. 
a mnning two farms, about four miles apart — one with goat 



(Angora), and the other grain, sheep, and pigs. My time is at present 
entirely occupied, and all of us are busy all the time. Percy and 
Nannie herd the goats just now. and will have to, for another month, 
as they are kidding, and we are milking them. We hove about 22! 
goats, all the Angoras which produce mohair. They are the most 
beautiful creatures you ever naw. Percy is only five, yet he killed a 
rattlesnake a few days ago, about Conn feet long, and as big as my arm ; 
it was aa much us he could carry with both hands, when be brought it 
home in triumph. Sannie nearly trod on it, and he killed it for her. 
I can't afford to get the children boots, so they are obliged to look out 
sharp for snake*. Buddha trod on ;ui enormous rattlesnake the other 
day, but his naked foot did nut hurt it, so it did not bite him. 

"On the Other farm I have about -100 merino sheep and 70 hogs. 
The children all have their work to do, Percy, Nannie, and Buddha 
herd goats. Zoo and Noeneo look after the baby and the younger 





FOBS CLAVIQERA. 163 

children, and dress and wash lliem, lay th<: tabic, h>lp nook, and wash 
dishes: and the mother makes nil our cloth ex. We live roughly, but we 
hare plenty to eat and drink. All our plans aa to coming home are 
knocked on the bead, and J have determined not to entertain the idea 
again, hut to settle down here for pood. Farming is alow work, hut 
we shall get ou in time ; and if we don't, the- hoys wilL We will edu- 
cate them the best we can, and 1 don't think much of education or 
civilization anyhow. Zoe is learning the violin, and I shall buy a 
zilnern for Xeeuee. All the children have* au excellent ear for music, 
and Zoe bids fair to have a very line voice. The boys will have been 
brought up to this sort of farming, and will have a good chance to get 
on. I think. For a man with a lot of children, Cnla is the best place. 
I don't wish to have anything more to do with medicine, — it's all a hig 
humbug. For the most part farming in honest ; — anyhow, at least it s 
|*issible to be an honest farmer. 

"I am just about to enlarge the house. The climate is the best in 
the world. We live very roughly, and perhaps a little slovenly; hut 
we have lots to eat and drink,— three good square meals every day ; 
and after this year shall have bolt. 

"I believe we are fixtures here now: indeed I mean to dig me a 
grave on the top of our hill, so as to get as n.:nr to heaven a- possible. 

•' I think, on the whole, the kids will have u, better chance hero than 
at home.* Besides, the limes will be had at homo now. You are 
drifting into a terrible war, in the course of which England will lose 
India, I think,— not altogether directly by Kussia, but by revolt of the 



VI. A letter of deep import from my old friend and correspondent in 
Time and TiiU. Sir. Dixon. It shall be commented on at length in next 
Fori: meantime-, I commend with s|<ll IIMft ratification, to all my 
readers, Mr. George MiWliell's letter in tho Bitiltter for August 25th of 
this year. 

'■ 15, BUKI>EULAM) St BEST, Sl'NDKRbAHD, \Mh Sept., 1877. 

'"Dear Sir. — I omitted in my last to inform you that I he new Labour 
League of America is a revival of the old ideas that were promulgated 
by the Anab.-.pti-ts in the time of Luther, in i.ieruiiiuy, in the reasauts' 
War. and then again by the French Revolutionists. 1780. The leader 
Schwab is one at the leaden of tlie ' Internationalists ' who figured in 
the Paris Commune days. A very good summary of their ideas and 
plans wa* given in a series of articles iu Fniuri'n JiagadM a few years 
ago. I possess several of their programmes, though of late 1 have 
heard very little of tlicm. I enclose a cutting respecting their Congress 
this year ou the Continent, 

" 1 will try to procure something of more detail, for I am very deeply 
intereated in this organization, though I do not agree with all the 
priucipl.s t.liey advocate, 1 ace in it a great principle f>r the good of 
the working classes if it was rightly and justly conducted. It aims to 
unite the working classes of every country in one bond of universal 
broiherhood. It is opposed to war, strikes, and all such like combina- 




104 



FOBS CLAYIGERA. 






tions having /w M the principal mMnn nf attaining the amelioration of 
the evils they suffer from. The original ideas, were of u simple, gradual, 
progressive character, but ultimated in the fierce rabid notions that 
stained the Commune in Paris, the result of being led by fierce wild 
men. In a novel entitled The I'lUeernnlut, is a. very good account of 
their aims, only it is coloured with a novelist's romantic way of de- 
picting such matters. 

" If you care for more respecting them, I cnn, I think, send you some 
particulars, I enclose you Brighl's speech at Manchester, which seems 
not ao jubilant as he used to be of the progress of our people : his 
allusion to Venice seemed akin to some thoughts of yours, so thought 
would interest yon; also his allusion to the Indian Famine, and Our 
neglect of our duty to these iieople. 

"Was the leisure of the Greeks not due to the hnrd work of the 
helots and slaves they had ? Is our leisure, or rather the leisure of our 
rich people, not due to the work done by our workpeople * Just think 
of the leisure of our people, — think of the idle lives of the daughters 
of our tradespeople . it seems to me there is more leisure enjoyed now 
by Our rich people than ever was enjoyed by any people — I mean the 
rich and trading classes. 

" When I visit the houses of out trnding classes I feel nma/ed to see 
the gradual change in their circumstances within tbe-e few years, — 
the style of life they live, the servants they beep, the almost idle lives 
of their Rons and daughters. Then we the way in which we live, — how 
different to the simple style of our forefathers! If our lives were 
simpler, if we nil had to labour somewhat like our old people, then how 
different it would be I " Your respectfully, 

'■Thomas Dma " 

Well said, my old friend : but you must not confuse fevered idleness 
with leisure. 

All questions raised either by my Manchester or Newcastle corre- 
spondent, respecting onr want or possession of leisure, are answered by 
the following short extract from Plato I — 

" The Athenian. Do we then all recognise the raiaon why, in oar 
cities, such noble choirs and exercise have all but passed away;— or 
shall we only say that it is becau.se of the ignorance of the people and 
their legislators T 

'• The Vrcliin. Perhaps so. 

"A. Ah no, you too simple Cleinias t there are two other causes; 
and causes enough they are, too. 

"C Which mean you » 

"A. The first, the love of riches, leaving no moment of leisure" 
(making all Time leisureless) " to care about anything but one's own 
possessions, upon which tha soul of every citizen being suspended, 
csmiot contain any other thought but of his daily gain. And what- 
ever knowledge or skill may conduce to such gain,— that, he is most 
ready in private to learu and practise ; but mocks at every other 
Here then is one of the utilises we look for. lhat no one cares any tt 
to be earnest in any good or honourable thing ; but every IE 
tiable thirst for gold and silver, wili submit himself to any art or trick 




FOBS CLAVIGERA. 165 

if only he can grow- rich by it. noil do any deed,— be it holy. be it pro- 
fane, or be it utterly vile,— reluctant at nothing, if only he inny get tbo 
power, like a beast, to eat and drink In- fill of every kind, and fulfil to 
(hi- uttermost all his lust*."— Lav*, VIII. 351. 30 [831], 

VII. The following public voice of the New Town of Edinburgh, on 
the * inevitable' in Sivil.la.iid. m:iv perhaps enable some of iny renders 
to understand at last when I said, seven years ago, that I should like 
to destroy tbu New Town of Edinburgh ; — namely, because I loved the 
Old one,— and the better Burg that shall l>e tor ever. 

I have yet one other modem oration to set beside this; and then I 
will ny ray ray of both. 

"A letter which we print elsewhere, written by an able praotienl 
farmer, appeals strongly to the Highland mill Agricultural Society to 
do something -to stay the plague M depopulation of men and valuable 
livestock, aud to dislodge tin; wild beasts and birds which have been 
the cause of so much injury to Sinlti-li agriculture.' The request will 
aeem, on the face of it, to be strange, if not unintelligible, seeing that 
there are more people in Scotland now thun ever there were before, 
and that Scottish agriculture, judged by what it brings to market, 
produces mure than over it did. A perusal of the whole of the letter, 
however, will show what it is that the writer means. He has been 
looking at a farm, or what u-ed to be a sheep farm, somewhere in the 
north, and he finds that it is now given tip to game. The land was, 
he says, thirty or forty years ago divided into four or five average -.si r.i d 
farms, each having tenants, and carefully cultivated in the lower-lying 
parti, while on the hills cattle and sheep fed. Altogether these farms 
afforded a 'livelihood to quiet and Industrious tenants and peasants, 
giving the owners fair rentals, with ocrtainty of advance by judicious 
outlay in permanent improvements.' Now all this is changed. There 
are no men, horseH, cattle, or sheep, only game. The sheep-drains aro 
choked, and the lands are boggy. This, then, is what the writer 
means by depopulation, and by injury to Scottish agriculture. Of 
course he sees in it great national injury in the shape of limitation 
of the area of land fitted for agriculture, ;• ml in the lessening of the 
meat supply, and. ns wo have said, be calls upon the Highland and Ag- 
ricultural Society to do something to briny back the people and the 

"The question will naturally be asked, What can the Highland and 
Agricultural Society do? Perhaps, too, most people will ask. Ought 
it to do anything ? The writer of the letter ts laudably anxious for 
the extension and improvement of the business in which he U en- 
gaged, and be regards the afforesting of sheep land ns a great offence. 
But can it be so regarded by the Highland and Agricultural Society, 
or by the country generally * It may be thnt many of us would think 
the land better used as a. sheep farm than ns a game forest ; but that 
is not the question. Wtitit tin htmlb.rd tint linil to ileeiilf has been bow 
to make the most profit iM use of bis property, and be has apparently 
found that he could make more of it for spurting purposes than be 
could for fanning. ' There's a greater interest nt stake than the sheep 
farmer." tnid the gamekeeper to our correspondent, who adds that 'you 






186 



FORS CLAYIGEHA. 



disoover that some wealthy Cockney pays more for six weeks Mow- 
ing off powder and shut Chun the sheep farmer can pay for a whole 
year.' Well, that is the win ile question in n nutshell— the land lets for 
more to the sportsman than to the farmer. What wtit'l It ihiU'ji^  ■;' 
tin tutiilknl as 11 man of business if he did not let his land in the best 
market ? Our correspondent would think it hard if anyliody sought Co 
place restrictions upon the sale of his produce. The people who de- 
nounce nil intoxicating liijiinrs are in the habit of showiug that the 
cousumplkm of hurley in breweries and distilleries is an euoruu 

a tract ion train the 1 1 of (he people I'cir purposes which have n 

—nay, which they assert are positively injurious What wouid our cor- 
respondent think if it was proposed to compel him to grow less barley 
or to sell his barley for other purposes than brewing or distillation T He 
would Hay, and right ly, that it was a. grossly improper interference with 
his right Co m'.ike the most of bis business ; yet ic would really be no 
worse in principle than what ho virtually propose* in the case of land- 
lords. To say ih;it they must not let their laud for sporting purposes, 
and that they must ret it for agriculture, would be a limitation of their 
market exactly the same in principle, and proportionately the some in 
effecC, as a law preventing farmers from selling their barley to brewers, 
and compelling them to use it or sell it only for the feeding of cattle 
The mistake of supposing that landlords ought to have some peculiar 
economic principles applied to them in the sense of restricting the use 
to which tiny sltali put their hind is common enough, but the reasons 
given are, as a rule, nentimeittttl rather thau practical. It may be said 
Chat the complaint of our correspondent as to the abstraction of land 
from agriculture, and the consequent lessening of the supply of food, 
is practical. In tiw same sense so is the complaint of tie- total abstain- 
ers as to barley, and =■> would be an objection to the saie or feuing of 
land for building purposes ; but they ore not convincing. In the neigh- 
bourhood of every great town many acres of laud that, would have pro- 
duced food have "been covered with buildings . ought the extension of 
towns, therefore, to be prohibited by law ? 

"The depopulation of the country districts is u favourite theme with 
nf.iilimfiiln' [H-oplc, who will pcrsi.-t. in lighting against the inevitable, 
and speaking of that as a crime whi h is in fact the operation of a «"(- 
n ml 'tor. (!) Like our correspondent, they draw loving pictures of 
small forms and numerous tenants, giving the impression that when 
these could be seen, the times were bli-sful and the nation strong. Ac- 
cording to these theorist =. nut only were the farmers and 1*89:11] try nu- 
merous, but they were happy, contented, and prosperous ; and now 
they are all gone, to the injury of the country. If the picture were in 
all respects faithful, it would not show that any action to prevent the 
change wouid have been possible or sueoe.-sful. It is as certain us any - 
thing can 1 1" ! lei I -11 lung a- la tier wages and better living are to lie 
got in towns, working people will not stay in the country. Census re- 
turns show that "hib the population of the rural districts is steadily 
decreasing, that of the towns is as steadily anil rapidly increasing ; tho 
reason being that people can earn more in low 11s than they can in the 
country. Nor is that all. It cannot lie donbted that the tendency to 
throw several small farms into u single large one. while it has helped 
the decrease of the population, ha- largely increased the quantity of 
fond produced. The crofter's life alternated between barely enough 





Foils CI.AYIGE11A. 



1(17 



will -tarvntion It nan rare thai lie con I J j^.i before the world. His 
means being small, he could nut cultivate Ids land to ad vantage, and 
what he did cost him heavily. He had to do wearily and wastefully 
what the large farmer can do with ease ami economically. No doubt 
many of the oraften clung to their mode of life— they knew no other. 
But with the spread of railwoy*, the increase of a team boats, the open- 
ing of roads, and the accessibility of newspapers, they learned to 
change their opinions, as they discovered that they could shake olf 
their misery anil live comparatively well without half the anxiety or 
actual labour that acoompiinh-d their life of semi starvation It would 
probably lie found that, in tin- coses where changes wore made by com- 
pulsion and by wholesale, the people who were Bent away are now highly 
grateful fur what was done. Whether that lie the case or not, however, 
it ia certain that what w called the depopulation of the country dis- 
tricta will go on os lo.it; :is the towns olFer greater inducements to the 
people. It seems to tic thought not only Chat landlords ought to be 
compelled to let their laud in small farms, but that some people 
should be compelled 1<1 occupy them. That is ilio logical inference 
from the com plain ta that are made, and it is enough to state it to show 
its absurdity. Nothing of the kind is or ought to he possible. Laud 
and its cultivation must lie on a perfectly business footing if there is to 
be real progress and if no injustice ia to "be done. The people who 
Complain of depopulation arc not. as a rule, those whose lot in having 
to leave tlu-ir patches of land is thought to be bo hard, but theorists and 
fccnti mental ists woo, it they could l.jin their way, would inflict ter- 
rible cvilfl o|ion the country. It is not meant that oor correspondent 
is one of these He probably talks of dei-opulatiou rather as a fashion 
of Speaking than as advancing a theory  r ln~-,vi-i hi- is actuated by a 
•entiment. He ia a farmer, and doe- not like t" sen n farm become 
a forest: that is why hu complains. Yet bo would no doubt admit that 
every man is entitled to do the best he enn for himself provided he 
does no injury to others. That is a rule which lie would insist upon 
in hi* own case, and properly . and he will find it very difficult to show 
Cause why it should not also be applied to crofters and landlords."— 

B uttm a m , MtA Am, 1877. 



168 FOR8 CLAVIGEJLL 



LETTER LXXXIIL 

"Was the leisure of the Greeks not owing to the hard 
work of the helots and slaves they had?" asked my old 
friend, Thomas Dixon, in his letter given last month. 

Yes, truly, good labourer ; nor the Greeks' leisure only, 
but also — if we are to call it leisure — that of the rich and 
powerful of this world, since this world began. And more 
and more I perceive, as my old age opens to me the deeper 
secrets of human life, that the true story and strength of that 
world are the story and strength of these helots and slaves *, 
and only its fiction and feebleness in the idleness of those 
who feed on them : — which fiction and feebleness, with all 
their cruelty and sensuality, filling the cup of the fornication 
of the kings of the earth now to the lip, must be, in no long 
time now, poured out upon the earth ; and the cause of the 
poor judged by the King who shall reign in righteousness. 
For all these petty struggles of the past, of which you write 
to me, are but the scudding clouds and first wailing winds, of 
the storm which must be as the sheet lightning — from one 
part of heaven to the other, — " So also shall the coming of 
the Son of Man be." 

Only the first scudding clouds, I say, — these hitherto sedi- 
tions ; for, as yet, they have only been of the ambitious, or 
the ignorant ; and only against tyrannous men : so that they 
ended, if successful, in mere ruinous license ; and if they 
failed, were trampled out in blood : but noic, the ranks are 
gathering, on the one side, of men rightly informed, and 
meaning to seek redress by lawful and honourable means 
only ; and, on the other, of men capable of compassion, and 
open to reason, but with personal interests at stake so vast, 
and with all the gear and mechanism of their acts so involved 
in the web of past iniquity, that the best of them are help- 
less, and the wisest blind. 



FOKS OLA YIGERA, 169 

No debate, on such terms, and on such scale, has yet di- 
vided the nations ; nor can any wisdom foresee the sorrow, 
or the glory, of its decision. One thing- only we know, that 
in this contest, assuredly, the victory cannot be by violence ; 
that every conquest under the Prince of War retards the 
standards of the Prince of Peace ; and that every good 
servant must abide his Master's coming in the patience, not 
the refusal, of his daily labour. 

Patiently, and humbly, I resume my own, not knowing 
whether shiill prosper — either this or that ; caring only 
that, in so far as it reaches and remains, it may be faithful 
and true. 

Following the best order I can in my notes,— interrupted 
by the Bishop's sermon in last letter, — I take, next, Plato's 
description of the duties of the third choir, namely that of 
men between the ages of thirty and sixty ; VII. 316. 9 [S12]. 

" We said, then, that the sixty-vears-old singers in the ser- 
vice of Dionysus should be, beyond other men, gifted with 
fine sense of rhythm, and of the meetings together of har- 
monies ; so that, being able to choose, out of imitative 
melody, what is well and ill represen ted of the soul in its pas- 
sion, and well discerning the picture of the evil spirit from the 
picture of the good, they may cast away that which has in it 
the likeness of evil, and bring forward into the midst that 
which has the likeness of good ; and hymn and sing that into 
the souls of the young, calling them forth to pursue the pos- 
session of virtue, by means of such likenesses. And for this 
reason the sounds of the lyre ought to be used for the sake 
of clearness in the chords;* the master and pupil keep- 
ing both their voices in one note together with the chord : 
but the changes of the voice and variety of the lyre, the 
chords giving one tune, and the poet another melody, and 
the oppositions of many notes to few, and of slow to swift, 
sometimes in symphony, sometimes in antiphony, the rhythm 
of the song also in every sort of complication inlaying itself 
among the sounds of the lyre, — with all this, the pupils who 
have to learn what is useful of music in only three years, 
must have nothing to do : for things opposed, confusing 

* ' Chord,' in the Greek use, means only one of the strings of the in 
•t rumen t, not a concord of notes. The lyre is u*«d instead of the Sate, 
that the music may bu subordinate always to the words. 









170 FORS CLAYlOEIiA, 

eacli other, are difficult to learn : and youth, as far as pos- 
sible, should be set at ease in learning."* 

I think this passage alone may show the reader that the 
Greeks knew more of music than modern orchestral iiddlera 
fancy. For the essential work of Stradiuarius, in substitut- 
ing the violin for the lyre and harp, was twofold. Thence- 
forward, (a) instrumental music became the captain instead 
of the servant of the voice ; and (h) skill of instrumental 
music, as so developed, became impossible in the ordinary 
education of a gentleman. So that, since his time, old King 
Cole has called for his fiddlers three, and Squire Western sent 
Sophia to the harpsichord when he was drmik : but of souls 
won by Orpheus, or cities built by Atuphion, we hear no more. 

Now the reader must carefully learn the meanings of the 
— no fewer than seven — distinct musical terms used by Plato 
in the passages just given. The word I have translated 
'changes of the voice 1 is, in the Greek, technical, — 'hete- 
rophony ' ; and we have besides, rhythm, harmony, tune, 
melody, symphony, and antipliony. 

Of these terms ' rhythm ' means essentially the time and 
metre ; 'harmony' tins lixed relation of any high note to any 
low one if 'tune' the air given by the instrument ; 'melody' 
the air given by the voice ; 'symphony* the concord of the 
voice with the instrument, or with companion voices ; ' diaph- 
ouy' their discord ; ' ant i phony 'their opposition ; and 'hete- 
rophony' their change. 

* Not by having smooth or Wei roads made for it, bat by being 
plainly shown, and steadily cheered iu, the rough mid steep. 

i Tbe apparently vague use of the word ' harmony ' by the Greeks is 
founded on their perception that there in just as filed a relatioa of in- 
fluence on each other between high and low notes following in a well- 
composed melody ns when i.licy are Hounded together in a single chord. 
That is to say, the notes in their assigned sequence relatively increase 
the pleasure with which eaish is heard, and in that manner act 'hsr- 
uioniinisly.' though not heard ut the same instant. Hut the definition 
of the mingled chord is perfect in II. 539. 3 [90S). "And to the order* 
(time) "of motion the name 'rhythm' is given, and to tbe mingling of 
high and low iu sound, tbo name of ' harmony.' and the 
these we oall ' ohoreia, 1  




FOJiS CLAVIOERA. 171 

And it will do more for us than merely fasten the sense 
of the terms, if we now re-read in last Fora the passage 
(page 150) respecting the symphony of acquired reason with 
rightly compelled affection ; and then those following pieces 
respecting their diaphony, from an earlier part of the Laws, 
III. 39. 8 [688], where the concordant verdict of thought 
and heart is first spoken of as the ruling virtue of the four 
cardinal ; namely, " Prudence, with true conception and true 
opinion, and the loves and desires that follow on these. For 
indeed, the Word* returns to the same point, and what I 
said before, (if yon will have it so, half in play,} now I say 
again in true earnest, that prayer itself is deadly on the lips 
of a fool, unless he would pray that God would give him the 
contrary of his desires. And truly you will discern, if you 
follow out the Word in its fulness, that the ruin of the Doric 
cities never came on them because of cowardice, nor because 
their kings knew not 
knew not nobler hum* 
with the greatest am 
greatest of ignorances, 
when a man, judging t 
yet loves it not, but hates ii 
Boul what he perceive: 
of his pain and plet 
intellect, I call the last of ignorances ; and the greatest, 
because it is in the multitude of the soul's thoughts,"! 

Presently afterwards — though I do not, because of the 
introduction of other subjects in the sentence, go on trans- 
lating — this same ignorance is called the ' out-of-tune-est ' of 
all ; there being scarcely a word in Greek social philosophy 
which has not reference to musical law; and scarcely a word 

* I write, 'Word' (Logos) with the capital initial when it stands in the 
original (or the 'entire coarse of reasoning, since to substitute this long 
phraae would weaken the sentences fatally. But no mystio or divine 
sense is attached tn the term ' Logos ' in these places. 

f Note David, of the contrary state — 

" Tn the multitude of my thoughts within mo, Thy comforts delight 



aw to make war 


; but because they 


things, and w 


re indeed ignorant 


fatallest of igi 


orances. And the 


you will have m 


5 tell it you, is this: 


ly of what is ho 


lourable and good, 


s"it, and loves a 


id caresses with his 


be base and un 


ust, — this diaphony 




172 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

in Greek musical science which has not understood reference 
to social law. 

So that in final definition— (II. 562. 17 [673]— " The 
whole Choreia. is whole child-education for us, consisting, as 
we have seen, in the rhythms and harmonies which belong to 
sound, (for as there is a rhythm in the movement of the 
body, so there is a rhythm in the movement of sound, and 
the movement of sound we call tune). And the movement 
of sound, so as to reach the soul for tlie education of it in 
virtue, (we know not how,) we call Music." 

You see from this most important passage that the Greeks 
only called ' Music ' the kind of sound which induced right 
moral feeling, (" they knew not how," but they knew it did), 
and anv other kind of sound than that, however beautiful to 
the ear or scientific in composition, they did not call ' Music' 
(exercise under the Muses), but 'Amusia,' — the denial, or 
desolation for want, of the Muses. Word now become of 
wide use in modern society ; most accurately, as the Fates 
have ordained, yet by an equivocation in language ; for the 
old French verb * muser,' * to think in a dreamy manner,' came 
from the Latin * musso,' ' to speak low,' or whisper, and not 
from the Greek word ' muse.' But it once having taken the 
meaning of meditation, ' a-muser,' ' to dispel musing,' became 
a verb very dear to generations of men whom any manner of 
thoughtf ulness tormented ; and, — such their way of life — could 
not but torment : whence the modern ' amusement ' has prac- 
tically established itself as equivalent to the Greek ' amusia.' 

The Greek himself, however, did not express his idea fully 
in language, but only in myth, llis * amusia ' does not mean 
properly the opposing delightfulness, but only the inter- 
ruption, and violation, of musical art. The proper word for 
the opposed delightful art would have been * sirenic ; ' but 
he was content in the visionary symbol, and did not need 
the word, for the disciples of the Sirens of course asserted 
their songs to be Music as much as the disciples of the 
Muses. First, therefore, take this following passage re- 
specting the violation of music, and then we will go on to 
consider its opposition. 



FoltS f'f.AYItik-ll.l. 



ITS 



III. 47. 10 [690], "For now, indeed, we have traced 
such a fountain of seditions as well needs healing ; and first 
consider, in Lhis matter, how, and against what, the kings of 
Argos and Messene sinned, when they destroyed at once 
themselves and the power of the Greeks, marvellous great as 
it was in their time. Was not their sin that they refused to 
acknowledge the utter Tightness of llesiud in his saying that 
' i he half is often more than the whole?' For, when to take 
the whole is mischievous, hut the half, a measured and 
moderated good, then the measured good is more than the 
unmeasured, as better is more than worse. 

"The Cretan. It is a most right and wise saying. 

"Tht Athenian. Whether, then, are we to think, of the 
kings, that it was this error in their hearts that in each 
several case destroyed them, or that the mischief entered first 
into the heart of the people? 

"The Cretan. In all likelihood, for the most part, the 
disease was in the kings, living proudly hecause of luxury. 

"The Athenian. Is it not evident, as well as likely, that 
the kings first fell into this guilt of grasping at more than 
the established laws gave them : and with what by speech 
and oath they had approved, they kept no symphony in act ; 
and their diaphony, as we said, being indeed the uttermost 
ignorance, yet seeming wisdom, through breaking of titno 
and sharp amusia, destroyed all those noble things?" 

Now in applying this great sentence of Plato's to the 
parallel time in England, when her kings "kept no sym- 
phony in act with what by word and oath they had ap- 
proved," and so destroyed at once themselves and the Eng- 
lish power, " marvellous great as it was in their time " — the. 
•sharp amusia' of Charles I. and his Cavaliers was indeed in 
grasping at more than the established laws gave them ; but 
an entirely contrary — or, one might technically call it, 'flat 
amusia' — met it on the other side, and ruined Cromwell and 
his Roundheads. Of which Hat or dead amusia Plato had 
seen no instance, and could not imagine it ; and for the lay- 
ing bare its root, wo must seek to the truest philosopher of 
our own days, from whose good company I have too long 
kept the reader, — Waiter Scott. 

When he was sitting to Northcote, (who told the story to 
my father, not once nor twice, but I think it is in Haaditt's 




174 



FOJUi GLAVIGERA. 



conversations of Xorthcote also,) the old painter, speaking 
with a painter's wonder of the intricate design of tins 
Waverley Novels, said that one chief source of his delight 
in them was that '' he never knew what was coming." 

"Nor I neither," answered Sir Walter. 

Now this reply, though of course partly playful, and made 
for the sake of its momentary point, was deeply true, in a 
sense which Sir Walter himself was not conscious of. lie 
was conscious of it only as a weakness, — not as a strength. 

His beautiful confession of it as a weakness is here in my 
bookcase behind me, written in his own hand, in the intro- 
duction to the Fortimcx of Nigel. I take it reverently down, 
and copy it from the dear old manuscript, written as it is it 
temperate speed, the letters all perfectly formed, but with 
no loss of time in dotting is, crossing t9, writing mute es 
in past participles, or in punctuation ; the current dash an-! 
full period alone being used. I copy with scrupulous care, 
adding no stop where atop is not. 



turself then 
title to sue* 



"Captain" (Clutterbuck) "Respect for 
ought to teach caution — 

Author. Aye if caution could augment i 
cess — But to confess to you the truth the books and passages 
in which I have succeeded have uniformly been written willi 
the greatest rapidity and when I have seen some of these 

C laced in opposition with others and commended as more 
ighly finishd I could appeal to pen and staudish that those 
in which I have come feebly off were by much the more 
labourd. I have not been fool enough to neglect ordinary 
precautions. I have laid down my work to scale divided it 
into volumes and chapters and endeavourd to construct 
a Story which should evolve itself gradually and strikingly 
maintain suspense and stimulate curiosity and finally termi- 
nate in a striking catastrophe — But I think there is a diemon 
which seats himself upon the feather of my pen when I 
hegin to write and g uide s * leads it astray from the purpose 
Characters expand under my hand incidents are multiplied 
the story lingers while the materials increase — my regular 

* Tbe unly word altered iu the whole passage, and that on the 



pons cr.AYiamiA. 



17J 



ns out a Gothic anomaly and the work is done 
long before I have attained the end I proposed 

Captain. Resolution and determined forbearance might 
remedy that evil. 

Author. Alas my dear Sir you do not know the fever of 
paternal affection— When I fight on such a character as 
Bail lie Jarvie or Dalgi'ty my imagi nation InigliU'iis and my 
conception becomes clearer at every step which I make in 
his company although it leads me many a weary mile away 
from the regular road and forces me to leap hedge and ditch 
to get back into the route again — * 

If I resist the temptation as you advise me my thoughts 
become prosy flat and dull I write painfully to myself and 
under a consciousness of flagging which makes me flag — the 
sunshine with which fancy had invested the incidents departs 
from them and leaves everything flat and gloomy — I am no 
more the same author than the dog in a wheel coruiemnd to 
go round and round for hours is like the same dog merrily 
chasing his own tail and gamboling in all the frolic of free- 
dom — In short I think I am bewitchd — 

Captain Nay Sir if you plead sorcery there is no more 
to he said " 

Alas, he did but half know how truly he had right to plead 
sorcery, feeling the witchcraft, yet not believing in it, nor 
knowing that it was indeed an angel that guided, not a 
daemon (I am forced for once to use with him the Greek 
word in its Presbyterian sense) that misled, his hand, as it 
wrote in gladness the fast-comiug fancies. For truly in that 
involuntary vision was the true 'design,' and Scott's work 
differs from all other modern fiction bv its ejtijuisiteness of 
art, precisely because he did not ' know what was coming.' 
For, as I have a thousand times before asserted — though 
hitherto always in vain, — no great composition was ever 
produced by composing, nor bv arranging chapters and 
dividing volumes; hut only with the same heavenly in- 
voluntariness in which a bird builds her nest. And among 
the other virtues of the great classic masters, this of en- 
chanted Design is of all the least visible to the present. 




I 



176 FOBS CLAVIQERA, 

apothecary minil : for although, when I first gave analysis of 
the inventive power in Modern J'tiinltTtt, T was best able to 
illustrate its combining method by showing that "there was 
something like it in chemistry," it is precisely what »* like it 
in chemistry, that the chemist of to-day denies. 

Hut one farther great, and greatest, sign of i.ne Divinity 
in tins enchanted work of the classic masters, I did not then 
assert, — for, indeed, 1 had not then myself discerned it, — 
namely, that this power of noble composition is never given 
hut with accompanying instinct of moral law ; and that so 
severe, that the apparently too complete and ideal justice 
which it proclaims has received universally the name of 
' poetical ' justice — the justice conceived only by the men of 
consummate imaginative power. So that to say of any man 
that he has power of design, is at once to say of him that lie 
is using it on God's side ; for it can only have been taught him 
by that Muster, and cannot, be taught by the use of it against 
Him. And therefore every great composition In the world, 
every great piece of painting or literature — without any e\- 
ception, from the birth of Man to this hour — is an assertion 
of moral law, as strict, when we examine it, as the Eurnenidc* 
or ihe Itivitia Commediu ; while the total collapse of all power 
of artistic design in Italy at this day has been signalized and 
sealed by the production of an epic poem in praise of the 
Devil, and in declaration that God is a malignant ' Larva.' * 

And this so-called poetical justice, asserted by the great 
designers, consists not only in the gracing of virtue with her 
own proper rewards of mental peace and spiritual victory ; 
but in the proportioning also of worldly prosperity to visible 
Tirtue ; and the manifestation, therefore, of the presence of 
the Father in this world, no less than in that which is to come. 
So that, if the life-work of any man of unquestioned genius 
does not assert this visible justice, but, on the contrary, ex- 
hibits good and gentle persons in unredeemed distress or 
destruction, — that work will invariably be found to show no 

• A highly laudatory review of this work, in two successive ports, will 
1» found in the columns of the Yonetiau journal /( Tempo, in tha win- 
ter of 187(1-77. 





FOSS OLAVTOBRA. 



177 



wer of design ; but to be merely the consecutive collection 
interesting circumstances well described, us continually 

i Ijest work of Balzac, George Sand, and other good novel- 

s of the second order. In some separate nieces, the great 
"1 indeed exhibit the darkest mystery of human 
fate, but never without showing, even then, that the catas- 
trophe is owing in the root of it to the violation of some 
moral law : ' S/tc hath deceived her father, — and may thee.' 
The root of the entire tragedy is marked I >y the mighty mas- 
ter in that one line — the double sin, namelv, of daughter and 
father ; of the first, in too lawlessly forgetting her own 
people, and her father's house; and of the second, in allow- 
ing his pride and selfishness to conquer his paternal love, and 
harden him, not only in abandonment of his paternal duty, 
but in calumnious insult to his child. Nor, even thus, is 
Shakespeare content without marking-, in the name of the vic- 
tim of Evil Fortune, his purpose in the tragedy, of showing 
that there i* such a thing as Destiny, permitted to veil the 
otherwise clear Providence, and to leave it only to be found 
by noble Will, and proved by noble Faith. 

Although always, in reading .Scott, one thinks the story 
one has last finished, the best, there can be little question 
that the one which has right of pre-eminence is the Heart of 
Miillothian, being devoted to the portraiture of the purest 
life, and most vital religion, of his native country. 

It is also the most distinct in its assertion of the moral 
law ; the assignment of earthly reward and punishment being, 
in this story, as accurately proportioned to the degrees of 
virtue and vice as the lights and shades of a photograph to 
the force of the rays. The absolute truth and faith of Jeanie 
make the suffering through which she lias to pass the ulti- 
mate cause of an entirely prosperous and peaceful life for 
herself, her father, and her lover : the falsehood and vanity 
of Effie prepare for her a life of falsehood and vanity ; the 
pride of David Deans is made the chief instrument of his 
humiliation ; and the self-confidonce which separated him 
from true fellowship with his hrother-Christians, becomes the 
cause of his eternal separation from his child. 
Vol. IV.— 13 




178 FOBS CLAVIGEIIA. 

Also, there is no other analysis of the good and evil of the 
pure Protestant faith which can be for a moment compared 
to that in the Heart of' Midlothian, showing that in an en- 
tirely simple, strong, and modest soul, it bring* forth fruit of 
all good works and kindly thoughts ; but that, when it meets 
with innate pride, and the unconquerable selfishness which 
comes from want of sympathy, it leads into ludicrous and 
fatal self-worship, mercilessness to the errors, whether in 
thought or conduct, of others ; and blindness to the teaching 
of God Himself, where it is contrary to the devotee's own 
habits of thought. There is no other form of the Christian 
religion which so insolently ignores all Scripture that makes 
against it, or gathers with so passionate and irrational em- 
brace all Scripture that makes for it. 

And the entire course of the tragic story in the Heart oj 
Midlothian comes of the ' M useless 1 hardness of nature, 
brought upon David Deans by the persecution in bis earlv 
life, which changed healthy and innocent passion into relig- 
ious pride, — " I bless God, (with that singular worthy, Peter 
Walker, the packman at IJristo port,) that ordered tny lot in 
my dancing days, so that fear of my head and throat, dread 
of bloody rope and swift bullet, cauld and hunger, wetness 
and weariness, stopped the lightness of my head, and the 
wantonness of ray feet. And now, if I hear ye, quean lassies, 
sae muckle as name dancing, or think there's such a thing in 
the world as flinging to fiddlers' sounds and pipers 1 springs, 
as sure as my father's spirit is with the just, ye shall be no 
more either charge or concern of mine." 

Over the bronze sculpture of this insolent pride, Scott in- 
stantly casts, in the following sentence, (" Gang in then, hin- 
nies," etc.,) the redeeming glow of paternal love ; but he 
makes it, nevertheless, the cause of all the misery that fol- 
lows, to the end of the old man's life :— 

"The objurgation of David Deans, however well meant, 
was unhappily timed. It created a division of feeling in 
Effie's bosom, and deterred her from her intended confidence 
in her sister. ' She wad hand me nae better than the dirt 
below her feet,' said Eflie to herself, ' were I to confess thai 







FOItS CLAVIGEJ1A. 



I hoe danced wi' him f 

mat at Maggie Macqm 



the green down by, and 



Such, 



i that day . 
i fate of her 



i thai Deadly 



1 no more than sueh, the ]ittle 
only in concealment. And the 
turns on the Fear mid the Silence of a moi 

Bui for the effective and final cause of 
Muselessnesa of the Cameronian leaders, ' 
read of the daughter of Herodius dancing before Herod, 
but never of the son of Jesse dancing before the Lord ; 
and banished sackbut and psaltery, for signals in the service 
of Nebuchadnezzar, forgetting that the last law of Moses 
and the last prayer of David were written in song. 

And this gloomy forgetful ness, or worse, — presumptuous 
defiance of the laws of the nature given by his Maker to 
man, left, since the Reformation, the beat means of early 
education chiefly in the hands of the adversary of souls ; 
and thus defiled the sanctuary of joy in the human heart, 






, and the 



itc song, accomplished, 
and used in mimicry of 
nd man, become the ut- 
i— of blas- 



,'.ii-l left it desolate for t 
wild beasts of the islands 

Which satyric dance 
Loth, with all the finish i 
every noble emotion towards God a 
termost, and worst — because the most traitc 
phemies against the Master who gave us motion and voice 
submissive to other laws than of the elements : and would 
have made us 'as happy' — nay, how much happier! — than 
the wave that dances on the sea ; and how much more 
glorious in praise than the forests, though they clap their 
hands, and the hills, that rejoice together before the Lord. 

Arid this cry of the wild beasts of the islands, or sirenio 
hlasphemy, has in modern days become two-fold ; consisting 
first in the mimicry of devotion, for pleasure, in the oratorio, 
withering the life of religion into dead bones on the siren- 
sands ; and secondly, the mimicry of comjwusion, for pleas- 
ure, in the opera, wasting the pity and love which should 
overflow in active life, on the ghastliest visions of fictitious 
grief and horriblest decoration of simulated death. But 




ISO 



POOS OLAVIQ8RA. 



these two blasphemies liad become one, in tin 1 Greek relig- 
ious aervice of Plato's time. "For, indeed,— VII. W. » 
[800] — tliis baa come to pass in nearly all our cities, that 
when any public sacrifice is made to the Gods, not one 
chorus only, but many choruses, and standing, not reverent- 
ly far from the altars, ljut beside them," (vc-s, in the very 
cathedrals themselves,) " pour forth blasphemies of sacred 
things," (not mockeries, observe, hut songs precisely corre- 
sponding to our oratorios — that is to say, turning dramatic 
prayer into a solemn sensual pleasure), "both with word mid 
rhythm, and the most wailing harmonies, racking the souls 
of the hearers ; and whosoever can make the sacrificing 
people weep the most, to him is the victory. Such lamenta- 
tions, if indeed the citizens have need to hear, let it be on 
accursed instead of festnl days, and from hired mourners as 
at funerals. But that Tve may get rid at once of the need 
of speaking of such things, shall we not accept, for the 
mould and seal of all songs, Euphemy, the speaking the 
good of all things, and not Blasphemy, the speaking their 

Which first law of noble song is taught us by the myth 
that Euphemy was the Nurse of the Muses — (her statue 
was still on Parnassus in Pansanias' time) — together with 
that of Linus, who is the master of true dirge music, used 
in permitted lamentation. 

And here, in good time, comes to me a note from one of 
my kindest and best teachers, in old time, in the Greek Vase 
room of the British Museum,* which points out one fact re- 
specting the physical origin of the music-myths, whoilv 
new to me : — 

"On reading your last Fors I was reminded of what used 
to seem to me an inconsistency of the Greeks in assigning 
bo much of a harmonizing influence to music for the practi- 
cal purposes of education, while in their myths they regularly 

• Mr. A. S. Murruy. the first. I believe, of our Greek 1 

*ho di still (,'ui-hed in the lirilmli Mn.-eTini, the vasea executed in imiiu- 
tinn if archaic foruih ey Lite lloinuu artiwt*. from real Athenian nreliaic 





FOJiS CLAVIGBRA. 



181 



associated it with competition, 
the loser. The Muses competed 
plucked their feathers to make cr 
with Marsyas — won, and had hin 
Pan had a dispute about the mer 
ments ; and Midas, because he d 
lengthened at the 
i • '.' il with thedaugh: 



,nd cruel punishment of 

*ith tlia Sirens — won, and 

tiis of. Apollo competed 

Hayed alive. Apollo and 

merits of their favourite instru- 

he decided for Pan, had his ears 

d of Apollo. The Muses com- 

f Pieros, who failed, and lost their 



It looks as if there had been a Greek Eistedfodd ! 
liut, seriously, it is not easy to be confident about an ex- 
planation of this mythical feature of Music. As regards 
Apollo and Marsyas, it is to be observed that Marsyas was 
a river god, who made the first flute from the reeds of his 
own river, and thus he would represent the music of flowing 



ind of v 



i the reeds. 



; the tim 



Apollo v 



 the 



• if his 



The time when Marsvas had 



;od of the 
iscy was 



In 



hii 



II his 

was dried up, and, as 
The competition was, 



the myth says, lie was flayed alive, 
then, in the first place, between the 
the music of winter ; and, in the second place, between the 
music of animate nature and that of water and wind. This 
explanation would also apply to the competition of the 
Muses and Sirens, since the hitter represented the music of 
the seashore, while the Muses were associated with Apollo, 
and would represent whatever principle he represented. 
The myth of the daughters of Pieros is probably only a vari- 
ant of that of the Sirens. As regards the rivalry of Apollo 
and Pan, I do not see any satisfactory explanation of it. It 
was comparatively slight, and the consequences to Midas 
were not so dreadful after all." 

The interpretation here of the punishment of Marsyas as 
the drying up of the river, whose ' stony channel in the sun * 
so often, in Greece and Italy, mocks us with memory of 
sweet waters in the drought of summer, is, as 1 said, wholly 
new to me, and, I doubt not, true. And the meaning of 
the other myths will surely be open enough to the reader 
who has followed Plato thus far : but one more must be 




182 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

added to complete the cycle of them — the contest of Diony- 
sus with the Tyrrhenian pirates ; — and then we have the 
three orders of the Deities of music throughout the ages 
of Man, — the Muses, Apollo, and Dionysus, — each with 
their definite adversaries. The Muses, whose office is the 
teaching of sacred pleasures to childhood, have for adversa- 
ries the Sirens, who teach sinful pleasure ; Apollo, who 
teaches intellectual, or historic, therefore worded, music, to 
men of middle age, has for adversary Marsyas, who teaches 
the wordless music of the reeds and rivers ; and, finally* 
Dionysus, who teaches the cheerful music which is to be 
the wine of old age, has for adversary the commercial pirate, 
who would sell the god for gain, and drink no wine but 
gold. And of these three contests, bearing as they do in 
their issue on all things festive and pantomimic, I reserve 
discussion for my seventh year's Christmas Fors / such dis- 
cussion being, I hope, likely to prove serviceable to many 
of my honest friends, who are losing their strength in for- 
bidding men to drink, when they should be helping them to 
eat ; and cannot for the life of them understand what, long 
since pointed out to them, they will find irrefragably true, 
that " the holiness of the parsonage and parson at one end 
of the village, can only be established in the holiness of the 
tavern and tapster at the other." 



FORS OLA VIGEUA. 



NOTES AND COURKSPOXDKNCK. 



I. Affairs of the Company. 

My general assertion of our prosperity last month referred princi- 
pal!; to the accession of new Companion*!, whose enrolment rauoh en- 
courages me, especially that of one much- regarded friend and Fellow 
of my college. Ou the otber huud, I have been greatly concerned by 
the difficulties which naturally present themselves in the first organiza- 
tion of work at Abbey Dale, — tbe more that limn arc for the moat part 
attributable to very little and very ridiculous things, which, with all 
my frankness, I see no gi.od in publishing. The root of all mischief is 
of course that tbe Master is out of the way, and tbe men, in his ab- 
sence, tried at first to get ou by vote of the majority ; — it is at any rate 
to be counted as no small success that they hare entirely convinced 
themselves of the impossibility of getting on in that popular manner ; 
and that they will be gliu! to see me when I can get there. 

II. Affairs of the Master. 

I have nothing interesting to communicate under this head, except 
that I have been Yeiy busy clearing my wor«l, and chopping up its rot- 
ten sticks into faggots ; — that I am highly satisfied with the material 
results of this amusement; and ah all be able to keep tbe smoke from 
my chimneys this winter of purer blue than usual, at less cost. 

III. I think it well, in connection with what is said in the reply to 
Mr. Dixon at the opening of this lettt-r, t« print, below, part of the arti- 
cle in the fflnWnT to which 1 so gravely recommended my renders' at- 
tention last mouth. If the writer of that article can conceive of any 
meaua by which his sentence, here italicized, could bo carried out, 
short of revolution, other than the means I propose in the action of 
tbe St. George's Company, — the steady and irrevocable purchase of 
the land for the nation by national subscription, — I should be very 
thankful to hear of them. The organization of a Parliament strong 
enough even to modify the existing methods of land tenure, would be 
revolution. 

"Five men own one-fourth of Scotland. One duke owns 0(1,000 
acres in Derbyshire, besides vast estates in otber parts of England and 
in Ireland. AnoUjer, with estates all over the United Kingdom, has 




1 



ist 



FOIiS CZAVZOEBA. 



40,000 acres in Sussex and 300,000 htm in Scotland. This noble- 
man's park is fifteen mil is in circumference ! Another duke has estates 
which tin 1 hijtlir.irtil divides fur twenty-three miles! A marquis there 
is who can ride a hundred miles in u straight line upon his own land ! 
There is a duke who owns almost an entire county stretching- from sea 
to sea. An earl drawn tSOO.UuO every year from his estates in Lan- 
cashire. A duke regularly invest* £80,000 a year in buying up lands 
adjoining his already enormnns estates. A marquis enjoys £I,II<mi innI 
a year from land. An earl lately died leaving ti  his heirs .tl.OOO.lKKi 
sterling and £160,000 a vear income from land. The income from land 
derived by one duenl family of En-hmd is L'l .iHiO.i.int. which is iucreas- 
ing every year liv the fulling in of lenses. One hundred and fifty per- 
sons own half England, seventy-five jhtmiiis i.wn half Scotland, thirty- 
five persona own half Ireland ; and :dl the hinds of England. Scotland. 
Wales, and Ireland lire iwiwd by less than 00.0(H) persons, and they say 
to the remaining 83,000,000 of people. -All this land of Great Britain 
and Ireland was given to the children of men. and behold we are the 
Lord's children in possession, and ytJB tmKinns. \ an fO to work ! ' 

" Now, air, these noblemen aud gnu I emeu might keep their lands 
for all I cared, provided they would adopt and act upon the old adajre, 
that ' property has its duties as well as its r gilts ; ' but, air, they will 
never act upon that inot.to until they are compelled by the loud, long, 
aud united voice o( the people. We mu«t get tkU lanil *p*tem ft- 
aitjittted, or revolution is bound to come, within the lifetime of grave 
and reverend seniors like yon and me. The fact is. sir, that a majority 
of the iuhabiiants of this country are in a state of squalid poverty,-- 
living iu miserable fever deua, without any of the decencies of life,— 

scarcely ever p'tiin^' a y I meal, and yet tiny arc h.-comiiij; educated ! 

Cannot others see what this means? Are the dukes, and lords, and 
baronets, and squires, so blinded by their wealth, the result iu too many 
cases of sacrilege, that thtry cannot see what ia coming? Education 
and starvation 1 What will they produce ? Why, sir, as sure as two 
and two make four, they will bring revolution. You have well and 
truly said, ' Such a question allowed to remain unanswered in another 
part of Europe has induced revolution, followed by destruction,' and 
you said this with regard lo the London monopolies of property ; but, 
nir, the land monopoly of tlie provinces niust lead to revolution in this 
part of Europe before very long, and I will attempt to show you why. 
The land monopoly ia at the bottom of all the pauperism, both that 
which is recognised and that which is unrecognised ; for that is the 
dangerous poverty which does not stoop to parish relief, but bears aud 
resolves in silence."— ll't&Ur, Au«. 36, 1S77. 

IV. I meant to have given in thia For* the entire speech of the Angel 
of the Church of Manchester, at the banquet whose delieiousness in- 
spired that superb moral peroration of Mr, Bright, which I hops en- 
tered profoundly into the pleased stomachs of the Corporation. But — 
it has been the will of Fnrn that I should mislay the Manchester An- 
gel's speech — and find, instead, among a heap of stored papers, thisex- 
tract respecting Episcopal Revenues, from So. 1 of Humanitarian 
Tract* on " Past and Passing Events, the Church, Modern Jesuit- 
ism, Church Lands, and the Rights of Property, published by John 



J 



FOBS CLAVIGEBA. 165 

Hopper, Bisliopwearmouth." Not fedim; rninplcte confidence in the 
Humanitarian and Hopperian account of these things. I sent the sub- 
joined extract to a reverend fri-.-iif.l. re'jin-sti im him to ascertain and let 
me know the truth. His reply follows the accusation ; hut it will be 
seen lliat tin- matter requires further probing ; and 1 would fain advise 
my antiquarian friends that it would he better service to history, at this 
moment, if any faithful investigator. — Mr. Fronde, for instance,— 
would lay the whole subject clearly before the public, than any labour* 
among the chronicles, or ruins, of fit, Albans or any other abbey, are 
likely to render, unless they were undertaken in a spirit which could 
read the silence, as well as the utterance, of the great Ages. Thus 
then, the Humanitarian : — 

"On the 1st of August. 184H. Mr. Horsman, in the House of Com- 
mons, speaking on Temporalities and Church-leases, said : ' I believe 
few people have any idea of the value of the opiaMpa] and capitular 

estates. Xn return of them has ever been made It is 

known, however, that llier-t: estate.* are immense When the 

Committee on Church Lenses was sitting in 1S:18, it attempted lo get 
returns of the actual value of these leased uslates. From some of the 
prelates and dignitaries they did receive them ; others indignantly re 

Per annum. 
The preseut Ardibisliop of Canterbury (then Bishop 

of Cheater I returned his income at £3,051 

Bnt the rental of his leased estate was 16,236 

Making a difference of £12,285 

The Archbishop of York returned h la income at £13,798 

Actual rental ... 41,030 

Making a difference ot £27,332 

The then Archbishop of Canterbury returned his in- 
come at £22.216 

Actual rental 52,000 

Making a difference of £20,784" 

Next, my clerical friend's letter: — 

"April 4, 1N78. 

"' Dear Mr. Rtmkin. — It is with great disappointment that I return 
your pamphlet and paper, without hf-iug ab!e to give a satisfactory an- 
swer to the charge again*! tin- liinliops of \WJ. I have tried and 
waited patiently, and tried again, hut people now know little, and care 
less, for what tlnn happened, and my name is not influential enough 
to get the information from olficinbt who alone e-:m supply it. 

'■ Ycu must forgive my obstinacy if I still douut whether the differ- 




186 



FOBS CLAVIQERA. 



ence went into the Bishops" pockets ! My doubts Are the more con- 
firmed by examining other assertions made in tin- pamphlet At random. 
I venture to send you such nlit.ii-ti.-i! iis I have been uble to gather iu 
reply to the main argument of the tract, should you ttho.li it worth 
your while to reud them." 

Having no interact in the " general argument ' of tbe pamphlet, but 
only in its very definite and stern charges, against the Bishops, I did not 
trouble myself with their statistic*; but wrote to another friend, my 
most helpful and kind Mr. F. S. Ellis, of New Bond Street, who pres- 
ently procured for me the following valuable letter and essential docu- 
ments; but. as it always happens, somehow, — we have not got at the 
main point, tbe difference, if any, between the actual and alleged in- 
comes. For decision of which I again refer myself, humbly, to the histo- 
rians of this supereminently glorious, pious, uud well-informed century. 

'■ Thk Ghovb, 21»( September, 1B75. 
" Dear Sir, — 1 find, on referring to Hansard, that the report of Mr. 
Hursinan'H speech on pp. '22, -■'• of the pamphlet, is substantially, but 
not verfmJlg. accurate. Some only of the figures are quoted by him, 
but not in the way in which they are placed in tbe pamphlet. With 
this I hand you extracts from printed returns covering the range of the 
figure- on p '£'■! of the pamphlet, and also giving the incomes finally 
assigned to the various sols. 

" I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours, 

•' Fred. W. Foster. 
-F. 8. Ellis. Esq., 
" New Bond Street, London." 

Pnrtiftmfntarg KejtorU from Committee*, 1839, vol. viii., pp. 237 — 376. 

Report from the Select t'o-iiiiuitlee on I'liureli Leases, etc. Ordered 
to be printed tith May, 1839. No. 347. 

Page 40. The total annual value of the property let on lenses by the 
Archbishop of Canterbury- tT.2,086 U 

Return dated 33rd February, 1839. 



Parliamentary Report* from Committee; 1837-38, voL ix. 

Report from the Select Committee on Church Leases, etc. Ordered 
to be printed 7th Aug., 1838. No. (IDS. 

Page 560. The aggregate n'-t annual value of lands and tithes in 
Yorkshire and Nottingham shire, held by lease, under the See of 
York :— 



Return dated 28th July, 1333. 




FOBS CLAVIOERA. 



Parliamentary Report* frvm CommiUtta, 1837-38, »oL «. 

Report from the Select Committee on Church Leases, etc. Ordered 
to be printed Till Aug., 1N3M. No. CiDS. 

I'nge 5'I0. The auimal value of iho property belonging to the See of 
Chester, and which is let on livos, ia £15 ,820 ; no years, £710. Total, 
£lil,K«i. 

Return dated 35th July, 1838. 



»_ 


the See. nn.1 ut 
lT*ti-nn*i,lA (if 


1s= Y 5 


Net Ymrly Income, 

rnry ch»r,«. (11 

UjtllnUilMllli. 


Canterbury 

York 


£32,21 G 

13,798 

3,951 

181,631 

ft, 727 


£3,034 

1,1GB 


£19,183* 
12,039 


Total of the 37 Sees 


1G0.293 







By an Order in Council passed 25th August, 1871, and gazetted 10th 
Sept.. 1851, tlii.- annual incomes assigned to the various Sees, was as 



Canterbury. £15,CK10 

York, Loudon 10,000 

Durham 8,000 

Winchester 7,000 

Ely 5.500 

Batb and Wells. Exeter, Gloucester and Bristol, 
Lincoln, Oxford, Rochester. Salisbury, Wor- 
cester 5,000 

Carlisle. Chester. St. David's, Lichfield, Norwich, 

Peterborough. Ripon 4,500 

Bt Asaph, Hangar, I'liiohesier, Her '.-ford, Llnndaff, 

Manchester 4,200 





18. 



FOIiS CLA7IQKRA. 



nutiilllHHfiiif Account* "nrf Paperi. 1^87, vol. ilL. pp 22-" — 330 - 

A return of the clear annual revenue of every Archbishopric. Bishopric 
>'t*: . according to the tteport of the Commissioners appointed by the 
King to iijifinr'' into th« Et> ileniostival Itev.*uue* of England and W«lt«, 
on an average of three yearn, ending ;ilst Dec, 1881, etc. Ordered by 
the House of Commons to be ptinted, 2.1th April, 1837. No. 240. (It.) 

X. I can no more roach for any of the statements in the following 
newspaper article than I can for those of the pamphleteer of Btahop- 
weannoutb. But that such statements should have been publicly 
made, and. so for aa I know, wittauut contradiction, is a fact to be 
noted in fori, I have omitted much useless newspaper adornment, 
and substituted one or two clearer words in the following article, which 
may be seen in it* entirety in t'/iri.itiii» Life for 1st .September, 1877. 

"Dizziness in Hion Places. — Kells is in Ireland ; and bis Grace 
the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who is at prmnnt recreating him- 
self in that country; has been ut Kells. In Kells there is a branch of 
the I'rotestaut Orphan Society, aurl tins branch has held a meeting, 
presided over by a prelate of Unitarian ancestry. Bishop Plunket, 
ol Meatb. The meeting wiis further dignified by the presence of hi* 

'• However, it seems there was something to get over before Kells could 
enter with proper rapture Into the un wonted delight of welcoming a Pri- 
mate of All England. A whisper had run abroad thai the Archbishop had 
not been tbe bust of friends to the Episcopalian ism of the Green Isle. 
It was muttered that he hail gone for disestablishment — at least, when 
disestablishment was kept At a safe distance from the Stale Church of 
Engl ami. It was even alleged bj some unscrupulous spirits, that Canter- 
bury's voice had been henrd to second Karl Granville's motion for 
the second reading of the Itill The right reverend chairman set this 
calumny at rest. Dr. Plunket assured the Episcopalian! of Kells that 
his Grace had always been n warm lover of their Church, and had never 
Seconded the dreadful Bill. Technically, nt) doubt, this was perfectly 
true ; Dr. Tait was not Earl Granville's seconder If the Archbishop 
had been content to let the disclaimer rest where his disestablished 
brother hud placed it, the occasion would have excited no comment 
from the critics of the Irish press ; but his Grace, still feeling uneasy 

under the cruel aspersions <if r our, must needs go further, and in a 

short speech of his own he boldly declared that if he hid been accused 
of murder he could not hav« been more astonished than to hear it re- 
ported that ' he had individually helped to pull down the old Eslab- 
(ished Church of Ireland.' Of all tbe public measures carried in his time 
a l " more deeply deplore than that which removed it from the 
id so long occupied ; and he was happy to say that he had 
endeavoured to do what be eonid to mitigate the hle.iv when it feU. 

"The Norther" Whig has been at the pains to lock up ' Hansard' 
on the point at issue, and reports the result, ns follows : • It is certain 
that when Lord Granville moved the second reading of the Bill in the 
House of Lords, ou 14th June, 1801*. the Archbishop of Canterbury 
spoke in favour of the Bill, and against an amendment proposed by 
Lord Harrowby and seconded by the Duke of Rutland. He wanted 



FORS CLAVIGERA. 



189 



amendments, all of them with n pecuniary effect introduced into it, and 
said it could be made a pom I Bill, fur which tin: people would bless Gisl 
that they had a limine of Lords. He likewise supported Lord Cairns' 
compromise, which the Lord IVrby stigmatised as "an unconditional 
surrender," and a concession of the very principle nf the Bill; and ho 
did not sign Lord Derby a protest against it. While thirteen English 
bishops voted against the Irish Church Bill, his Grace, together with the 
late Bishop Wilberf.jn.e, did not vote at all. This is the true state of 
the cam. ' 

•'We call attention to this discrepancy between the A ichi episcopal 
acts and the Archie piscopnl r* ■.-•■<■ 1 1 1 1 1 of them with mifciyin'i] sorrow and 
concern. Nothing presents itself to us a* a more melancholy feature of 
the public mortiU of our time than I lie indulgence accorded of hits: years 
to a scandalously i Tumoral species of public bUiortion of well-known or 
well -ascertain able facts. Of this the worst Utinle baa long lieen no- 
torious in the most conspicuous place. Mr. Chamberlain once outraged 
all etiquette in his denunciation of it, lint his indignation, however un> 
couth in form, was universally felt to be neither undeserved nor ill- 
timed. A pernicious example in sure sooner or Inter to tell. Our pub- 
lic men are now being educated in a school winch easily condones on the 
ground of personal convenience the mo.-t flagrant, brenehes of the law of 
truth. The cliief minister of the Church follows in the tortuous path 
which lias long been a favourite resort of the chief Minister of the State. 
It was not always so. English public men were once pre eminently dis- 
tinguished for the lofty, open honour of their public speech. The moral 
scorn and loathing with which, fur example, n. quarter of a century ago 
men regarded bonis Napoleon's worthless word, bids fair to become an 
extinct sentiment. Straightforwardness is a foolish old-fashioned habit, 
a custom we have outgrown. " We have made lies our refugo, and un- 
der falsehood have wo hid ourselves.' We repent, this is the most 
serious symptom of our times. The newspapers which have been 
speculating as to the disa.it.ers which are to Mow. after a thousand yearn, 
from England's future want of coal, would do better to inquire into the 
far greater disasters which threaten at our door through England's 
present lack of supreme reverence for truth." 



frith o 



' present 



,; Some four or five years ago, I made acquaintance with a girl whom 
I used to see often at church, and whom I watched and admired, and 
pitied. She was about eighteen years of age. — always pale, — always 
very poorly dressed iudeed.— always came to church in a hurry. But 
her voice was delicious in the psalms; and she was delicate and pretty, 
with such evident enthusiastic devotion to church-services, and such an 
air of modest seir-siitlir.-iency, that I could not let her alone, for curios- 
ity. I tried to catch her going out of church, but she walked too fast. 
I tried to waylay her coming in, but her self-possessed air of reserve 
kept me off. Until at last, one .-vening. a lingering of people in the 
porch abont some testimonial matter for a young curate who was going 
away, kept her a minute or two near me. I was not at all interested in 
the testimonial, hut I said to her. — the little crowd and general air of 
sympathy giving me courage, — ' I do not think of subscribing, do you." 




190 



FORS CLAVIQEIiA. 



■Yes; certainly she did,' — with quito a glow of emphatic fervour. I 
protended to need persunHiun and conviction about my intention ; and 
we walked along together. Aud t learnt.— bi-sides the wonderful per- 
fections of the curate in Sunday-school ll*ilhill|. etc.— that she was a 
machinist in a larye draper's and clothier s shop; that she earned very 
few shilling!) a week : that aha had a mother dependent on her earn- 
ings; thstsbe worked in tin upper room wilh amy more— I think about 
twenty — women; that just then they Buffered very much from cold, 
and inure from bad air, as they had to keep the windows shut ; and 
that she worked from seven in the morning till seven at night. (Im- 
agine it, amid the noise of twenty sewing machines— the dust and disa- 
greeable n ess of material in the course of being made— the dismal 
nirroiinilings — t!m outside prospect of chimney-pots. What a life!) 
The proprietor of llns pamdJM— the shopkeeper — was a churchwarden, 
or something official, nt the same church. 

*• The remedy in this case might have been found In two ways. The 
curate— ao gratefully remembered, but who could not. by reaeon of the 
veil of poverty and care she wore, or who dared not, by reason of his 
goodisbness. have rendered! her any help as to ft sister— might have, in 
proper i<arisli .service, exposed the state of things nt the shop, and asked 
for subscriptions for the roaster of it to enable his servants to have 
warmth and fr.--.li air at least. Or the man himself, properly preached 
to, made to give his work-girls three times ss much for half their work. 
and to provide them a workroom, healthy and pretty. I am sure that 
clcrgi men — very ordinary ones — might, with honesty, do little miracle* 
like these." 

VII. The next two articles I leave without comment. They are il- 
lustrations, ueediug none, of false and true methods of education. 

"AngtutVA, 1877. 

•'Dear Master, — You asked to know more about the 'bondage in 
which Government teachers worked — referring to Miss in par- 
ticular. The enclosed (written independently, and more fully than 
usual, on that point) gives just the illustration I could have wished." 
(Illustration lout, but the ctniurieiitiiry is the essential matter. ) 

" Now yon will let me comment upon (he sentem-e in this letter. — ' I 
cannot teach as if 1 were a, machine ; I must pel lift into my work, or 
let it alone.' This comes nt once to the special grievance, felt by all 
those of us (I do uot at nil know how many this includes) who fare for 
their children. T/in/are 'lively,' if they are anything ; and we discover, 
sooner or Inter, that our one duty as teachers is to crush life in every 
form and whenever showing itself. I do not mean to any that the 
1 Education Department' m'me at this result ; hut it follows inevitably 
from thu 'pressure' put upon teachers who, crammed, n"t ' trained, ' 
themselves, (I speak from [painful experience as to the so-called " Train- 
ing Colleges. 'i almost necessarily perpetuate the evil; the better sort 
groaning under it, and trying to free themselves and their children j the 
rest, groanim: too, lull ro-i-i^ptiny their fate, and tightening the chains 
of those under them. I believe Miss - — - would agree to this as too 
generally true." 



FuRS CLAVIGERA. 



191 



old lady at borne, and she was ejcwd irmly pleased with a poor little 
gift ] look her, and Iwgan at once to till me how well both she anil he 
were at present. They look ceil/ old, hut that may be their hard life, 
iii this trying climate. But she told mi' she bad been more than fifty- 
year* married, and bad been so happy with her kind, good man ; and 
then she added, so earnestly. * Aod I'm happy yet — just aa happy as 
happy can be.' They have never had any children themselves; 'but 
I've had bairns aa mnoh on my knee aa if I'd had o' my ain, she added. 

!"r .iii- first h rough! tip ;■ motlmle.-s hi, uf her own : :md I ln-ri. when 

tli. had married and died, leaving one tmby girl, she went to Edinburgh 
jiud took liiiby, 1 1 ri . 1 lins reared her. though ' she [iul on ten year- to my 
age, she wan that fractious and ill to bring- thro' ! ' The child is now 
ten years old, and goes to a Hoard school near. They are well off for 
their position, — have a cottage, which they let in summer, and a gar- 
den, well cared for. Both have been induatrious and economical all 
tbeii liven. And yet. could many of the iiller class declare honestly 
they are so happy and contented ? " 

IX. In justice to the Manchester Corporation. I (had a in an thus coin 
mauds mo to print what they have got to sag for themselves aueut their 
proposed speculation in Thirlmere, adding a delightful little note of 
Mr. Anderson's. 

"Those who wish to further the scheme answer this charge by the 
declaration that they are but using prudent foresight with a view to 

fntnre needs. They admit the e nereial value of line scenery as a 

means of bringing tourists to a district, hut assert that when once this 
enormous reservoir is made, many more persons will go to sec it than 
would ever travel in search of any beaut v of lake or mountain, and 
Out it will, in point of fact, greatly enhance' the charm of the scenery. 
They kindly, if not judiciously, promise to lake the greatest care to 
' add to the beautiti cation of the surroundings.' If the little church of 
Wythburn should he submerged, they wdl build another, of a prettier 
pattern, a little higher up the hill, ami carry the gravestones up to a 
fresh hit of ground. 'The old rond,' they think, 'maybe relegated 
to the deeps without a murmur, es]>eei:illy as it is the intention of the 
Waterworks Committee to substitute [afo] the present tortuous up-and- 
down track by a straight road, cut on n level line around the slopes of 
Ilelvellyn. Below it. the lake, enlarged to more than twice its present 
dimensions, will assume a grandeur of appearance in more striking ac- 
cordance with its majestic surroundings.' These lovers of the pict- 
uresque regret feelingly that " the embankment at the north end will 
not be seen from the highway, in consequence of the intervention of a 
wojded hill. This,' they say. -is a circumstance w hi. h may be regretted 
by tourists in search of the beautiful in lint ure and the wonderful in 
art. as the embankment will be of stupendous height ami strength, and 
by scattering a few large boulders over its front, and planting a few 
tree* in the midst of tht-m. it will be made to, have an exact resemblance 
to its snrrounding-, if indeed it does ii"t approach in grandeur to its 
proud neighbour the Haven Crag,' etc." — Spectator. 



Jfbrt. Kad dogs d 




FOliS CLAVIGEHA. 



t precious notes on the real c 



a of the Indian 



"Exports and Famine. — Some of the former famines of India 
were famines of money rather than of corn, as we have pointed ont on 
several previous occasions. Now there is a veritable famine of com— 
cf money there is always more or less a famine there, so far as the great 
bulk of the population is concerned, liul iu the midst of this famine 
of corn— under the dreadful pressure of which the helpless people die 
by hundreds of thousands— there goes on a considerable exportation of 
com, and it becomes imperatively necessary to send back a correspond- 
ing quantity, at largely enhanced prices for the profits of the mer- 
chants, and sit i) w'~t of liiitii-h philanthropy and the national funds. 

The force of folly can no further go ! This blemish on our statesman- 
ship will he recorded to [he bewilderment of the historians of posterity, 
who will be amazed at our stupidity, and at the weakness of the Gov- 
crnment that, in the face of a famine so dreadful, has neither heart 
nor power to enforce a better ' political economy,' or to restrain the 
cupidity which, like iho unci. -an vulture, fattens on death and decay. 

"During the year 1871! India exported to the ports of (lie United 
Kingdom 3, 087,238 cwt. of wheat. The significance of this quantity 
will be apparent when we oonddei that importations from Germany 
were only 2,324,148 cwt., from ligvpr i.'J2:i,2:-it* cwt., and British North 
America 2,4i:i. 1WJ cwt. Russia, which was at one time our principal 
granary, exported 8,860,888 owt , which shows our imports of Indian 
wheat were cmsidenihlv mure thsn one-third of those from Russia, 
while the United States sent us 1!P,:133,053 cwt., the supply from India 
being about one-sixth ; a remarkable result for a trade in the very earli- 
est st'iyo-i .if its development. 

"With regard to the growth of wheat, it is important to observe that 
it has been confined to the last few years, and has been remarkably 
rapid. It has in fact been during the period in which the modern fam- 
ines have been rife. Not that we would argue that the export of wheat 
and other grain is the cause of famine. We have already indicated the 
wretched tinaiiro of the country, which keeps the agricultural classes 
in hopeless bondage to the village usurers, as the fruitful cause, lint 
l/iie export of corn from a fami&ing land u apAmMWMA qfudUttixi 
role and of ]mlt ni-rf ijottrnrndii, irl,kh it /m.i b?m rtrerred for tiiin Mam- 
mon-alrieken age In illustrate. No ancient, staUmwinthip itvnitrt hail, 
beta n'lilty "f "i--li m/it i/iti/n iIiiu'iiLitnitiim or rttcfi ntuknitn. The Great 
Moguls would have settled the business in a sterner and a better 
fashion. They would not huve been content with administering a few 
blows with a stick to the unlucky wight who brought tidings of disas- 
ter, but rt i in 1..1 huve peri-m pi orily laid ail embargo on the export of corn 
aa a first necessity in times c>f famine, and would have hung up sido 
by side the merchants who dared to sin against a law so just and iieees- 
Kirv, with the usurers wht#i^ enactions paralysed au'rieultura] industry, 
and denuded the fields of the crop*. We neither t;ike the preventative 
measures which the government of our predecessors devised, nor do we, 




FORS CLAVIGERA. 193 

when tbo famines actnally come, take the measures of ordinary pru- 
dence to alleviate their horrom. This it, indeed, the age of Mammon, 
and its licentioas cupidity must not he restrained. Buy in the cheap- 
est market, and set! in the dearest, is its invariable maxim, uud with 
fiendish pertinacity it claims its privilege among the dying and the 
dead. Thus it sweeps oil from the famish in;/ crowds (he mengre crop 
which has escaped the ravages of drought and usury, and it brings it 
home to English ports to compete with Amadou tupottatfoni in our 
markets, or to Rend it back to India at prices which yield enormous 
profits to the adventurers. But this superior wisdom, :md this hard- 
ened selfishness, is right, for it El sanctioned by Adam Smith. 

" But it is not to England aloM that this export is mode ; to Ceylon, 
the Mauritius, and the West, India Islands, constant shipments are going 
on, and according tn st.atistii-s. that ;;re ht-fure us. in the six months 
1818-74, nearly 3sO,000 tons of wheat, grain, etc. , were shipped from 
Bengal alone to the above-named places— enough to have filled with 
plenty, for two full mouths at least, the mouths of the wretched 
creatures who were perishing at that time. Il is said that in 1B73 
Ceylon alum- imported from ihc lij-t.ricfs that aie mm- Famine-stricken 
7,090,900 bushels of grain, and yet t'eylon is unsurpassed on this planet 
as a fruitful garden ; it contains about 15 at 13 millions of acres, more 
or less, of fine arable laud ; it lias a delicious climate, and abundant 
rainfall, and yet it has less thnu a million uf acres under grain crop, 
and draws its chief supplies from India, while the iiindi'iwucrs refuse to 
cultivate the land they hold, or to sell the laud they will not cultivate. " 
—Monetary Gautte, Sept 1, 

"What is it that reduees to insensibility in woman this Divine in- 
stinct of mnU-mal tenderness? It is the hardening inllueuces of 
Mammon, and the pressure which the accursed domination of tho 
Demon of the Honey power brings to bear on every order of society. 
If it be a fact that women, even in the ranks of respectability, murder 
their unhom infants, it is because the pressure of the time reduces 
them to desjuiir, and this fearful strain has its origin in nothing else 
than the Mammon of unrighteousness, which is a grinding tyranny, and 
a standing menace to the noblest sentiments of our nature, and the 
dearest interests of society. It hardi iih every heart, extinguishes every 
hope, and impels to crime in every direction. S'or do the soft in. 
tlnences of womanhood, nor the sanctities of maternity, escape its 
blighting curse. '* 

"We quote — with our cordial aolmowledfrjient of the diligence that 
lias compiled tin- figuies — from a paper rend by Stephen Bourne, 
F.S.S.. before ihe Manchester Statistical Society: — 

'"For the present purpose I commence with 1857, as being just 
twenty ye;irs Imck, ami the lirst also of tin: jn-ncnful era which followed 
on the termination of the Crimean War, In that year the total value 
of the for.-ir.Ti mid culonial goods retained for consumption in thtH 
country amounted to tlK4.lHHJ.lKlO. of which 64 was for articles of food, 
82 for raw materials for manufacture, and IS fur maimfucuirrd articles. 
Last, year, these amounts were a total of Aid 10,000, 000, of which l."iil 
was for food. Ill) raw materials, and 41 other, from which it will 
appear that J19 per cent, of the whole in the former year, and 00 per 
cent, in the latter, went for food. In making this separation of food from 

Vol. IV.— 13 




194 



FORS CLAVWERA. 



other articles, it in not possible Co be absolutely correct, for so many 
substanous admit of a twofold use ; take, for instance, olive oil, which 
is actually used both as lood and in manufactures, or the fat of animals, 
which may appear ou our table at meal. times for food, or in the shape 
of candles to lighten its darkness Again, it may be asked. What is 
food ? Mont and tobacco aru totally different in Lheir use or abuse, bnt 
both enter the month and are there consumed ; both, therefore, ate 
clamed under this bead, together with wines, spirits, etc. ... As 
it would be unsafe to take for comparison the amount of either in a 
single year, an average foe the first and last three years lias been worked 
out, showing that whilst t he number of consumers hud increased from 
~% Lu ;Wj millions, the food furnished from abroad had advanced from 
51) to 133, a growth of tbe one by lli, of the other by 1(50 per cent. 
This means that on an average each member of the oommunity now 
consume- to tin- vii 1 lie of tun and a lialf time!. as nuieh lurii^-n food ns 
he did twenty years back, somewhere about £5 for £2.'" — JtolMWfj 
GairUr:, Aug. 2o. 



it of 'Talbot Village* ia Kent me in a 
u desirous of knowing the present condi- 
i there, and of answers to the ijuestiuni 



XI. The following ao 
pamphlet without date. 
i ion and likelihood of ma 

"Talbot Village, vi-hidi is situate about two miles to the north of 
Bournemouth, stands on a high and breezy level in Dorset, and ou the 
oou.fi.nes of Hampshire. commanding a magnificent view on all side*. 

"The enclosure of ihe v illume comprehends about 4'ij acres, of which 
1.10 acres lie open and uncultivated for the cattle of the farmers and 
recreation of the collag.-rs In the village. There are five farms. in\ 
With suitable houses and outhouses, and nineteen cotUsgeB, each of 
which has an acre of ground attached, lu the village stands a hand- 
some block of stone buildings, which embraces seven distinct and 
separate houses. (S) altogether known as "Talbot Almshouse*.' In 
addition, there is a school -ho use, in combination with no excellent 
bousa and garden for the use of the master. Further, the village con- 
tains a ehni'li, whi'-li stands in a churchyard of three acres; in the 
tower of the church is n clock with chimes. 

"There is one house in the village devoted to the purposes of a 
general shop, but all beer tiou.,es are strictly prohibited 

"So ranch by way of brief description of a village which attracts the 
observation of nil visitor* to liourncinouth. 

"Previunsly to 1812, the! whole of the country now comprising the 
village was n wild moor, the haunt of smuggler^ and poaHicr?. About 
that time the lata Miss Qeorgina Talbot, of (irosvenor Square, paid a 
visit to lloiini.inoiiil], then in its infancy. Her attention was drawn 
to the wretched state of the labouring population of the district, and 
her first impulse was to encourage industry and afford them employ 
ment. She first rented some land, and set men (who were for the most 
part leading vagrant lives) (c) to work to improve it. Many of the mors 



FOES OLAVIQERA. 195 

influential people in the neighbourhood uf tlirut day thought her views 
Utopian, nnd Here disposed \o ridicule them ; Alias Talbot, however, 
hail deeply considered the subject, and w-as not t<< be discouraged ; nnd. 
observing how wretchedly the poof (-/ > were housed, determined to 
build suitable cottages, to each uf which should bo attached an acre 
of land. Steadily progressing, Miss Talbot t.-<>ti tinned to acquire land, 
anil eventually (in addition to other land in Hampshire) became thy 
possessor of the district which is now known as 'Talbot Village.' The 
almshouses before referred to were then built for the benefit of the 
aged [fl of the district, who hud ceased, to be able to work, and the 
auhool-house for the benelit of lhn young of the village. Having suc- 
ceeded in laying out the whole village to her sat-isfartiuu, Miss Talbot's 
mind began to consider how these benefits should be permanently 
secured to the objects of her bounty ; ami. neeordin^lv. tin; almshouses 
were endowed by an invest in ent i" the Funds, nnd the village, with the 
,■■ r. .1 ■, I..- 1. 1 l'..t i :i .h. i !  i.-i:  l.i.nl Wi.'lvi-i inn. fimi 
three other gentlemen, and I heir success, it.-.. ii].on trust.-, in furtherance 
ot the settlor's views. When this had lorn accomplish. -.1, it became 
nee. -s.iry to provide a church ami place of sepulture, ami three acres 
of land were set apart for the purpose | hut before the church could be 
completed and fit for coii.ieeratiun, Mi-s Talbot'.- Hidden death occurred ; 
and it is a remarkable ri remittance, iliac I his ln.ly was the first- to Ixt 
interred in the ground she had appropriated for burials. Those who 
have visited the spot cannot have failed to see the tomb erected by ber 
sister, the present Miss Talbot. 

"This lady completed the church and its various appliances, and 
supplied all that her sieter conld have desired. The church itself haa 
been supplied with a heating apparatus, an organ, nnd musical service; 
a clock with chimes, if) arranged for every day in the week; a pulpit 
of graceful proportions, nnd an aneieut font brought from Koine. On 
fie interior walls of the church have been placed test* of Scripture, 
revised and approved by Wilbarforee, Biabop of Winchester, and Stan- 
ley. Dean of Westminster. 

"Before concluding a brief account of 'Talbot Village,' we must 
add that the whole is managed by trustees, under the judicious and 
far-seeing views of the founder. The rent ot each cottage and garden 
is limited to £ti per annum, free of rates and taxes, and no lodger is 
allowed, so that there may be no possible overcrowding. The objects 
of the almshouses are strictly delinpd. and rules regulai iia.' the inmates 
are to be fouud on the walls. To sum up the whole, everything haa 
been devised by Miss lieorgimi Talbot, seconded by the present Miss 
Talbot, to ensure a contented, virtuous, and happy community. 

'" It is an instance of success attending the self-denying efforts of a 
most estimable lady, and, it is to be hoped, may prove an incentive to 
others to 'go and do likewise.' 

"M. Kemp-Welch, 

•• One of the Trmtett." 



If) Ttl* trlilmiitmnl 'n.-riti-n ■■! rM- !■— — u..n <i( Die villus.-.- •■• 



_ 



196 FORS OLAVIGERA. 

I beg that it may be understood that in asking for farther informa- 
tion on these matters, I have no intention whatever of decrying Mist 
Talbot's design; and I shall be sincerely glad to know of its ultimate 
success. But it is of extreme importance that a lady's plaything, if it 
should turn out to be nothing more, should not be mistaken for a piece 
of St. George's work, nor cast any discredit on that work by its possi- 
ble failure. 

XII. Fors is evidently in great good-humour with me, just now ; see 
what a lovely bit of illustration of Sirenic Tbrenodia, brought to final 
perfection, she send me to fill the gap in this page with : — 

" Ilere's a good thing for Fors. A toUing-in&chine has been erected 
at the Ealing cemetery at the cost of £80, and seems to give universal 
satisfaction. It was calculated that this method of doing things would, 
(at 300 funerals a year,) be in the long run cheaper than paying a 
man threepence an hour to ring the bell. Thus we mourn for the 
departed!— L. J. H." 



F088 CLAVIGERA. 



LETTER LXXXIV. 



Bkantwood. 29(A Out., 1877. 
These, the last recorded words of the Mother of Christ, 
and the only ones recorded during the period of His minis- 
try, (the "desiring to sue thee " being told him by a stran- 
ger's lips,) I will take, with due pardon asked of faithful 
Protestant readers, for the motto, since they are the sum, of 
all that I have been permitted to speak, in God's name, now 



The first senteric 


3 of these two, contains the appeal ol 


the 


workman's wife, tc 


her son, for the help of the poor o 


all 


the earth. 






The second, the 


command of the Lord's mother, to 


the 


people of all the ea 


rth, that they should serve the Lord. 




This day last ye 


r, I was walking with a dear friend, 


and 



resting long, laid on the dry leaves, in the sunset, under the 
vineyard-trellises of the little range of hills which, five miles 
west of Verona, look down on the Lago di Garda at about 
the distance from its shore that Cana is from the Lake of 
Galilee ; — (the Madonna had walked to the bridal some 
four miles and a half). It was a Sunday evening, golden 
and calm; all the vine leaves quiet; and the soft clouds 
held at pause in the west, round the mountains that Virgil 
knew so well, blue above the level reeds of Mincio. But we 
had to get under the crest of the hill, and lie down under 
cover, as if avoiding an enemy's fire, to get out of hearing 
of the discordant practice, in fanfaronade, of the military 
s of the village, — modern Italy, under the teaching of 
the Marsyas of Mincio, delighting herself on the Lord's day 
in that, doubtless, much civilized, but far from mellifluous, 
manner ; triumphing that her monasteries were now for the 




198 



FORS VLAVIOERA. 



r chapels 



into stable* 
■xiiila rated, 
of the bill, and shad- 



most part turned into barracks, and hi 
We, (or our own part, in no wise ex 
but shrinking; down under the shelter 
ows of its fruitful roofs, talked, as the sun went down. 

We talked of the aspect of the village which had sent out 
its active life, marching' to these new melodies ; and whose 
declining life we had seen as we drove through it, half an 
hour before. An old, far->tivii,'gling village, its main street 
following the brow of the hill, with gardens at the backs of 
the houses, looking towards the sacred mountains and the 
uncounted towers of purple Verona. 

If ever peace, and joy, and sweet life on earth might bo 
possible for men, it is so here, and in such places, — few, on 
the wide earth, but many in the bosom of infinitely blessed, 
infinitely desolate Italy. Its people were sitting at their 
doors, quietly working — the women at least, — the old men 
at rest behind them. A worthy and gentle race ; but utterly 
poor, utterly untaught the things that in this world make for 
their peace. Taught anciently, other things, by the steel of 
Ezzelin ; taught anew the same lesson, by the victor of 
Areola, and the vanquished of Solferiuo, — and the supreme 
evil risen on the ruin of both. 

There they sate— the true race of Northern Italy, mere 
prey for the vulture, — patient, silent, hopeless, careless : in- 
finitude of accustomed and bewildered sorrow written in 
every line of their faces, unnerving every motion of their 
hands, slackening the spring in all their limbs. And their 
blood has been poured out like water, age after age, and 
risen round the wine-press, even to the horse -bridles. Aril 
of tiie peace on earth, and the goodwill towards men, whicil 
lie who trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there 
was none with Him — died to bring them, they have heard by 
the hearing of the ear, — their eyes have not seen. 

"They have no wine." 

But He Himself has been always with them, though they 
saw Him not, and they have had the deepest of His blessings. 
" Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
And in the faith of these, and such as these, — in the voice- 






FOBS CLA VIOBItA. 199 

less religion and uncomplaining duty of the peasant races, 
throughout Europe, — is now that Church on earth, against 
which the gules of Hell shall not prevail. And on the part 
taken in ministry to them, or in oppressing them, depends 
now the judgment between the righteous and the wicked 
servant, which the Lord, who has so long delayed His com- 
ing, will assuredly now at no far-off time, require. 

" But and if that servant shall say in his heart, ' My Lord 
delaveth Ills coming' — 



Shall I go on wi 
often that it falls 
were dead leaves, 
to-day — so please 

•■ Who then is a 
hath made ruler 01 



all read tile passage so 
i unfelt, as if its words 
!ncl read it more slowly 



faithful and v 

ar His household, to 



? them thei 



; He has made yo 



ly, according 
not to leave 



Over His household, — Ho probably liai 
it, then, whether you have or ne 
ruler over it, that you may giv 
Meat— literally, first of all. And that s 
to laws of duty, and not of chance. You 
such giving to chance, still less to take advantage of chance, 
and buy the meat when meat is cheap, that you may ' in due 
season 'sell it when meat is dear. You don't see that in 
the parable? No, you cannot find it. 'Tis not in the bond. 
You will find something else is not in the bond too, presently. 

But at least this is plain enough, that you are to give 
meat — when It is due. " Yes, spiritual meat — but not mut- 
ton"? Well, then — dine first on spiritual meal yourself. 
Whatever is on your own table, be it spiritual or fleshly, of 
that you are to distribute ; and are made a ruler that you 
may distribute, and not live only to consume. You say I 
don't speak plain English, and you don't understand what I 
mean. It doesn't matter what I mean, — but if Christ hasn't 
put that plain enough for you — you had better go learn to 
read. 




200 



FORS CLAVHiERA. 



" Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, 
shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that He shall 
make him ruler over all His goods." 

A vague hope, you think, to act upon ? Weil, if you only 
act on such hope, you. will never either know, or get, what 
it means. No one but Christ can tell what all His goods 
are ; and you have no business to mind, yet ; for it is not 
the getting of these, but the doing His work, that you must 
care for yet awhile. Nevertheless, at spare times, it is no 
harm that you wonder a little where He has gone to, and 
what He is doing ; and lie has given you at least some hint 
of that, in another place. 

" Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning, 
and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, 
when f/e shall return from the wedding." Nor a hint of it 
merely, but you may even hear, at quiet timi'S, some murmur 
and syllabling of its music in the distance— " The Spirit, and 
the Bride, say, Come." 

" But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, 
'My Lord delayeth His coming,' and shall begin to smite 
liia feilo iv -servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken 



To ' smite ' — too tine a word : it is, quite simply, to ' strike ' 
— that same verb which every Eton hoy used to have, (and 
mercifully) smitten into him. — You smite nobody now — boy 
or man — for their good, and spare the rod of correction. 
But you smite unto death with a will. What is the ram of 
an ironclad for ? 

" To eat and drink with thi 
self — the tipper servant ; too w 
ing the drink that does n 
tapster: charging also the poor ti 
a crown's worth of tlie drink he i 
also of the prosperity of the horn 

So many bottles, at least, his chief butlerhood can show 
emptied out of his Lord's cellar, — 'and shall be exalted to 
honour, and for ever give the cup into Pharaoh's hand,' he 
thinks. Not lascivious, he, but frank in fellowship with all 



ken." Not drunk him- 

— a goodly public 
ity-two shillings for half 
,ws for them ; boasting 
under his management 






FOBS CLAVIQBRA. 201 

goodly speaker after Manchester Banquet,* 
not to add, personally, drunkenness to Thirl - 
niere thirst. 

" The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he 
looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of. 
And shall cut him asunder, and shall appoint him his portion 
with the hypocrites ; there shall be weeping and gnashing- uf 
teeth." 

" Cut him asunder." 

Read now this — mighty among the foundational words of 
Human Lam, showing forth the Divine Law. 

"Turn Tullus, . . . -Meti Suffeti, hquit, si ipse discere 
posses Gdetn ac foedera servare, vivo tihi ea disciplina a me 
adhibit a esset ; nunc, qnoniam tninii insanabile ingenium est, 
tu tuo supplicio doce humanum genus ea sancts credere 
quae a tc violata sunt. Ut igitur paulo ante, animum inter 
Fidenatem Romanamqno rem ancipitoni gessistl, ila jam cor- 
pus passim distrahendum dabis." 

And after, this : 

" But there brake off ; for one had caught mine evo, 
Fix'd to a cross with three stakes on the ground : 
He, when He saw me, writhed himself throughout 
Distorted, ruffling with deep sijrhs His beard. 
And Catalano, who thereof was 'ware, 
Thus spake ; 'That pierced spirit, whom intent 
Thou view'st, was He who gave the Pharisees 
Counsel, that it were fitting for one man 
To suffer for the people. He doth lie 
Transverse ; nor any passes, but Him first 
Behoves make feeling trial how each weighs. 
In straits like this along the foas are placed 
The father of His consort, and the rest 
Partakers in that counsel, seed of ill 
And sorrow to the Jews.' I noted, then, 
How Virgil gazed with wonder upon Him, 
Thus abjectly extended on the cross 
In banishment eternal." 
* Compare inscription in For*, Letter X., of the "Entire Clerkly or 
Learned Company,' and the passage in Munera Pulceri* there re- 




102 FORS CLAVIGERA. 

And after, this : 

" Who, e'en in words unfetter'd, might at full 
Tell of the wounds and blood that now I saw, 
Though he repeated oft the tale ? No tongue 
So vast a theme could equal, speecli and thought 
Both impotent alike. If, in one band, 
Collected, stood the people all, whoe'er 
Pour'd on Apulia's fateful soil their blood, 
Slain by the Trojans ; and in that long war 
When of the rings the measured booty made 
A pile so high, as Home's historian writes 
Who errs not ; with the multitude, that felt 
The girding force of Guiscard's Norman steel, 
And those, the rest, whose bones are gathered yet 
At Ceperano, there where treachery 
Branded tli' Apulian nwiw, or where beyond 
Thy walls, O Tagliacoszo, without arms 
The old Alardo conquer'd : — and his limbs 
One were to show transpierced, another his 
Clean lopt away,— a spectacle like this 
Were but a thing of nought, to the hideous sight 
Of the ninth chasm. 



Without doubt, 
I saw, and yet it suems to pass before me, 
A headless trunk, that even as the rest 
Of the sad Hock paced onward. By the hair 
It bore the severd member, lantern-wise 
Pendent in hand, which look'd at us, and said, 
' Woe's me ! ' The spirit lighted thus himself ; 
And two there were in one, and one in two : 
How that may be, he knows who ordereth so." 

I have no time to translate " him who errs not," * nor to 
comment on the Dante, — whoso readeth, let him understand, 
— only this much, that the hypocrisy of the priest who coun- 
selled that the King of the Jews should die for the people, 
and the division of heart in the evil statesman who raised up 

* " Cbe nan arm.'' I never tilt now, in reading this passage for raj 
present purpose, noticed thi?se wonderful words of Duatc'a, *poki>fi of 
Livy. True, iu the grandest sense. 




FOliS CLA Via EISA. 203 

son against father in the earthly kingship of England,* are 
for over types of the hypocrisy of the I J iiariaee and Scribe, — 
penetrating, through the Church of the nation, and the Script- 
ure or Press of it, into the whole body politic of it ; cutting 
it verily in sunder, as a house divided against itself ; and 
appointing for it, with its rulers, its portion — where there is 
weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Now, therefore, if there be any God, and if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any truth, choose ye this day, rulers 
of men, whom you will serve. Your hypocrisy is not in pre- 
tending to be what you are not ; but in being in the utter- 
most nature of you — Nothing— but dead bodies in coffins 
suspended between Heaven and Earth, God and Mam- 

If the Lord be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then follow 
him. You would fain be respectful to Baal, keep smooth 
with Beiial, dine with Moloch, sup, with golden spoon of suf- 
ficient length, with Beelzebub ; — and kiss the Master, to bid 
IJim good-night. Nay, even my kind and honest friends 
make, all of them, answer to my message : ' I have bought a 
piece of ground, and I must go and see it. — SulTer me first to 
bury my father. — I have married a wife — have not I to keep 
her and my children lirst of all ? Behold, I cannot come.' 

So after this seventh year, I am going out into the high- 
ways and hedges ; but now no mors with expostulation. I 
have wearied myself in the fire enough ; and now, under the 
wild roses and traveller's joy of the lane hedges, will take 
what rest may be, in my pilgrimage. 

I thought to have finished my blameful work before now, 
but Fors would not have it so ; — DOW, I am well convinced 
she will let me follow the peaceful way towards the pleasant 
hills. Henceforth, the main work of Fors will be construc- 
tive only ; and 1 shall allow in the text of it no syllable of com- 
plaint or scorn. When notable public abuses or sins are 
brought to my knowlege, I will bear witness against them 
simply, laying the evidence of them open in my Correspond- 

• Bead the ttory of Henry II. in Fort, Letter IIL 






204 



FOXS CLA VI'!KIi.\. 



mv.eli; 
George's 



ence, but sifted before it is printed ; following 
the while, in plain directions, or happy studies, i 
separate work, and lessoning. 

Separate, I say once more, it must be ; and cannot become 
work at all until it is so. It is the work of a world-wide 
monastery ; protesting, by patient, not violent, deed, and 
fearless, yet henceforward unpassionate, word, against the 
evil of this our day, till in its heart and force it be ended. 

Of which evil I here resume the entire assertion made in 
Fori, up to this time, in few words. 

All social evils and religious errors arise out of the pillage 
of the labourer by the idler : the idler leaving him only 
enough to live on (and even that miserably,") and taking ail 
the rest of the produce of his work to Bpend in his own 
luxury, or in the toys with which he beguiles his idleness. 

And this is done, and has from time immemorial been 
done, in all so-called civilized, but in reality corrupted, 
countries, — first by the landlords ; then, under their direc- 
tion, by the three chief so-called gentlemanly 'professions,' 
of soldier, lawyer, and priest ; and, lastly, by the merchant 
and usurer. The landlord pillages by direct force, seizing 
the land, and saying to the labourer, You shall not live on 
this earth, but shall here die, unless you give me all the fruit 
of your labour but your bare living : — the soldier pillages bv 
persuading the peasantry to fight, and then getting himself 
paid for skill in leading them to death : — the lawyer pillages 
by prolonging their personal quarrels with marketable in- 
genuity ; and the priest bv selling the Gospel, and getting 
paid for theatrical displays of it.f All this lias to cease, in- 
evitably and totally : Peace, Justice, and the Word of God 
must be given to the people, not sold. And these can only 
be given by a true Hierarchy arid Royalty, beginning at the 
throne of God, and descending, by sacred stair let down 

* " Maintain him — jus — but how?" — question asked of me by a 
working girl, long ago. 

f Compan- I'ntti thin Lunt, ji. ill. The three professions said there to 
be ' necessary ' are the pastor's, physician's and mercbaot's. The 
'pastor' is the Giver of Moat, whose office I now explain in its fulnew. 




KOnS CLAYKlETiX. 



i, to bless and keep all the Holy 



condemn and destroy tlie unholy, 
nts of God 



Lrthly kingdom, in fulni 



mlykingdo. 



nthetaher 



s atliirst. 



cle of 

ire for ministry, 

emory, but the 

id the fruits of 



man and beast, and t 

And in this Hierarchy and Royalty nil the 

have part, being made priests and kings to Ilim, that the 

may feed His people with food of ang-els and food of men 

teaching the word of God with power, and breaking an 

pouring the Sacrament of Bread am! Wine from house t 

house, in remembrance of Christ, and in gladness and singli 

ness of heart ; the priest's function at the altar itnd in tl: 

tabernacle, at one end of the village, being only holy in tr 

fulfilment of the deacon's function at the table and in tl: 

taberna, at the other. 

And so, out of th« 
time, shall come the he 
God shall be with mei 
because all the earth 
needed more for mortal food 
water of life given to him th« 
the trees of healing. 

Into which kingdom that we may < 
the last words of the King when lie 
in which is the direct and practical 
parable of the Servant was the shadow. 

It was given, as you know, to Seven Churches, that live 
no more, — they having refused the word of His lips, and 
been consumed by the sword of His lijis. Vet to all men the 
command remains — He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
the Spirit saith unto the Churches. 

They lie along the hills, and across the plain, of Lydia, 
sweeping in one wide curve like a flight of birds or a swirl 
of cloud — (if you draw them by themselves on the map you 
will see)— all of them either in Lydia itself, or on the frontier 
of it : in nature, Lydian all — richest in gold, delicatest in 
luxurv, softest in music, tenderest in nrt. of the then world. 
They unite the capacities and felicities of the Asiatic and 
the Greek : had the last message of Christ been given to the 
Churches in Greece, it would have heen to Europe in im- 
perfect age ; if to the Churches in Syria, to Asia in imper- 



a for Hi 



Bridal, 
ich the 




206 



feet a 



FOItS CLAYIGERA. 
> Lydia, it is written 



—written to Lydia, it is written to the world, and 
for ever. 

It is written 'to the Angels of the Seven Churches.' I 
have told yon what ' angels ' meant to the Heathen. What 
do you, a Christian, mean by them? What is meant by 
them here ? 

Commonly, the wort! is interpreted of the Bishops of these 
Churrhes ; and since, in every living- Church, its Bishop, if 
it have any, must speak with the spirit and in the authority 
of its angel, there is indeed a lower and literal sense in 
which the interpretation is true ; (thus I have called the 
Archbishop of Canterbury an angel in 1'brs, vol. iii., p. 
315 ;) but, in the higher and absolutely true sense, each 
several charge is here given to the Guardian Spirit of eacli 
several Church, the one appointed of Heaven to guide it. 
Compare Bibiiotheoa J'twtorum, vol. i., Preface, pp. .\ii. to 
xv., closing with the words of Plato which I repeat here : 
"For such cities as no angel, but only a mortal, governs, 



then 



sibl.- 



3 of evil ! 






Modern Christians, in the beautiful simplicity of their 
selfishness, think — every mother of them — that it is quite 
natural and likely that their own baby should have an angel 
to take care of it, all to itself : but they cannot fancy such 
a thing as that an angel should take the liberty of interfer- 
ing with the actions of a grown-up person, — how much less 
that one should meddle or make with a society of grown- 
up persons, or be present, and make any tacit suggestions, 
in a parliamentary debate. But the address here to the 
angel of the capital city, Sardis, marks the sense clearly : 
"These things saith lie which hath the Seven Stars in 
His right hand, and'' (that is to sav) " the Seven Spirits of 
God." 

And the charge is from the Spirit of God to each of these 
seven angels, reigning over and in the hearts of the whole 
body of the believers in every Church ; followed always by 
the dateless adjuration, " He that hath an ear, let him bear 
what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." 

The address to each consists of four parts ! — 






FORS CLAYWKIU. 



207 



First. The assertion of some special attribute of the Lord 
of the Churches, in virtue of which, and respect to which, 
He specially addresses that particular body of believers. 

Second. The laying bare of the Church's heart, as known 
to its Lord. 

Third. The judgment on that state of the heart, and 
promise or threat of a future reward or punishment, as- 
signed accordingly, in virtue of the Lord's special attribute, 
before alleged. 

Fourth. The promise, also in virtue of such special attri- 
bute, to all Christians who overcome, as their Lord overcame, 
in the temptation with which the Church under judgment is 
contending. 

That we may better understand this scheme, and its se- 
ns take first the four divisions of charge to the 
Churches in succession, and then read the charges in their 
detail. 

I. EPHHSUS. 

The Attribute.— -That holdeth the seven stars, and walk- 
eth in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. 

The Declaration.— -Thou hast left thy first love. 

The Judgment. — I will move thy candlestick out of his 
place, except thou repent. 

The Promise. — (Always, 'to liim that overcometh,') I 
will give to eat of the tree of life. 



d the Last, which \ 
iv sorrow, — and thv 



II. Smyrna. 

The Attribute.— The First 

dead, arid is alive. 
The Declaration. — I know thy sorrow, — a 

tieuce. 
Tfie Judgment.— Be thou faithful to death 

give thee a crown of life. 
77ns Promise,— He shall not be hurt of 

death. 



208 FORS CLAVIGERA. 

III. Pergamos. 

The Attribute. — He which hath the sharp sword with 

two edges. 
77ie Declaration. — Thou hast there them that hold the 

doctrine of Balaam. 
The Judgment — I will fight against thee with the 

sword of my mouth. 
The l*romise. — I will give him to eat of the hidden 

manna. 

IV. Tiiyatira. 

The Attribute. — That hath His eyes like a flame of fire. 
The Declaration. — Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel. 
The Judgment. — I will kill her children with death. 
TJie Promise. — I will give him the morning star. 

V. Saudis. 

The Attribute. — That hath the seven Spirits of God. 
The Declaration. — Thou hast a few names, even in 

Sardis. 
The Judgment. — They shall walk with me in white, for 

thev arc worthy. 
The Promise. — I will confess his name before mv Father 

and His angels. 

VI. Philadelphia. 

The Attribute. — He that hath the key of David. 

The Declaration. — 1 have set before thee an open door. 

The Judgment. — 1 will keep thee from the hour of 

temptation. 
The Promise. — He shall go out of my temple no more. 

VII. Laodicka. 

The Attribute. — The Beginning of the Creation of God. 
The Declaration. — Thou art poor and miserable. 
The Judgment. — Behold, I stand at tiie door and knock. 
The l*romise. — 1 will grant him to sit with Me in Mv 
throne. 



FORS CLAVIOERA. 



209 



Lei us now reait the charges in their detail, tnat we may 
understand them as they are given to ourselves. 

Observe, first, they all begin with the same words, " I 
know thy works" 

Not even the maddest and blindest of Antinomian teach' 
era could have eluded the weight of this fact, hot that, in 
the following address to each Church, its 'work ' is spoken 
of as the state of its heart. 

Of which the interpretation is nevertheless quite simple; 
namely, that the thing looked at by God first, in every Chris- 
tian man, is his work ; — without that, there is no more talk 
or thought of him. "Cut him down — why cumbereth he 
the ground?" But, the work being shown, has next to be 
tested. In what spirit was this done, — in faith and charity, 
or in disobedient pride? "You have fed the poor? yes; 
but did you do it to get a commission on the dishes, or be- 
cause you loved the poor? You lent to the poor, — was it 
in true faith that you lent to me, or to get money out of my 
poor by usury in defiance of me ? You thought it a good 
work— did you? Had you never heard then — "This is the 
work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath 

And now we take the separate charges, one by one, in 
their fulness : — 

I. Ephesus. — The attribute is essentially the spiritual 
power of Christ, in His people, — the 'lamp' of the virgins, 
the ' light of the world ' of the Sermon on the Mount. 

The Declaration praises the intensity of this in the 
Church, and — which is the notables! thing for us in the 
whole series of the charges — it assorts the burning of the 
Spirit of Christ in the Church to be especially shown be- 
cause it "cannot bear them which are evil." This fierce- 
ness against sin, which we are so proud of being well quit 
of, is the very life of a Church ; — the toleration of sin is the 
dying of its lamp. How indeed should it shine before men, 
if it mixed itself in the soot and fog of sin ? 

So again, although the Spirit is beginning to burn dim, 
and thou hast left thy first love, yet, this 'thou hast, that 
Vol. IV —14 




210 



FORS CLAVIOERA. 






thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes.' (See note below 
on Pergamos.) 

The promise is of fullest life in the midst of the Paradise 
and garden of God. Compare all the prophetic descriptions 
of living persons, or states, as the trees in the garden of God ; 
and the blessing of the first Psalm. 

II. Smyrna.— The attribute is that of Christ's endurance 
of death. The declaration, that the faithful Church is now 
dying, with Him, the noble death of the righteous, and shall 
live for evermore. The promise, that over those who so en- 
dure the slow pain of death in grief, for Christ's sake, the 
second death hath no power. 

III. Pergamos, — The attribute iu of Christ the Judge, vis- 
iting for sin ; the declaration, that the Church has in it the 
sin of the Nicoiaitanes, or of Balaam, — using its grace and 
inspiration to forward its worldly interest, arid grieved at 
heart because it lias the Holy Ghost ; — the darkest of blas- 
phemies. Against this, 'Behold, I come quickly, and will 
fight against thee with the sword of my mouth.' 

The promise, that he who has kept his lips from blas- 
phemy shall eat of the hidden manna : the word, not the 
sword, of the lips of Christ. " How sweet is Thy word unto 
my lips." 

The metaphor of the stone, and the new name, I do not 
yet securely understand. 

IV. Thyatira.— The attribute : "That hath his eyes like 
a flame of fire," (searching the heart,) "his feet like fine 
brass," (treading the earth, yet in purity, the type of all 
Christian practical life, unsoiled, whatever it treads on) ; 
but remember, lest you should think this in any wise op- 
posed to the sense of the charge to Ephesus, that you inav 
tread on foulness, yet remain uudefiled ; but not lie down 
in it and remain so. 

The praise is for charily and active labour. — and the 
labour more than the charity. 

The woman Jezebel, wlio calls herself a prophetess, is, I be- 
lieve, the teacher of labour for lascivious purpose, beginning 
by the adornment of sacred things, not verily for the honoui 



...J .w. •«< ..«..««.. 



FOBS CLAVIQERA. 21] 

of God, but for our own delight, (as more or less in all mod- 
ern Ritualism). It is of all manner of sins the most difficult 
to search out, and detect the absolute root or secret danger 
of. It is the ' depth of Satan ' — the most Becret of his temp- 
tations, and the punishment of it, death in torture. For if 
our charity and labour are poisoned, what is there more to 

The reward of resistance is, to rule the nations with a rod 
of iron — (true work, against painted clay) ; and 1 will give 
him the morning star, (iight of heaven, and morning-time for 
labour). 

V. Sardis.— The attribute. — That hath the seven Spirits 
of God, and the seven stars. 

Again, the Lord of Life itself — the Giver of the Holy 
Ghost. (Having said thus, he breathed on them.) He 
questions, not of tho poison or misuse of life, but of its ex- 
in/i.-ufi , Strengthen I ho things that are left — that are ready 
to tile- The white raiment is the transfiguration of the 
earthly frame by the inner life, even to the robe of it, so as 
no fuller on earth can white thein. 

The judgment.— I will come unto thee as a thief, (in thy 
darkness, to take away oven that thou hast). 

The promise. — 1 will not blot his name out of the Book of 
Life. 

VI. Philadelphia.— The attribute. — He that is holy (sepa- 
rate from sin) — lie that is true (separate from falsehood) — - 
that hath the key of David, (of the city of David which is 
Zion, renewed and pure ; oonf. verse 12) ; that openeth, and 
no man shutteth (by me if any man enter in) ; and shutteth, 
and no man openeth, — (for without, are fornicators, and 
whosoever loveth and maketh a lie). 

The praise, for faithfulness with a little strength, as of a 
soldier holding a little fortress in the midst of assaulting ar- 
mies. Therefore the blessing, after that captivity of the 
strait siege — the lifting up of the heads of tho gates, and 
setting wide of the everlasting doors by the Lord, mighty in 
battle. 

The promise : Him that overcoineth will I make, 







212 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 

merely safe within my fortress temple, but a pillar of it- 
built on its rock, and bearing its vaults for ever. 

VII. Laodicea. — The attribute : the Faithful witness — 
the Word — The Beginning of Creation. 

The sin, chaos of heart, — useless disorder of half-shaped 
life. Darkness on the face of the deep, and rejoicing in 
darkness, — as in these days of ours to the uttermost. Chaos 
in all things — dross for gold — slime for mortar — nakedness 
for glory — pathless morass for path — and the proud blind 
for guides. 

The command, to try the gold, and purge the raiment, and 
anoint the eyes, — this order given as to the almost helpless 
— as men waked in the night, not girding their loins for jour- 
ney, but in vague wonder at uncertain noise, who may turn 
again to their slumber, or, in wistful listening, hear the voice 
calling — * Behold, I stand at the door ! * 

It is the last of the temptations, bringing back the throne 
of Annihilation : and the victorv over it is the final victorv, 
giving rule, with the Son of God, over the recreate and never 
to be dissolved order of the perfect earth. 

In which there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
crying, " for the former things are passed away." 

" Now, unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, 
and to present you, faultless, before the Presence of His 
glory with exceeding joy ; 

" To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, 
dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen/' 

Thefrst seven years' Letters of Fors Clavigera teen 1 ended 
in Corpus Christ i College, Oxford, 21st Nov., 1877. 



FOIiS CLAVIOJtillA. 



LETTER LXXXV.— (LETTER I.— NEW SERIES.) 



i WORK OP OUR HANDS, EMTAHLISll THOU IT." 



The aeries of letters which closed last year wero always 
written, as from the first they were intended to he, on any 
■natter which chanced to interest me, and in any humour 
which chance threw me into. By tlie adoption of the title 
Fors, I meant (among other meanings) to indicate this des- 
ultory and accidental character of the work ; and to imply, 
besides, my feeling, that, sinco I wrote wholly in the interests 
of others, it might justifiably be hoped that the chance to 
which I thus submitted myself would direct me better than 
any choice or method of my own. 

So far as regards the subjects of this second se 
ters, I ehali retain my unfettered method, in reliai 
direction of better wisdom than mine. But in t 
letters, I also allowed myself to write on each subj 
ever came into my mind, wishing the reader, like a friend, to 
know exactly what my mind was. But as no candour will 
explain this to persons who have no feelings in common with 
me, — and as I think, by this time, enough has been shown 
to serve all purposes of such frankness, to those who can 
receive it, — henceforward, I shall endeav< 
as I can judge, w 
ceptabie by him 
way, what may e 

.Such change in my n 
necessary, because I pel 
wider circle of readers. 

This book was begu 
society together for the 



of let- 



 former 
=t, what- 



j the reader, t 

nd t 



:xplai 



ar indulge, my ow 
:lhod of address i. 
wive the address i 



feel 



ngs. 




i the limited effort to gather 
i of ground in a particu 



ng this special husiii 



214 



FOBS CLAVIGEIIA. 



with the other work of the world. But the book has now be- 
come a call to all whom it can reach, to choose hetween being 
honest or dishonest ; and if they choose to be honest, also 
to join together in a. broth itIioch! separated, visibly and dis- 
tinctly, from cheats and liars. And as I felt more and more 
led into tliis wider appeal, it has also been shown to ine that, 
in this country of England, it must be made under obedience 
to the Angel of England ; — the Spirit which taught our 
fathers their Faith, and which is still striving with us in our 
Atheism. And since this was shown to me, I have taken all 
that I understand of the Book which our fathers believed 
to be divine, not, as in former times, only to enforce, on 
those who still believed it, obedience to its orders ; but 
indeed for help and guidance to the whole body of our 
society. 

The exposition of this broader law mingling more and 
more frequently in my past letters with that of the narrow 
action of St. George's Guild for the prssent help of our Brit- 
ish peasantry, lias much obscured the simplicity of thai 
present aim, and raised up crowds of collateral questions, in 
debate of which the reader becomes douhtfnl of the lightness 
of even what might otherwise have been willingly approved 
by him : while, to retard his consent yet farther, I am com- 
pelled, by the accidents of the time, to allege certain prin- 
ciples of work which only my own long study of the results 
of tho Art of Man upon his mind enable me to know for 
surety ; and these arc peculiarly offensive in an epoch which 
has long made — not only all its Arts mercenary, but even 
those mercenary forms of them subordinate to yet more 
servile occupations. 

For example ; I might perhaps, with some success, have 
urged the purchase and cultivation of waste land, and the 
orderly and kindly distribution of the food produced upon it, 
had not this advice been coupled with the discussion of tho 
nature of Rent, and the assertion of the God-forbidden guilt 
of that Usury, of which Rent is the fatallest form. And even 
if, in subtlety, I had withheld, or disguised, these deeper 
underlying laws. 1 should still have alienated the greater 



ly 



>iith up. 



in, but resolutely 
I necessarily be 



FOtlS CLAVtQEKA. 215 

number of tnv possible adherents by the refusal to employ 
steam machinery, which may well bear, to the minds of per- 
sons educated in the midst of such mechanism, the aspect of 
■n artist's idle and unrealizable prejudice. And this all tho 
more, because the greater number of businesB-men, finding 
that tiieir own opinions have been adopted without reflec- 
tion, yet being perfectly content with the opinions so ac- 
quired, naturally suppose that mine have been as confidently 
collected where they could he found with least pains : — with 
the farther equally rational conclusion, that the opinions they 
have thus accidentally picked up themselves are more valu- 
able and better selected than the by n 
preferable faggot of mine. 

And, indeed, the thoughts of a man who 
and 'lining a life persistently literary hi 
■word either for money or for vanity, nor > 
incontinence of the instinct for self-expref 
spoken only to leach or to praise others, I 

incomprehensible in an age when Christian preaching itself 
has become merely a polite and convenient profession,— 
when the most noble and living literary faculties, like those 
of Scott and Dickens, are perverted by the will of the multi- 
tud..\ .lim! perish in the struggle for its gold ; and when the 
oonoeil aTsn of tho gravest men of science provokes them to 
the competitive exhibition of their conjectural ingenuity, in 
fields where argument Is impossible, and respecting matters 
on which even certainty would be profitless. 

I believe, therefore, that it will be satisfactory to not a few 
of my readers, and generally serviceable, if I reproduce, and 
reply to, a portion of a not unfriendly critique which, appear- 
ing in the Sptctator for 22nd September, 1877, sufficiently 
expressed this general notion of my work, necessarily held by 
men who are themselves writing and talking merely for 
profit or amusement, and have never taken the slightest pains 
to ascertain whether any single thing; they say is true ; nor 
are under anv concern to know whether, after it has been 
sold in the permanent form of print, it will do harm or good 
to the buyer of It. 



. 



FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



"Mb, Russia's uxiqde dogmatism. 

'•As we have often hail occasion, if not exactly to remark, 
yet to imply, in what we liavo said of him, Mr. Ruskin is 
a very curious study. For simplicity, quaintness, and can- 
dour, his confidences to ' the workmtn and labourers of Great 
Britain' in Fura Clavigerct are quite without example. For 
delicate irony of style, when he gels a subject that he fully 
understands, and intends to expose the ignorance, or, what 
is much worse, the affectation of knowledge which is not 
knowledge, of others, no man is his equal. But then as curi- 
ous as anything else, in that strange medley of sparkling 
jewels, delicate spider-webs, and tangles of exquisite fronds 
which makes" (the writer should be on his guard against the 
letter s in future passages of this descriptive character) *' up 
Mr. Huskin's mind, is the high-handed arrogance which is so 
strangely blended with his imperious modesty, and that, too, 
of>.en when it is most grotesque. It is not, indeed, his arro- 
gance, but his modest self-knowledge which speaks, when he 
mvs i" this new number of the For-t that though there are 
thousands of men in England able to conduct the business 
affairs of his Society better than he can, 'I do not believe 
there is another man in England able to organize our 
elementary lessons in Natural History and Art. And I am 
therefore whollv occupied in examining the growth of Ana- 
gallis tenella, and completing some notes on St. George's 
Chapel at Venice.' Anil no doubt he is quite right. Prob- 
ahly no one could watch the growth of Anagallis tenella to 
equal purpose, and no one else could complete his notes on 
St. George's Chapel without spoiling them. We are equally 
sure that ho is wise, when he tells his readers that he must 
entirely decline any manner of political action which might 
hinder him 'from drawing leaves and flowers.' But what 
does astonish us is the supreme confidence,— or say, rather, 
hurricane of dictatorial passion, — though we do not use the 
word ' passion ' in the sense of anger or irritation, but in the 
higher sense of mental white-heat, which has no vexation in it, 
{«) — with which this humble student of leaves and flowers, of 
the Anagallis tenella anot the beauties of St. George's Chapel 
at Venice, passes judgment on the whole structure of human 
society, from its earliest to its latest convolutions, and not 







FOliti CLAVIGEIiA. 



217 



only judgrr 



who km 



gment, but the sweeping judginen 

E structure and all its misshapen growths with a 
sort of assurance which Mr. Ruskin would certainly never 
feel in relation to the true form, or the distortions of the true 
form, of the most minute fibre of one of his favourite leaves 
or flowers. Curiously enough, the humble learner of Nat- 
ure speaking through plants and trees, is the most absolute 
scorner of Nature speaking through the organization of great 
societies and centuries of social experience. (A) We know 
well what Mr. Ruskin would say, — that the difference is great 
between the growth that is without moral freedom and the 
growth which has been for century after century distorted by 
the reckless abuse of moral freedom. And we quite admit the 
radical difference. But what strikes us as so strange is that 
this central difficulty of all, — how much is really due to the 
structural growth of a great society, and quite independent 
of any voluntary abuse which might be amended by volun- 
tary effort, and how much is due to the false direction of in- 
dividual wills, never strikes Mr. Ruskin us •! difficulty at all. 
('■) On the contrary, he generalizes in his sweeping way, on 
social tendencies which appear to be (d) far more deeply in- 
grained in the very structure of human life than the veins of 
a leaf in the structure of a plant, with a confidence with 
which he would never for a moment dream of generalizing as 
to the true and normal growth of a favourite plant. Thus he 
tells us in the last number of fore that ' fors Claoigera is 
not in any way intended as counsel adapted to the present 
state of the public mind, but it is the assertor of the code of 
eternal laws which the public mind mttst eventually submit 
itself to, or die ; and I have really no more to do with the 

t, customs, feelings, or modified conditions of piety in 

n England, which I have to warn of the accelerated 

i than poor 

was ordered 
s part of the matter 



Desti 



the modern England, which I h; 
approach either of Revolutioi 
Jonah had with the qualifying ; 
been found in the Nineveh whose overth 
□ foretell in forty days.' But thi 



is that Mr. Ruskin, far fro 
denounces in the most veh 



keeping to simple moral la 
lent manner social ai 



its 



ih) It mould be curious, and much mure, if it only umre so. 

e — Italics mine.) Od what ground* did the writer suppose this? 
When Dr. Christ ison analyses a poison, and -imply states his result, is it 
to be concluded he was struck by no difficulties in nr riving ;il it because 
he does not advise the public of his embarrassments ? 

liij What does it matter what they appear to be? 




218 



FQItS CLAVXQEBA. 






ith them as 
e not aware, 



eera to most men (e) as little cot 

mid have seemed to 'poor Jonah, 
for instance, that Jonah denounced the 
Nine veil. Indeed, he seems to have availed himself of a ship, 
which is a great complication of machines, and to have ' paid 
his fare' from Joppa to Tyre, without supposing himself to 
have been accessory to anything- evil in so doing. We are 
not aware, too, that Jonah held it to be wrong, as Mr. Ruskiu 
holds St to be wrong, to charge for the use of a thing when 
you do not want to part with it altogether. These arc prac- 
tices which are so essentially interwoven alike with the most 
fundamental as also with the most superficial principles of 
social growth, that any one who assumes that they are rooted 
in moral evil is bound to be very careful to discriminate 
where the evil begins, and show that it can be avoided, — 
just as a naturalist who should reproach the trees on a hill- 
side for sloping away from the blast they have to meet, should 
certainly first ask himself how the trees are to avoid the blast, 
or how, if they cannot avoid it, they are to help so altering 
' r growth as to accommodate themselves to it- But Mr. 



Kuskin, thougli 
in relation to \w 

quite indepeside 
s highest i 



relation to nature he is a true naturalist, 
n nature has in him nothing at all of the 
It never occurs to him apparently that 
me ruble principles of growth which are 
of the will of man, and that it becomes 
udy humbly where the influ. 



where it ends, instead of rashly 
> a. perverted morality, 
ivitable result of social 



the human will begins and 
and sweepingly condemning 
what is in innumerable; cases 
structure. (/) 

" Consider only how curiously different in spirit is the 
humility with which the great student of the laws of beauty 
watches the growth of the Auagallis tenella, and that with 
which he watches the growth of the formation of human 

(o'l What iloea it matter what they ' seem to most men ' ? 

(/I Ta this somewhat l^niriliily iimt,!i]ihoric(il paragraph, the need- 
ful answer iiiny he brief, and without metnuhor. To every 'social 
structure ' which hat ri'udrrcd either ui.li' national crime or wide 
national folly ' inevitable ' — ruin is also ' inevitable ' Which is all I hare 
necessarily to say; and which baa heen by me, now. very sorrowfully. 
— enough faid. Nevertheless, somewhat more uviy he observed of Eng- 
land at this time.— namely, that she has no ' social structure ' whatso- 
ever ; hut is a mere heap tif agonising human maggots, scrambling and 
sprawling over fnch other for any manner o£ rotteu eatablu thing they 









at 



FOltS CLAVIQERA. 



219 



opinion. A correspondent had objected to him that he 
speaks so contemptuously of some of the most trusted 
leaders of English workmen, of Goldwin Smith, for instance, 
and of John Stuart Mill. Disciples of such leaders, the writer 
had said, ' are hurt and made angry, when names which they 
do not like are used of their leaders,' Mr. Ituskin's reply is 
quite a study in its way : — 

' Well, my dear sir, I solemnly declare.' etc., down to 
* ditches for ever.' — See Furs, Letter LXXXI. 
Now observe that here Mr. Ruskiri, who would follow the 
lines of a gossamer-thread sparkling in the morning dew 
with reverent wonder and conscientious accuracy, arraigns, 
6rst, the tendency of man to express immature and tentative 
views of passing events, (;/) as if that were wholly due, not 
to a law of human nature, ! ! (h) hut to those voluntary abuses 
of human freedom which might as effectually lie arrested as 
murder or theft could be arrested by moral effort ; next ar- 
raigns, if not the discovery of the printing-press (of which 
any one would suppose that he entertained a stern disappro- 
bation), at least the inevitable (■») results o£ that discovery, 
precisely as he would arraign a general prevalence of positive 
vice ; and last of all, that he actually claims the power, as an 
old litterateur, to discern at sight 'what is eternally good 
and vital, and to strike away from it pitilessly what is worth- 
less and venomous.' On the first two heads, as it seems to 
us. Mr. liuskin arraigns laws of nature as practically un- 
changeable as any by which the sap rises in the tree and the 
blossom forms upon the flower. On the last head, he assumes 
a tremendous power in relation to subjects very far removed 
from these which he has made Ins own, " 

Iff) I have never recognised any such tendency in portions moderately 
well educated. What is their education for — if iL cannot prevent their 
expressing immature vieii-a about anything 

\k\ I insert two noWfl of admiration. What " low of human nature ' 
■ball we hear of next? If it cannot kc<t[> its thoughts in its mind, till 
they ato digested, — 1 suppose we shall neit hear it cannot keep its 
dinner in its stomach. 

(i) There is nothing whatever of inevitable in tlie -universal gabble 
Of fools,' which is the lamentable fact 1 have alleged of the present 
limes, whether they gabble with or without the help of printing-press 
The power of laying a very foolish thing to a very large number of 
people at once, is of course n greater temptation to a foolish [leraoo than 
be was formerly liable to ; but when the nations! muni, such as it is, 
becomes once aware of the mischief of all i.hi-.. i' is . i Liable enough 
else there were un eud to popular intelligence in the world. 



320 



FORS CLAYIGERA. 



—I have los 



-el], i 



And what 
know good ^ 



: next leaf of the article, and may as 
na to me, close my extract here, (or I do not 
lubject the writer conceives me to have made my 
own, if 7iot the (juality of literature ! If I am ever allowed, 
by public estimate, to know anything whatever, it is — how 
to write. My knowledge of painting is entirely denied by 
ninety-nine out a hundred painters of the day ; but the lit- 
erary men are great hypocrites if they don't really think me, 
as they profess to do, fairly up to my work in that line. 
lh old litterateur be good for, if he did not 
\r from bad, and that without tasting more 
n half page. And for the moral tendency of books- 
no such practised sagacity is needed to determine that. The 
sense, to a healthy mind, of being strengthened or enervated 
by reading, is just as definite and unmistakeable as the sense, 
to a healthy body, of being in fresh or foul air : and no mora 
arrogance is involved in perceiving the stench, and forbidding 
the reading of an unwholesome book, than in a physician's 
ordering the windows to be opened in a sick room. There is 
no question whatever concerning these matters, with any 
person who honestly desires to be informed about them ; — 
the real arrogance is only in expressing judgments, either of 
books or anything else, respecting which we have taken no 
trouble to be informed. Uere is my friend of the S/Kctutor, 
for instance, commenting complacently on the vulgar gossip 
about my opinions of machinery, without even taking the 
trouble to look at what I said, else he would have found 
that, instead of condemning machinery, there is the widest 
and most daring plan in For* for the adaptation of tide- 
mills to the British coasts that has yet been dreamt of in 
engineering ; and that, so far from condemning ships, half 
the physical education of British youth is proposed by For* 
to be conducted in them. 

What the contents of Fora really are, however, it is lit tit? 
wonder that even my most studious friends do not at present 
know, broken up as these materials have been into a mere 
moraine of separate and seemingly jointless stones, out o( 
which 1 must now build such Cyclopean wall as 1 shall ha* L - 




FORS CLAVJGERA. 221 

time and strength for. Therefore, during some time at least, 
the main business of this second series of letters will be only 
the arrangement for use, and clearer illustration, of the 
scattered contents of the first. 

And I cannot begin with a more important subject, or one 
of closer immediate interest, than that of the collection of 
ind management of streams. On this subject, I expect 
es of papers from my friend Mr. Henry Willett, con- 
taining absolutely verified data : in the meantime I beg the 
reader to give his closest attention to the admirable state- 
ints by M. Violet-le-Duc, given from the new English 
translation of his book on Mont Blanc, in the seventh article 
of our Correspondence. I have before bad occasion to speak 
trow of the errors in the theoretical parts of 
this work : but its ptBotiml intelligence is admirable. 



Just in time, I get Mr. Willett'a first sheet. His preface 
s too valuable to be given without some farther comment, 
but this following bit may serve us for this month : 

" The increased frequency in modern days of upland floods 
appears to be due mainly to the increased want of the reten- 
tion of the rainfall. Now it is true of all drainage matters 
that man has complete power over them at the beginning, 
where ihey are widely disseminated, and it is only when bv 
thc uniting ramifications over largo areas a great accumula- 
tion is produced, that man becomes powerless to deal satis- 
factorily with it. Nothing ever is more senseless than the 
direct contravention of Nature's laws by the modern system 
of gathering together into one huge polluted stream the sew- 
age of large towns. The waste and expense incurred, first 
in collecting, and then in attempting to separate and to ap- 
ply to the land the drainage of large towns, seems a standing 
instance of the folly and perversity of human arrangements, 
and it ain onlij he accounted for hi/ the interest irltirh tif- 
tnrlii .* tn tin' >-]h nil hi'/ nf litri/e kiiiim uf money." (Italics mine.) 

" It may be desirable at some future time to revert to this 
part of the suhject, and to suggest the natural, simple, and 
inexpensive alternative plan. 

" To return to the question of floods caused by rainfall 
only. The first and completely remunerating expenditure 



222 FOJiS CI.AYIGERA, 

should be for providing tanks of filtered water for human 
drinking, etc., and reservoirs for cattle and man u fact urin;* 
purposes, in the upland valleys and moorland glens which 
form the great collecting grounds of all the water which is 
now wnsU'f Lilly [».*rniitt i'il to How either Into underground 
crevices and natural reservoirs, that it may be pumped up 
again at an enormous waste of time, labour, and money, or 
neglectfully permitted to deluge the habitations of which the 
improper erection on sites liable to flooding has been allowed 
"To turn for a moment to the distress and incurred ex- 

fiense in summer from want of the very same water which ha* 
teen wasted in winter, I will give three or four instances 
which have come under my own knowledge. In the summer 
of 187G 1 was put on shore from a yacht a few miles west of 
Swanage Bay, in Dorsetshire, and then, walking to the near- 
est village, I wanted to hire a pony-chaise from the. landlady 
of the only inn, but she was obliged absolutely to refuse me 
because the pony was already overworked by Laving to drag 
water for the cows a perpendicular distance of from two 
hundred to three hundred feet from the valley beneath. 
Hardly a rain-shoot, and no reservoir, could be seen. A 
highly intelligent gentleman in Sussex, the year before, re- 
marked, ' I should not regret the rain coming and spoiling 
the remainder of my harvest, as it would thereby put an end 
to the great expense I am at in drawing water from the river 
for my flock of sheep.' In the village of Farnborougb, Kent, 
there are two wells : one at the Hall, 100 feet deep, and a 
public one at the north-west of the village. In summer a man 
gets a good living by carting the water for the poor people, 
charging ]<t. fur six gallons, and earning from 'in. 6(1. to 3*. 
a day. One agricultural labourer pays 5</. a week for his 
family supply in summer. ' lie could catch more off bis own 
cottage, but the spouts are out of order, and the landlord 
won't put them right.' 1 know a farmer in Sussex who, 
having a seven-years' lease of some downland, at his own ex- 
pense built a small tank which cost him £30. He told mo at 
the end of his lease the farm would bo worth £30 per annum 
more, because of the tank. The Karl of Chichester, who has 
most wisely and successfully grappled with the subject, says 
that i'100 per annum is not an unfrequent expenditure by 
individual farmers for the carting of water in summer-time. 
" In my next I will give, by his lordship's kind permission, 
a detailed account and plan of his admirable method of water 
supply, superseding wells and pumping." 





FOBS CLAVKJERA. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 




I. Affaire of the Company. 

I never wait less able to give any account of these, for the last month 
hoa been entirely occupied with work in Oxford; the Bunk accounts 
cannot he in my bands till tbe year's end ; the busmen 'it Abbey Dule 
can in no wise be put on clear touting- till our Guild is registered ; and 
I have just been warned of some further modification* needful in our 
memorandum Tor registry. 

But I was completely convinced list year that, fit or unfit, I must take 
all these things iu hand myself ; and I do not think the leading article 
of our Correspond euce will remain after thu present mouth, so wholly 
unsatisfactory. 

II. Affairs of lha Master. (12th December, 1877.) 

Since I last gave definite statements of these, showing that in cash I 
had only some twelve thousand pooBdl left, the sale of Turner's draw. 
ing», out of the former collection of Mr. Munro, of Novar, took place ; 
and I considered it my duty, for various reasons, to possess myself of 
Caernarvon Castle, Leicester Abbey, and th<! Bridge of Narci ; the pur- 
chase of wbiob, with a minor acquisition or [wo besides, rednoed my 
available cash, by roy banker's account yesterday, to £10,22:1, that being 
the market value of my remaining 1 1 in HI Hank Stock. I ban directed 
them to sell this stock, and buy mo £0000 New Threes instead ; by 
which operation I at once lose about sixty pounds a year of interest, 
(in conformity with my views already enough expressed on that sub- 
ject,) and I put a balance of some thing over £1.100 in the Hank, to serve 
St. George and roe till we can look about us a, little. 

Both the St. George's and my private account will henceforward be 
rendered by myself, with all bImxihm possible to me; but they will no 
longer be allowed to waste the space of For*. They will be forwarded 
on separate sheets to the I 'ompanions, and be annually purobascable by 
the public, 

I further stated, in Inst year's letters, tliat at the close of 1877 I 
should present my Marylebone properly to St. Georgo for a Christmas 
gift, without interfering with Miss Ortsvia Hills management of it 
But this piece of business, like even tiling else I try to do just now, bos 

: own hitches ; the nature of which will be paitly understood ou read- 







224 FORS CLAVIGEHA. 

log some recent correspondence between Mi-H 1ILII and myself, which I 
trust iimy be closed, ami in form presentable, in.it month, '['ho trans- 
ference of the property will take place all the same ; but it will be wen 
to have become questionable how far Misa Hill may now consent to re- 
tain her control over the tenants. 

IIL We cannot begin the New Year under better auspices than are 
implied in the two following letters. 

To Mb. John Robkin, LL.D. 
" Honoured Sir. — I send ten shilling*, which I beg- yon to accept as 
a. gift foryour St. George's Fund. The sum is small, but 1 have been 
thinking that as you are now bringing some plots of land into cult na- 
tion, that even so small a ram. if spent in the purchase of two or three 
apple or other fruit trees suitable to the locality, they might be pointed 
to, in a few years time, to show ivhat had been the result of a amalUnm, 
when wisely deposited in the Hank of Nature. 

" Yours very Respectfully, 
' ' A Garden Workman, 

■' This day Mi years old, 

•' Joseph Stapletov. 
" November 9»A, 1877." 

(The apple-trees will be planted in Worcestershire, and kept separate 



" OLOVtlltTOS MOOR, NEAR SCaRIKIROUGH, 

November 15, 1877. 

*' Dear Master, —We have delayed answering your very kind letter, 
for which we were very grateful, thinking that soon we should be bear- 
ing again from Mr. Bagshawe, because we had a letter from him the 
same day that we got yours, asking for particulars of tbe agreement 
between myself and Dr. llooke. I answered him by return of post, re- 
questing him likewise to get the affair settled as soon as convenient ; 
but we have not heard anything since. But we keep working away, 
and have got the house and some of the laud a bit shapely. We are 
clearing, and intend enclosing, about sixteen hundred yard" of what we 
think the most suitable and best land for a garden, and shall plant a few 
onrrant and gooseberry bushes In, I hope directly, if the weather keejie 
favourable. In wet weather we repair the cottage indoors, and all 
seems to go on very nicely. The children enjoy it very much, and so 
do we too, for you see we are all together—" father's always at home.' 
1 shall never be afraid of being out of work again, there is so much to 
do; and I think it will pay, too. Of course it will be some time be- 
fore it returns anything, excepting tired limbs, and the satisfaction 
that it is, and looks, better. We intended rearing poultry, and have a 
cow, perhaps, when wo got something to grow to feed them with ; and 
hi that, intent I |.ur|">se j  ri  | uriinr si ' tlii^ winter to build an out- 
building for them in the spring-time. I can do it all myself— the work- 
ing part ; but should require help to purchase lime and timber, but not 






jet. We shall try 



FOliS OLAViamBA, 



r boBt tn work and make our arrangements suit 
re uuderi-taud them, atid anything you could like 
lis io <io, we shall be glad to perform. Yours truly, 

■• John Gut. 

" Our gross earnings for th.- year is £54 18*. Si^rl Our expenses this 
year have been heavy, with two removals, tint wis have a balance of 
£11 after paying tenth, for which we enclose Post Office order for £5 
B*. 10<i. We have plenty of clothing and .-hoca and fuel to serve us the 
winter through ; ho Mary nays we cau do very well until spring." 

IV. The follow ing important letters set the question raised about tho 
Bishops' return of income at rest. I need scarcely point out how de- 
sirable it would be for these mutters to be put on to simple fooling ax 
to leave no giound for I HnMN|ll itlM 1 1 Htm by the common ] topic. ' Dis- 
ingenuonsneas ' which the writer suspects in the ' Humanitarian ' is not 
usually a fault of the lower orders ; nor do they ever fail in respect to 
a good and active clergyman. 

" tforember 28, 1877. 
"Dear Mr. Ruskin, — I see from the November Fori that you ask 
for further explanation of BOOM HgUM pDUUwd by a ' Humanita- 
rian,' of Bish"piveaniii>iilli, [uni'hiu^ i-lie Bisiiops' incomes of thirty- 
nine yearn ago. ' The apparent discrepancy between the actual 
and alleged incomea' is very easily explained. The larger figures are 
not, and arc not said to be, the incomes of the liixhojti at all. The 
estates were then left on * beneficial ' leases; and the people who held 
these leases, generally country squires, were the real owners of the 
lands, [laying to the Bishops ancient nominal rents, and occasional lump 
aitms (' fines'), when the leases were renewed. The big sums, there- 
fore, are the estimated rental of tin' UiinU — that is, e.g., in the case of 
York the £41,030 represent the rents paid to llir country gaitiemeti by 
their tenants, and the £1-1,71)8 is the average, one year with another, 
of what the squires paid to the Archbishop in rents and fines. The 
difference, of course, represents the value of the lands to ibe squires. 
What the figures really show, therefore, ia the amount of Church prop- 
erty which, little by little, in the course of centuries, through a bad 
system of tenure, had got into tho hands of laymen. This bad system 
has been lnni» abolished, under the operation of divers laws passed in 
1841, and later ; and tho Biahopa have now, as your oLher table shows, 
much-reduced and unvarying income." 

" It may help you to see how the proportions (in the case of differ- 
ent Bishopsl of the II shops' receipts to value of lands, vary ao much, 
when I explain that the average episcopal income was required in the 
forms issued by the Eluyal f'oinniis-ion. t" !_»■ made out from the actual 
receipt* of a specified period— seven yeare, I think." Now the sepa- 
rate leaseholds were of very various values, some big and some little, 
and it would often happen that several years elapsed without any big 
' fine ' falling in ; and then there might come, in quick succession, the 




. 



FOttS CLAVIGEHA, 






the 

though accurately given a* required, was a very rough averag-e, though 
the return, token an a whole— Unit is, an regards all the sees together— 
gave a fair view of the facte. The ins mid outs of the affair, you see. 
can only bo understood by people familiar with the working «f the now 
obsolete ay stein. I theiefore in my Inst note abstained from saying 
more than wan ju-t sufficient to indicate the blunder, or disingenuous- 
nesa. of the p:inn]il.totr. knowing that it would be useless to burden 
your pages with farther details. To any one who knows the (acts, the 
large figures given as the Opponent incomes of Bishops are simply ludi- 
crous. No Bishop ever had any income approaching in £88,000, Tint 
of the late Bishop Sumner, .if Winchester, was always quoted as ex- 
orbitantly vast, and it was about .£19,000. I know privately that the 
late Arohlnshop of Canterbury, with his £1.1,000 a year, left bis family 
the noble fortune of £(!00 per annum 1 " 

V. '" The path op Cyfartitpa. — Mr. Crawshay has put a sommory 
end to all rumours an to the possibility of a start at lyfarthla. One of 
his old servants, says the Wat.ern Afail, wrote to him lately on mat 
ters apart from the iron-works ; but in the course of his letter he asked 
his old muster whether tin re were any hopes of the works being "gain 
started. The reply from Mr. Crawshay wns as follows. 'Trade is 
worse lhan ever it was, nnd I see not the slightest chance of Cyfarthfa 
starting ngiiin ; nnd 1 believe if it ever does start it will be under dif- 
ferent d re u instances to the present, ns it will require a large sum to 
belaid out in improvements, such ns making steelworks, etc I am 
too near my grave to think of doing any i hi tig of the sort ; and I think 
so badly of trade altogether that I have no wish to see my sons re- 
main in it- I am feeling very poorly, and do not think 1 <an possibly 
live very long, and if I am aide I shall sell the works before I die 
There is nothing now to bind me to them, for I have been estranged 
from them by the conduct of tbe men. I always hoped and expected 
to die with the works going, and the same feeling among the men for 
their employers; but things have changed, and all U different, and I 
go to my grove foiling I am a perfect stranger, as all my old men are 
gone, or nearly so.' " 

"9, Stevenson SqtrABK, Manchester, 
6th October, 1877. 
" My dear Sir,— Could you have thought, did you expect, that such 
an utter vindication of your words would embody itself in this form* 
'•J. RtlHKIN, Esq. T. W. P." 

Yes, my friend, I not only expected, bnt knew positively that such 
vindication, not of my words only, but of the words of all the ser- 
vants of God. from the beginning of dayR. would as-uredly come, alike 
in this, and in other yet more terrible, forms But it is to be noted 
that there arc four quite distinct causes operating in the depression at 
English.— especially iron,— trade, of which two are our own fault ; and 
the other two, being inivitaMe, should have been foreseen long since, 
by even the vulgar sagacity of Helf- interest. 




" 



FOJiS CLAVIGEJtA. 897 

The first great cause in the Reparation between masters and men, 
r'Ii ii ti is wholly the masters' fault, and the necessary result of the de- 
fiance of every moral law of human relation by modern political 
economy. 

The second ia the logs of cuitom, in consequence of bad work — also 
a result of the teaching of modern political ecouomy. 

The third, affecting especially the iron trade, is that the funds which 
the foils of Europe had at their disposal, with which to build iron 
bridges iustead of wooden ones, pot up spike railings instead, of palings, 
and make machines in substitution for their arms and legs, are now in 
a great degree exhausted | and by the time tile, milts are all rusty, tha 
bridges snapped, and the machines found to reap and thresh no more 
corn than arms did, the fools of Europe will hive learned a lesson or 
two which will nob soon be forgotten, even by than; and the iron 
trade will be slack enough thereafter. 

The fourth cause of trade depression, — hitter to the hearts oF the 
persons whom Mr. Spencer Herbert, calls patriots. — is that the inhabi- 
tants of other countries have begun to perceive that they have got hands 
as well as we— and possibly, in some businesses, even better hands , 
and that they may just as well make their own wares as buy them of 
us. Which wholesome disoovery of theirs will in due time mercifully 
put an end to the British ideal of life in the National Shop; and m ike 
it at last plain to the British mind that the cliffs of Dover were not 
constructed by Providence merely to be made a large counter. 

VL The following paper by Professor W. J. Ileal is sent ma by a cor- 
respondent from a New York journal. The reader is free to attach 
such weight to it as he thinks proper. The passage about the Canada 
thistle is very grand. 

" Interest money is a heavy tax en many paopt* of the 1'nited States 
There is no other burden in the shape of nmney which weighs down 
like interest, unless it be money spent for intoxicating liquors. Men 
complain of high State taxes, of school tuxes, and taxes for bridges, 
sewers, i? grading,! and fur building churches. For tome of these they 
are able to see an equivalent, but for money paid as interest— for the 
use of money, few realize or gain (f guess) what it costs. It is an ex- 
pensive luxury to pay for the mere privilege of handling what does not 
belong to you. People are likely to overestimate your wealth and 
(make yon?) pay more taxes than you ought to. 

" In most part of our new country, ten percent, per annum, or more. 
is paid for the use of money. A shrewd business man may reasonably 
make it pay to live at this rate for a short time, but even such men 
often fail to make it profitable. It is an uncommon thing for any busi- 
ness to pay a sure and safe return of ten per cent, for any length of 
time. The profits of great en teq irises, like railroads, manufactories of 
iron, cloth, farm- implements, etc.. el'-., are so variable, so tloeiuatinj;, 
that it is difficult, to tell their average profit, or the average profit of 



an 



FORB Cl.A YfGRRA. 



nuy one of them. We know it is not unnimmou Tor railroads to go 
into the hands of a receiver, because they cannot pay the interest on 
their debit. Factories scop, aud often go to decay, because they can- 
not pay running expenses. Often t.liey owmot euntinue without losing 
money, to say nothing about the iutertst OS the capita!. Merchants 
seldom oau pay ten pur cent, on large amounts f'jr any length of time. 
Even six per cent, is a heavy tax on Buy kind of business. 

•■ But it wan not of these clauses that 1 intended t> speak at this 
time. The writer has been moat of hia life among farmers, and lu< 
had unusual opportunities for studying their management of finances. 
It may be worse in a new country than in im old one, lint so far as my 
knew lege extends, a large majority of I lie farms of Michigan are covered 
by a mortgage. The farmer needs capital Ui buy sheep, cattle, tools ; 
to build bonnes and lams, and to clear and prepare laud for crops. He 
is very likely to underestimate the cost of a farm, and what it takes to 
stock it properly. He invents all his money, and perhaps runs in debt, 
for bis laud alone, leaving nothing with which to furnish it. Quite 
often he buys more land before he has money to pay for it. or even 
before be has paid oft the mortgage on his present farm. Times may 
be easy; crops may be good, and high in price, for a few years. He 
overestimates his ability to make money, and runs in debt. Fortune 
changes. He has ' bod luck,' and the debt grows larger instead of 
smaller. 

"Farming !■ n Safe busin-ess, bat even this has its dark side. Good 
crops ore by no means sure, even wh h gixid culture. Blight, drought, 
insects, fire, sickness, and other oniiiniines may imne when least ex- 
pected, and with a large, debt overwhelm the hopeful farmer. 

" I have never seen a farm that for several years together paid ten 
per cent, hit ere.- 1 im the capital iuvi sted. Iti an old scrap-book I find 
the following : ' Xo blister draws sharper than docs the interest. Of 
all industries, none is eompnral.le to that, of interest. It works all day 
and night, in fair weather and in foul. It has no -ootid in its faMMepa, 
but travels fast. It gnaws at a man's sub-lance with invisible teeth. 
It binds industry with its film, as a fly is bound in a spider's web. 
Debts roll a man over anil over, binding him hand and foot, and letting 
him bung upon I In: fatal mesh until 1 lie long-legg.sl interest devours 
him. There is but one thing on a farm like it, and that is the Canada 
thistle, which swarms with new plants every time you break its rout-. 
whose blossoms are prolinV, and every flower the father of a million 
seeds. Every leaf is an awl, every branch a spear, and every plant like 
u platoon of bayonets, and n field of them like an armed host. The 
"hoi .. plant is a torment and a vegetable curse. And yet, a fanner 
hud better make liU bed of Canada thistles than to be at ease upon 

" There ara some exceptions to the general rule, that no man should 
ran in debt. It may lie bet ter for one to owe something on a. house aud 
lot than to move from house to houso every year or so and pay a high 
rent. It may do for it farmer to incur a small debt on a new piece of 
land, or on some improvement, but be cautious. A small debt will 
mnlate to industry and eoonomy, but a large one will 



..fl.l-TI « 



lally c. 



eoffr 




F0U8 CLAYIGEHA. 



229 



because of that mortfr.TRe. The bod sees the privations of a fanner's 
life under unfavourable circumstances. The father dies, and leaves 
the form to his nun with a heavy debt in: it. which he in vain attempts 
to remove, or he Bella thy farm and leaves that kind uf drudgery. 
Very often a farmer is keeping mure laud than he is able to work or 
manage well. He does not know how to get value received, and more, 
nut of bin hired help. Such u one in unwise not to Bell a part, clear 
the debt, and work the remainder better.'' 

VII. The passage referred to in the text, from Mr. Buokuall's trans- 
lation of M. Violet- le-Due's essay on Mont Blnnc: — 



a presence of thegreat phi 



which geology 



" Bnt what i- n 
reveals? Whatci 

How can Mich diminutive being-, wlu.se most numerous army would 
he barely noticed on the slopes of these mountain*, in any degree 
moilify the laws which govern the. ili.-i ribtitiou of wati ivoursos. alluvial 
deposits, denudations, :ind the m-cum illation and melting of snows ou 
■ueh v:i« mountain musses? Is not llicir impotence manifest? 

" No ; the most terrible and powerful phenomena of nature are Only 
the result of the multiplicatiou of infinitesimal appliances or forces. 
The blade of grass or the fibre of moss perforins a. scarcely appreciable 
function, bat which, when multiplied, conducts to a result of consider- 
able importance. The drop of water which penetrates by degrees into 
the fissures of the hardest rock.-, "hen crystallised us the result of a 
lowering of the temperature, ultimately causes iin.imiaiiis to crumble. 
In Nature there are mi insignificant appliance**, or, rather, the uction of 
nature is only the result of insignificant appliances. Man, therefore, 
can act ill his turn, since those small means am net beyond the reach of 
Ins in line nee. ami Ins intelligence enalib-s him to calculate their effects. 
Yet owing to his neglect of (he study of Nature — his parent and great 
nurtuier. ami thus ignorant of her procedure, man is suddenly atir- 
jirised by one of the phases of her incessant work, and sees his crops 
and habitations .-wept, away by an inundation. Does he proceed to 
examine the cause of what he calls a cataclysm, hut which is only the 
consequence of an accumulation of phenomena? No; he attributes it 
to Providence, restores his dyke-, sows bis fields, and re ho ibis his dwell, 
iugs; and then .... waits for the disaster — which is a conse- 
quence of laws he has neglected to study — to occur again. Is it not 
thus that things have been taking place for centuries '!— while nature, 
subject to her own laws, is incessantly pursuing her work with an in- 
fh-Nil'lo logical per-isteticy. The period ie:d ini nidations which lay waste 
vast districts, nre only a consequence of the action of these laws ; it is 
for lis, therefore, to beenmo acquainted with them, and to direct them 
to oar advantage. 

" We have seen in f\«- preceding investigations that Nature had, at 
the epoch of the groat glacial dchaii' *, contrived reservoirs at succes- 
sive stages, in which the torrent waters deposited t lie onte rials of all 
dimensions that were brought down first in the form of drift, whence 
sifting them, they caused them to descend lower down ; the most bulky 
lieiti'j deposiied first, and the lightest, in the form of silt, being carried 
as far as the low plains. We have seen that, in filling up most of these 
 by the deposit of roateriols, the torrents tended to make 




230 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 

their oourse more anil mora sinuous— to lengthen it, and thus to 
diminish the slopes, and consequently render their flow less rapid. 
We have aoeii that in the higher regions tha torrents found point* ot 
rest— levels prepared by the disintegration of the slopes; and that 
from these level* they incessantly cause debris to l>e precipitated, which 
ultimately formed cones of dejection, often permeable, and at the base 
of which the waters, retarded iu their course and filtered, spread in 
rivulets through the volleys. 

" Not only have men misunderstood the laws of which we mention 
here only certain salient points, hut they have for this most part run 
counter to them, and have thus been [Hiving the way for the moat 
formidable disasters. Ascending the valleys, man has eudeavoured to 
make the ureal. laboratories of I lie immsii ;nus subservient to his require- 
ments. To obtain pasture* on the slopes, he has destroyed vast forests; 
to obtain fields suitable for ajrrit'ul t n re in the. vidleys, he has cm banked 
the torrents, or has obliterati:.! tlu-ir sinno-ilie-. thus precipitating llieir 
course towards the lum-r reg ions; or. again, bringing the mud-charged 
waters into the marshes, he has dried up the latter by suppressing a 
great many accidental r-T-ervt-s. The mountaineer has had but one object 
in view — to get rid a-= quickly as possible of the waters with which he 
is too abund mtly f= 1 1 ) » -|. . J i .  ■. 1 . without concerning himself with what msy 
happen iu the lower grounds, .-ioou. however, lie hi-miin-s himself the 
lira!, victim of nis imprudence or ignorance. The forests having been 
destroyed, avalaneln s have rolled down in enormous musses along the 
Slopes. These ]>erioilicul ava lunches hnve swept down in their course the 
humus produced by large vegetable growths; and iu place of Ibe 
pastures which i lie moo: it, i inter thought he was providing for his flock*, 
he bus found nothing more than ihe denuded rock, allowing the water 
produced by rain or thawing- to flow in a few moments down to the 
lower parts, which are then rapidly submerged and desoluted. To 
obtain n few acres by drying up it marsh or a small lake, he has often 
lost double the space lower down in consequence of the more rapid db>* 
charge of pebbles and amd. As soon as vegetation has attempted to 
grow on the cones of dejection— the products of uvalanches, and which 
consist entirely of ilebrii—hf, will send his herds of goats there, which 
will destroy in a few hours the work of several years. At the terminal 
point of the elevated combes —where the winter causes the suows to 
accumulate— fir from enroll raging the larger vegetable growths, which 
would mitigate the destructive elicits of the avalanches, he has been. 
in the habit of cutting down the trees, the approach to -such point* 
being easy, and the cones of dejection favouring the sliding down of th« 
tmnks into the valley. 

" This destruction of the forests appears to entail consequences vastly- 
more disastrous than are generally supposed. Forests protect forests, 
and the more the work of destruction advances, the more do Ihey in- 
cline to abandon the altitude's in which they once nourished. At the 
present day, uroiin.il the wuuiifot Mont Hluuc, the larch, which formerly 
grew vigorously at an elevation of six thousand feet, and marked the 
limit of the large i veget :Ue growths is quitting those heights, leaving 
isolated witnesses in tbe shape of venerable trunks whio'i are not re 
placed by young trees. 




I 



FOBS CLAVI9EJ1A. 



231 



" Having frequently entered into conversation with mountaineers on 
those elevated plaieaux. 1 hnve taken occasion to explain to them these 
simple problem-), to point oat to them the foresight of nature and the 
improvidence of mini, und to show how by trifling efforts it was easy to 
restore n small lake. To render a stream lens rapid, and to stop the [ill 
of materiiils in those terrible couloirs. They wonlil listen attentively, 
and the next day would nulieipate me in remarking, ' Here in a good 
place to make a reservoir. By moving a few large stones here, an 
avalanche might be arrested.' 

'■ The herdsmen are the enemies of the forests : what they want is 
pasturage. As far as they can. therefore, they destroy the forests, 
without suspecting that their destruction is sure to entail that of the 
greater part of the postures. 

'•We saw in the last chapter that the lowering; * of the limit of the 
wooda appears to be directly proportioned to the diminution of the 
glaciers: in fact, that [lie smaller the volume ol the glaciers the more 
do the forests approach the lower iV higher | regions. We have found 
stumps of enormous larches on the beds of the ancient glaciers that 
surmounted La Flfgere, beneath the Aiguille I'ourricsuud I he Aiguilles 
Rouges — i.e., more than three hundred feet above the level of the 
modern Chalet de la I-'l -gcrc. whereas al pres-eut the last Irees are some 
yards below this hotel, and maintain but a feeble existence. There 
deserts are now covered ouly with stone <Uliri*. rhododendrons, and 
sconty postnroge. Even in summer, water in absent at many points, so 

that to supply their cattle the herdsmen of La I'l.-i;'" rt- have I n obliged 

to conduct the watere of the Laos Blanes into reservoirs by means of a 
small dike which follows tint slopes of the mieicnt moraines. Yet the 
bottom' of the trough shaped hollows are sheltered, und contain a thick 
lover of humus, bo that it would appear easy, in np't.e of the altitude 
{fi.liOO feet.i, to raise larches there. But the larch is favoured by the 
neighbourhood of snows or ice. And on this plateau, whose snmmits 
reach an average of 8,600 feet, scarcely a few patches of snow are now 
to be seen in August. 

" Formerly these ancient glacier beds were dotted with small tarns, 
which have been drained off fi.r the most part by the herdsmen them- 
selves, who hoped thus to gain a few square yards of pasture. Such 
tarns, frozen from October \<i M iy, pre-erve the snow and form small 
glaciers, while their number caused these solitudes to preserve par- 
monent neves, which, coverim.' the r.wky beds, regarded their disinte- 
gration. It was then also thai the larches. " hose stumps still remain, 
covered the hollows and sheltered parts of the combes. The area of 
pasturage was evidently limited ; but the pasturage itself was good, 
well watered, and could not be encroached upon Now both tarns and 
neve's have disappeared, and larches likewise, while we see inroads con- 
stantly made on the meadows by stony Hbfit and sand. 

"If care be not taken, the valley from Xiitit llorant to lionhomme. 
Which still enjoys such fine pastures, protected by some remains of 
foresta, will lie invaded by ili-hris ; for these forests are already being 
cleared in consequence of a complete misunderstanding of the condi- 
tion* imposed by the nature of the locality. 

"Conifers would seem to have been created with a view to the pur- 
pose they serve on the slopes of the mountains. Their branches, which 
.' I think the suitor muat km me»nt. 




232 



F0H8 CLA VtGERA. 



exhibit a constant verdure, arrest the snows, and are strongly enough 
iittnched to their trunk io euUe then to support the load they have to 
curry. In winter we may we layers of snow eight inches or a foot 
lliick on the palmuled branchea of the firs, yet which scarcely make 
them bend. Thus every fir is a shelf which receives the enow ami 
hinders it from accumulating as a compact mass on the slopes. I'uiler 
these conditions (wsdanabea are impossible When the thaws come. 
tbeae small separate stores crumble successively into powder. The 
trunk of the conifer clings to the rucks by tin., help of its roots, which, 
like wide-spread talons, n far Ui seek their nouiishmen , binding to- 
gether among them all the rolling it mm In fact, the coulter prefer! 
a rock, settles ou it. sud envelopes it with its strong roots os with a net, 
which, stretching far and wide, go in search of neighbouring stones, 
and attach them to the first as if to prevent all chance of their slipping 
down.* In the interstices ilihrU of leaves and branches accumulate, 
nud a humus is formed which retain* the waters and promotes the 
growth of herbaceous vegetation. 

"It is wonderful to see how. in a few years, slope*, composed of 
materials of all shapes, without any appearance of vegetation, become 
covered with think and vigorous tir plantations— i.i ., if the goats do ii<>[ 
tear off the young shoots, and if a little rest is left to the heaps on which 
they grow. Then the sterile ground is clothed, and if an avalanche 
occurs, it may prostrate some of the young trees and make itself n 
passage, lint vegetal iuti is e»gi>r to repair the damage. Does man ever 
aid in this work ? No ; ho is its most dangerous enemy. Among these 
young conifers he -ends his herds of goats, which in a few days make 
sad havoc, tear off the. shoots, or binder thera from growing; more- 
over, he will cut down the slender trunks for firewood, whereas the. 
great neighbouring forest would furnish bin), in the shape of dead wood 
and fallen branches, with abundance of fuel. 

"We have observed this struggle hetween man and vegetation for 
several years in succession Sometimes, but rarely, the rising forest 
gaius the victory, and, having reached a certain development, can 
defend itself. Hut most frequently it is atrophied, and presents a mats 
of stuuted trunks, which an avalanche crushes and buries in a few 

hei 

for 
He 

in] 

P ul 
of 

reg 



" Reservoirs in step* ni successive heigh Is are the only means for pre- 
venting tin- destructive I'ffecis of fl Is, for regulating the streams, and 

riiippl.i-iiig I In plums during rhc dry seasons. If. when Nature is left to 
herself, she gradually tills uj> those she had formed, she is incessantly 
forming (resh ones; but here man interferes and prevent* the work, 
is the first to suffer from bis ignorance and cupidity ; and what lie 
riders his right to the possession of the soil is too often the eanse of 
injury to his neighbours and to himself. 

"Civilized nations are nwnre that in the towns they build it is 
lstitute sanitary n gulatiom — that is, regulations for the 
public welfare, which are a restriction imposed on Ihe absolute rights 
of property. These civilized nations have also established analogous 
regulations respecting highways, the watercourses in the plains, the 
!. and fishing; but they have scarcely troubled themselves about 
'u districts, irltirli ,iv I hi m>»rct* "f ill (he arnltli ttf the country; 
 [■Hie the crispier un tlio olllocs ul tin- Itoot, In PrvtetfitKa. 






FORS CLAYI'i BRA, 



233 



Italics mine ; bat the statement Deed* qualification.— J. R.I for where 
there lire no muuutains [here are mi rivers. i-ousenucntlv im cultivated 
lam]-; nothing but utr/ipex, furnishing, at beet, pasturage for a few 
iMltle distributed over immense areas. 

" On the pretext that mountain regions are difficult of access, those 
among us who are entrusted by dc.-tuiv, ambition, or ability, with the 
management of the national interests find it easier to concern them- 
selves with the plains than with the heights. (1 don't find any govern- 
ments, nowadays, concerning themselves even with the plain*, except 
as convenient fields for massacre. — J. B.) 

"We allow that in these elevated solitude-: Naiurc in inclement, and 
is stronger than we are ; but it so happens that an iueunside ruble 
number of shepherds and poor ignorant mountaineers are free to do in 
those altitudes w Imt rli.ir immediate interests suggest to them. What 
do those good people care about that which happens in the plains* 
They have timber for which the sawmill is ready, and they fell it where 
the transport to that sawmill is least laborious. Is not the incline of 
the couloir formed expressly for sliding the trunks directly to the mill ? 

" They have water in toe great abundance, ami I hey get rid of it as fast 
as they can. They have young fir- plants, of which the goats are fond ; 
and to make a cheese which they sell for fifty centimes, they destroy a 
hundred francs' worth of timber, thereby exposing their slopes to be 
denuded of soil, and their own fields to Im. destroyed. They have in- 
fertlle marshes, and they drain llieni l.y dL'iring a. ditch requiring two 
days' wort. These marshes were filled wiLh accumulations of i>eat, 
which, like a sponge, retained » [■uii-nderable quantity of writer at the 
time of the melting of the snows. They dry up the turf for fuel, and 
the rock being denuded, .sends in a few minutes into the torrents the 
water which that nuf held in reserve for several weeks. Now and then 
an observer raises a cry of alarm, and calls attention to the reckless 
waste of territorial wealth. Who listens to what ho says? who reads 
what he writes? (Punch rend my notes on the inundations ut Home, 
and did his best t" render them useless. — J. R.) 

" Rigorously faithful to her laws, Nature does not carry up again the 
pebble which a traveller's foot has rolled down the slope— does not re- 
plant the forests which your thoughtless hands have cut down, whan 
the naked rock appears, and the soil has been carried away by the 
meltod snows and the rnin — does not restore the meadow to the disap- 
pearance of whose soil our want of precaution has contributed. Far 
from comprehending the marvellous logic of these laws, you contravene 
their beneficent control, or at least impede tlieir action. So much the 
worse for you. poor mortal 1 Do not, however, complain if your low- 
lands are devastated, and your habitation* swept away; and do not 
vainly impute these disasters to a vengeance or a warning on the part 
of Providence. For these disasters are niuinly owing to your igno- 
rance, your prejudices, and your cupidity," 




FOBS CLAVIGEHA. 



LETTEH I. XXXV].— (LETTER Il._ NEW SERIES) 



In assuming lliat the English Bible may yet be made the 
rule of faith and conduct to the English people ; and in 
placing it in the Sheffield Library, for its first volume, an 
MS. of that Bible in its perfect form, much more is of course 
accepted as the basis of our future education than the reader 
will find taken for the ground either of argument or appeal, 
in any of my writings on political economy previous to ihe 
year 1875. It may partly account for the want of success of 
those writings, that they pleaded for honesty without 
praise, and for charity without reward ; — that they entirely 
rejected, as any motive of moral action, the fear of future 
judgment ; and— taking St, Paul in his irony at his bitterest 
word, — " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," — thev 
merely expanded that -worldly resolution into its just terms : 
" Yes, let us eat and drink '' — what else?— hut let us all 
eat and drink, and not a few only, enjoining fast to the rest 

Nor do I, in the least item, now retract the assertion, so 
often made in my former works,* that human probity and 
virtue are indeed entirely independent of any hope in futur- 
ity ; and that it is precisely in accepting death as the end of 
all, and in laying down, on that sorrowful condition. Ilia life 
for his friends, that the hero and patriot of all time has be. 
come the glory and safety of his country. The highest 
ideals of manhood given for types of conduct in UhtO tlii* 
Last; and the assertions that the merchant and common 
labourer must be ready, in the discharge of their duty, to die 
rather than fail, assume nothing more than this; and all the 

a the preface to th« t'roim of Wild 




FOBS CLAVIGKRA. 



235 



proper laws of human society way be perfectly developed 
■ltd obeyed, and must be bo wherever such society is con- 
stituted with prudence, though none of them be sanctioned 
by any other Divinity than that of our own souls, nor their 
violation punished by any other penalty than perfect death. 
There is no reason that, we should drink foul water in Loudon, 
because we never hope to drink of the stream of the City of 
God ; nor that we should spend most of our income in mak- 
ing machines for the slaughter of innocent nations, because 
we never expect to gather the leaves of the tree for their 
healing. 

Without, therefore, ceasing lo press the works of pru- 
dence even on Infidelity, and expect deeds and thoughts of 
honour even from Mortality, I yet take henceforward hap- 
pier, if not nobler, ground of appeal, and write as a Christian 
to Christians ; that is to say, to persons who rejoice in the 
hope of a literal, personal, perpetual life, with a. literal, per- 
sonal, and eternal God. 

To all readers holding such faith, I now appeal, urging 
them to confess Christ before men ; which they will find, on 
self-examination, they are most of them afraid to do. 

For going to church is only a compliance With, the fashion 
of the day ; not in the least a confession of Christ, but only 
the expression of a desire to be thought as respectable as 
as other people. Staying to sacrament is usually not much 
more ; though it maij become superstitious, and a mere ser- 
vice done to obtain dispensation from other services. Vio- 
lent combativeness for particular seels, as Evangelical, Itoman 
Catholic, High Church, IJroad Church — or the like, is merely 
a form of party-egotism, and a defiance of Christ, not con- 
fession of Him. 

But to confess Christ is, first, to behave righteously, 
truthfully, and continently ; and then, to separate ourselves 
from those who are manifestly or by profession rogues, liars, 
and fornicators. Which it is terribly difficult to do ; and 
which the Christian church lias at present enlirely ceased to 
attempt doincr. 

And, accordingly, beside me, as I write, to-day, (shortest 




236 FOBS, CI.AVIQERA. 

day, 1877.) lies the on the whole honesteat journal of London, 
— Punch, — with a moral piece of Christian art occupying two 
of its pages, representing the Turk in a human form, as a 
wounded and all but dying victim — surrounded bv the Chris- 
tian nations, under the forms of bear and vultures. 

" This witness is true " as against themselves, namely, that 
hitherto the action of tlie Christian nation to the infidel has 
always been one of rapine, in the broad sense. The Turk it 
what he is because we — have been only Christians in name. 
And another witness is true, which is a very curious one; 
never, so far as I know, yet received from past history. 

Wherever the Christian church, or anv section of it, has 
indeed resolved to iive a Christian life, and keep God's laws 
in God's name, — there, instantly, manifest approval of 
Heaven is given by accession of worldly /iro-tpcriti/ and vic- 
tory. This witness has only been unheard, because every 
sect of Christians refuses to believe that the religion of any 
other sect can be Bincere, or accepted of Heaven : while the 
truth is that it does not matter a burut stick's end from the 
altar, in Heaven's sight, whether you are Catholic or Prot- 
estant, Eastern, Western, Byzantine, or Norman, but only 
whether you are true. So that the moment Venice is true to 
St. Mark, her flag flies over all the Eastern islands ; and the 
moment Florence is true to the Lady of Lilies, her flag flies 
over all the Apennines ; and the moment Switzerland is true 
to Notre Dame des Neiges, her pine-club beats down the 
Austrian lances ; and the moment England is true to lu>r 
Protestant virtue, all the sea-winds ally themselves with her 
against the Armada : and though after-shame and infidel 
failure follow upon every nation, yet the glory of their great 
religious day remains unsullied, and in that, they live for 



a the Temporal lesson of all history, and with that 
- Spiritual lesson, — namely, that in the ages 
of faith, conditions of prophecy and seer-ship exist, among 
the faithful nations, in painting and scripture, which are also 
immortal and divine ; — of which it has been my own special 
mission to speak for the most part of my life: but only of 







FOIIS CLAVIQEUA. 



late I have understood completely the r 



been (aught E 



i begin 



• to le; 



5 of what hail 
vhat more, of 



which I must not speak to-day ; Fors appointing that I should 
rather say final word respecting our present state of spiritual 
fellowship, exemplified in the strikes of our workmen, the 
misery that accompanies them, and the articles of our cur- 
rent literature thereupon. 

The said current literature, on this mbject, being almost 
entirely under the command of tho Masters, lias consisted 



chiefly in lectures on the guilt and folly of a 
in any wise addressing itself to point out lo th< 
way of settling the question. " You can't 1 
lings a day in such times ; but we will give y\ 
pence : you had better take ii — and, both 01 
commercial grounds, make no fi 
two-and-six pence than nothing ! and if once tr 
—think— where shall we be all then?" "Yet 
" but if to-day we take tv 



i, without 

any other 
shil- 



athre 



two and six- 

1 religious and 

much better is 

3 the mill stop 

the men 



two and sixpence, what is to 
iserving- to us that two shil- 
lings are better than nothing, and we had better take that 
sum on religious and commercial principles, without fuss? 
And the day after, may not the same pious and moral in- 
structors recommend to us the contented acceptance of eigh- 
teen pence? A stand must clearly be made somewhere, and 
we choose to make it here, and now." 

The masters again have reason to rejoin: "True, but if 
' 'llings to-day, how are we to know you 



ixpence to-morrow, and for 
t week ? A stand must be made somewhere, 
to make it here, and now." 
an is there, then ? and of what u: 
nilies either to man or master, on 
that show them no possible solul 
other way? As things are at present, the quarri 
be practically closed by imminence of starvation c 
or of bankruptcy on tho other : even bo, closed 

ning presently forth again, to 
silent only in death ; — white, year after year, the ago- 



will not stand for thr 
four shillings ii 



What soluti 
piantity of hoi 
ter of debate, 



: any 






i product 

ul COUTK 



^ FOJtS VLAV10KRA. 

niea of Conflict and truces of eXDMtttfo 

ward of the total labour, and fiat of i he ti 
people, the minimum of gaiit for the maximum o 

Scattered up and down, through every page I I 
on political economy for the last twenty years, 
will find unfailing reference to a principle of 
such dispute, which is rarely so much as named by other 
arbitrators ; — or if named, never believed in : yet, this being 
indeed the only principle of decision, the conscience of it, 
however repressed, stealthily modifies every arliilrative won). 

The men are rebuked, in the magistral homilies, for their 
ingratitude in striking ! Then there must be a law of Grace, 
which at least the masters recognize. The men are mocked 
in the magistral homilies for their folly in striking. Then 
there must oe a law of Wisdom, which at least the m 

Appeal t 



ones, graceless and senseless 
selves ; vou must guide the 
and years ago. You will h 
liberty-mongers. Masters, 



, for their entire verdict, most 
1-gracious and all- wise. These rep robs 



t find their way for thetn- 
Thut much I told J 
■e to do it, in spite o 
fact, you must be 



But, as yet blind ; and 

you must pull the beams 

that bravely. Preach you 

me hear once more how i 

and ungrateful ones," you 

give you high wages — ev 

drank yourselves to death 

ful ones, that the time 

wages, will you not cout 

death?" 

Alas, wolf-shepherds — this is St. George's word to you 
"In your prosperity you gave these men high wages, 

in any kindness to them, lint in contention for busin 

among yourselves. Vou allowed the men to spend 

wage in drunkenness, and you boasted of that drunken!)' 



Irivers — not leaders — of the blint 
out of your own eyes, r 
 homily to yourselves first. I>et 
runs, to the men. "Oh foolis 
say, "did we not once on a tim 
in so high that you 
; and now, oh foolish and forg< 
■as come for us to give you 1 
tntedly also starve yourselvt 



Kelt 
Ken 

: 

em- 

:!; 




F0I2S CLAlTGBItA. 



239 



by the mouth of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in the 
columns of your leading journal, as a principal sign of the 
country's prosperity. You have declared again and again, 
by vociferation of all your orators, that you have wealth so 
overflowing that you do not know what to do with it. Theso 
men who dug the wealth for you, now lie starving at the 
mouths of the hell-pits you made them dig ; yea, their bones 
He scattered at the grave's mouth, like as when one cutteth 
and cleaveth wood upon the earth. Your boasted wealth — 
where is it? Is the war between these and you, because 
you now mercilessly refuse them food, or because all your 
boasts of wealth were lies, and you have none to give? 

" Your boasts of wealth inrre lies. You were working 
from hand to mouth in your best times ; now your work is 
stopped, and you have nothing in tho country to pay for 
food with ; still less any store of fooil laid by. And bow 



 bear before you 
But this is the 



of age, and be 



much distress and wrath \ 

learn the lesson of justice, God only kit 

lesson you have to learn." 

Kvi-ry workman in any craft* must j 
(crucial, not competitive,) when he cc 
then registered as capable of his profession ; those who 
not pass in the higher crafts being remitted to the lower, 
until they find their level. Then every registered workman 
must be employed where his work is needed — (You interrupt 
me to say that his work is needed nowhere? Then, what do 
you want with machinery, if already yon have more hands 
than enough, to do everything that needs to be done?) — by 
direction of the guild he belongs to, and paid by that guild 
his appointed wages, constant and unalterable by any chance 
or phenomenon whatsoever. His wages must be given him 

* Ultimately, as ofW>n before slated, every male ehilil born in Eng- 
land must learn sonic manner of skilled work by which be may earn 
bin bread. If afterwards his fellow- workers choose that ho shall Biug, 
or moke speeches to them instead, and that they will give biin his tur- 
oip a day, or somewhat more, for Parliamentary advice, nt their pleas- 
ure be it. I heard on the 7th of January th s year that many of the 
men in Wales were reduced to that literal nourishment. Coinpnro, 
Fort, vol. i.. |inge. 144. 



I 



240 F0R8 CLAVIGERA. 

day by day, from the hour of his entering the guild, to the 
hour of his death, never raised, nor lowered, nor interrupted ; 
admitting, therefore, no temptation by covetousness, no 
wringing of anxiety, no doubt or fear of the future. 

That is the literal fulfilment of what we are to pray for — 
" Give us each day — our daily bread" observe — not our 
daily money. For, that wages may be constant they must 
be in kind, not in money. So much bread, so much woollen 
cloth, or so much fuel, as the workman chooses ; or, in lieu 
of these, if he choose, the order for such quantity at the 
government stores ; order to be engraved, as he chooses, on 
gold, or silver, or paper : but the " penny " a day to be al- 
ways and everywhere convertible, on the instant, into its 
known measure of bread, cloth, or fuel, and to be the stand- 
ard, therefore, eternal and invariable, of all value of things, 
and wealth of men. That is the lesson you have to learn 
from St. George's lips, inevitably, against any quantity of 
shriek, whine, or sneer, from the swindler, the adulterator, 
and the fool. Whether St. George will let me teach it you 
before I die, is his business, not mine ; but as surely as 1 
shall die, these words of his shall not. 

And "to-day" (which is my own shield motto) I send to 
a London goldsmith, whose address was written for me (so 
Fors appointed it) by the Prince Leopold, with his own 
hand, — the weight of pure gold which I mean to be our 
golden standard, (defined by Fors, as I will explain in an- 
other place,) to be beaten to the diameter of our old Eng- 
lish " Angel," and to bear the image and superscriptions 
above told, (Fors, vol. iii., p. 49.) 

And now, in due relation to this purpose of fixing the 
standard of bread, we continue our inquiry into the second 
part of the Deacon's service — in not only breaking bread, 
but also pouring wine, from house to house ; that so making 
all food one sacrament, all Christian men may eat their meat 
with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and 
having favour with all the people, their Lord adding to their 
assembly daily such as shall be saved. 

Head first this piece of a friend's recent letter : — 



FOBS CLA YIUERA. HI 

r again the Decem- 
l struck with your question quoted, 
' They have no wine ? ' and the command is ' Fill the water- 
pots with WATEK.' I am greatly averse to what is called 
improving, spiritualizing — i. e., applying the sacred text in a 
manner other than the simple and literal one ; but Christ's 
words had doubtless in them a germ uf thoughtful wisdom 
applicable to other aims and ends besides the original cir- 
cumstances ; and it is a singular coincidence that Fors 
should have induced you to close your last year with your 
quotation with the Cana miracle, and that the next number 
should propose to deal with ' Idling the water-pots (cUterna) 
with water.' One thing is certain, viz., that in many parts 
of the world, and even in England in summer, the human 
obedience to the command precedent to the miracle v 



be impossible. 



Did 



 read Kingsley's Sermon t 



Cana ? If you think it well to give a few of the extracts of 
who being dead yet speaketh,' 1 shall be delighted t 



"It is, 1 think in the hist place, an important, as well as 
a pleasant thing, to know that the Lord's glory, as St John 
says, was first shown forth at a wedding, — at a feast. Not 
by helping some great philosopher to think more deeply, or 
some great saint to perforin more wonderful acts of holiness ; 
but in giving the simple pleasure of wine (o simple, com- 
monplace people of whom we neither read that they were 
rich, nor righteous. 

" Though no one else cares for the poor, He cares for them. 
With their hearts He begins His work, even as He did hi 
England sixty years ago, by the preaching of Whitfield and 
Wesley. Do you wish to know if anything is the Lord's 
work ? See if it is a work among the poor. 

"But again, the Lord is a giver, and not a taskmaster. 
He does not demand from us : He gives to us. He had 
been giving from the foundation of the world. Corn and 
wine, rain and sunshine, and fruitful seasons had been His 
sending. And now He has come to show it. He has come 
to show men who it was who had been filling their heart 
with joy and gladness, who had been bringing out of the 
earth and air, by His unseen chemistry, the wine which 
maketh glad the heart of man. 

* From Srriiwmt on N''ti"iud Svhjo-t*. Parker and Son. 1880. 






242 



FOBS CLA VIGERA. 



" In every grape that bangs upon the vine, water is changed 
into wine, as the sap ripens into rich juice. He had been 
doing that all along, in every vineyard and orchard ; and 
that was His glory. Now He was come to prove that ; tn 
draw back the veil of custom and carnal sense, and manifest 
Himself. Men had seen the grapes ripen on the tree ; and 
they were tempted to say, as every one of us is tempted 
now, 'It is the sun, and the air, the nature of the vine and 
the nature of the climate, which make the wine.' Jesus 
comes and answers, ' Not so ; I make the wine ; I have been 
making it all along. The vines, the sun, the weather, are 
only my tools, wherewith I worked, turning rain and sap 
into wine : and I am greater tban they. I made them ; I 
do not depend on them ; I can make wine from water with- 
out vines, or sunshine. Behold, and drink, and see my glory 
without the vineyard, since you had forgotten how to see 
it in the vineyard ! 

" We, as well as they, are in danger of forgetting who it 
is that sends us corn and wine, and fruitful seasons, love, 
and marriage, and all the blessings of this life. 

"We are now continually fancying that these outward 
earthly things, as we call them, in our shallow, carnal con- 
ceits, have nothing to do with Jesus or His kingdom, but. 
that we may compete, and scrape, even cheat, and lie, to get 
them* and when we have them, misuse them selfishly, as if 
they belonged to no one but ourselves, as if we had no duty 
to perform about thern, as if wo owed God no service fur them. 

" And again, we are in danger of spiritual pride ; in danger 
of fancying that because we are religious, and have, or fancy 
we have, deep experiences, and beautiful thoughts about 
God and Christ, and our own souls ; therefore we can afford 
to despise those who do not know as much as ourselves; 
to despise the common pleasures and petty sorrows of poor 
creatures, whose souls and bodies art; grovelling in the dust, 
busied with the cares of this world, at their wits' end to get 
their daily bread ; to despise the merriment of young peo- 
ple, the play of children, and all those everyday happinesses 
which, though we may turn from them with a sneer, are pre- 
cious in the sight of him who made heaven and earth. 

"All such proud thoughts — all such contempt of those who 
do not seem as spiritual as we fancy ourselves — is evil. 

* Italics mine. The wbo]o sentence inielit well have them ; it is su- 




FOBS CLAVIGEitA. 



243 



•' Bee, in the epistle for tin: second Sunday after the Kpijili- 
any, St. Paul makes no distinction between rich and poor. 
This epistle is joined with the gospel of that day to show 
us what ought to he the conduct of Christians who believe 
iu the miracle of C'ana ; what men should do who believe 
that they have a Lord in heaven, by whose command suns 
shine, fruits ripen, men enjoy the blessings of harvest, of 
marriage, of the comforts which the heathen and the savage, 
as well as the Christian, man partake. 

" My friends, these commands arc not lo one class, but to 
tlL Poo* as well as rich may minister to others with ear- 
neatness, and condescend to those of low estate. Nut a word 
in this whole epistle which does not apply equally to every 
rank, and sex, and age. Neither are these commands to 
each of us by ourselves, but lo all of us together, as mem- 
bers of a family. If you will look through them, they are 
not things to be done to ourselves, but to our neighbours; 
■s to be felt about our own souls, but rules of 



conduct to our 


fellow-me 


n. They ar 


eall i 


lifferent branches 


■nd Semen fro 


m that one 


 root, 


•Thoi 


i sbal 


t love thy neigh- 


hour as thyself. 












" Do we live 


thus, rich 


and p, 


ior? 


Can we look each other 


in the face this 


afternoon i 


!Uul sa 


v, each man 


to his neighbour, 


1 1 have behave 


d like a brother. 


" to yc 


»u. I 


have rejoiced at 


your good fortune, and 


griev 


ed at 


your 


sorrow. I have 


preferred you t 


o myself ' 


r 









Seldom shall you read more accurate or more nohle words. 
How is it that clergymen who can speak thus, do not see the 
need of gathering together, into one 'little' Hock, those who 
will obey them? 

I close our Fors this month with Mr. Willett's admirable 
prefatory remarks on water-distribution, and a few words of 
liis from a private letter received a,t the same time; noting 
onlv farther a point or two of my own mountain experience. 
When Punch threw what ridicule he could * on my proposal 

• It is d grotesque example of tbo evil fortune which continually 
wnita upon the beat efforts for rtnetili.il good made in this unlucky 
nineteenth century, that a juurniil usually so right in its judgment, 
nud sym pathetic ia it* temper. (I speak in entire seriousness, ) and 
fearlenn topside* in expressing both, (see, for instance, the spleudid ar- 
ticle on the I'tince Christian's sport in the number for the 13th of thia 




•_'U 



FORS CLAVIGEltA. 



W form field ami glen reservoirs on the Apennines lo slay 

the storm-waters ; and, calculating ironically the quantity 
that fell per acre in an hour's storm, challenged me to star 
it, he did not know that all had actually been done to the 
required extent by the engineers of three hundred year* 
since, in the ravine above AgnUiio, (the Agubbio of Dante's 
Oderigi.) — their rampart standing, from cliff to cliff, i 
shaken, to tins day ; and he as little foresaw that precisely 
what 1 had required to be done to give constancy of swee 
waters to the storm-blanched ravines of Italv, I should ( 
called on in a few years more to prevent the mob of England 
from doing, that they may take thorn away from the fair 
pastures of the valley of Si. John. 

The only real difficulty in managing 
is when one cannot get hold of them, — 
are so cavernous, or the sands so porous, that the surface 
drainage at once disappears, as on the marble flanks of hill 
above Lucca ; but I am always amazed, myself, at the ex- 
treme docility of streams when they can be fairly caught and 
broken, like good horses, from their youth, and with a tender 
bridle-hand. I have been playing lately with a little one on 
iny own rocks, — now as tame as Mrs. Auckland's leopard,* — 
and all 1 have to complain uf in its behaviour is, that when 
I set it to undermine or clear away rubbish, it takes a u 
to do what I expected it to finish with a morning's work c 
a wet day ; and even that, not without perpetual e 
merit, approbation, anil assistance. 

On the other hand, to my extreme discoinfitui 
tirely failed in inveigling the water to conic down at all, whet 
it chooses to stay on the hill-side in ['laces where I don't 
it : but I suppose modern scientific drainage can accomplis! 
this, though in my rough way I can do nothing but peel the 
piece of pertinacious bog right off the rock, — so beneficently 
faithful are the great Powers) of the Moss, and the Earth, 10 

mouth.) ahould have taken the wrong side, and that merely for the 
Mike of a jont, on the most important economical questioi 
now hi Usuo in the world ! 







.See The Wvrltl, January ilth of tbi» year. 




FOBS CLAYIOERA. 245 

their mountain duty of preserving, for man's comfort, the 
sources of the summer stream. 
Now hear Mr. Willett. 

"Three or four times every year the newspapers tell us of 
discomfort, suffering, disease, and death, caused by floods. 
Every summer, unnecessary sums are expended by fanners 
and labourers for water carted from a distance, to supply 
daily needs of man and beast. Outbreaks of fever from 
drinking polluted and infected water are of daily occurrence, 
causing torture and bereavement to thousands. 

" All these evils arc traceable mainly to our wicked, waste- 
ful, and ignorant neglect. ; a!! this while, money is idly 
accumulating in useless hoards; people able and willing to 
work are getting hungry for want of employment ; and the 
wealth of agricultural produce of all kinds is greatly curtailed 
for want of a wise, systematic, and simple application of the 
mitlual law of' mii/i/i/;/ iiixf iki'i'iitrl* in the storage of raiu- 

" I can only now briefly iutroduoe the subject, which if you 
consider it of sufficient importance I will follow up in future 
letters. 

"While the flooding of the districts south of the Thames at 
London is mainly owing to the contraction of the channel by 
the embankment, thereby causing the flood-tide to form a 
sort of bore, or advancing tidal-wave, as in the Severn and 
Wye, the periodic winter floods near Oxford, and in all our 
upland valleys, are admittedly more frequent and more severe 
than formerly ; and this not on account of the increased rain- 
fall.f The causes arc to be found rather in— 

• Somewhere. (I think in Muiiem piilrcri*.i I illustrated the law of 
Supply am] Demand in commerc", mill tin; mildness i-f lc:iviiig it to its 
natural consequences without interference, by the laws of drought and 

t On the Continent, however, there hnn been nn increased rainfall in 
tilt; plains, caused by the destruction of the woods on i.hn mountain*, 
and by the coldness of the summers, which ennnot lift tlio clouds high 
enough to lay show on the hi^h summits. The following note by Mr. 
Willett on my queries on thin matter in Inst F-rs. will be found of ex- 
treme value : " I am delighted with ' Violet le Due'" ' extracts. Yet is 
it not strange that he calls .nan ' impotent ' ? The name hands that can 
cut down the forests. eau plunt them ; that can drain the morass, ann 
dam up and form a lake ; the same child that could load the ponts to 
crop off tlie young tir -ireo -luiot-, ijnuld herd them away from tliem. I 
think you may hav; ruiss.-d Le IhicV ide:i n bout lower glaciers causing 









34C 



FORS CLA VIOEBA. 



" I. Tlic destruction of woods, heaths, and moorlands. 
''II. 'I'll'- paving and improved road-making in cities and 
towns. 

'• III. The surface- drainage of arable and pasture lands. 

" IV. The draining of morasses and fens ; and, 

" V. The straightening and embanking of rivers and water 



" All these operations have a tendency to throw the rainf<iil 
rapidly from higher to lower levels. 

"This wilful winter waste is followed by woeful summer 

" 'The people peris! i for lack of knowledge.' The remedy 
is in our own hands. 

"Lord lieacon.stie.ld ■mce wisely said, ' Every cottage should 
have its porch, its oven, and its tank.' 

" And every farm-house, farm-building, and every mansion, 
should have its reservoir ; every ullage its series of reservoirs; 
and every town and city its multiplied series of reservoirs, at 
different levels, and for the separate storage of wai 



drinking, for washing, and for 
purposes. 

" I propose in my next to give mur 
of the principles here hinted at, and 
been done in a few isolated 






rider 



; general application of thet 



ind less important 

i detail the operation 

show from what has 

Iii'.i would follow 



higher forests, and vice vers 1. ' Forests eollect snow, retard its rapid 
thai*', and its colleetimi into denuding slide:- of snow by this lomr tem- 
perature, and retards the melting nl the glacier, which therefore grow* 
— t.e , accumulates. — and |>ub1ics lower and lower down the valley. The 
reduction in temperature condenses more of the warm vapour, mil fa 
VOurs growth of Oniufcrs, which c.r;i<.lii;iiK .-['read ii[i so that destruction 
• ■I forests in higher regions causes melting and retraction of glaciera.' 
I will seud you shortly nn old essay of mine in which the storage ol 
water anil tin: destructive avalanche were used as illustrating the right 
and wrong use of accumulated wealth. Lord Chichester's agent is al 
work with the plans and d etails for us. and you shall have them early 
in ihc new year (D.V.I, and (or it may I say- 
But tbou tarsal! vi >.i 1 - , tf IbDa cnjuldit ttx 

The cud »f -U I'vmu « mill u He.' - 




FOliS CLAVIGEJU. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



I. Affairs of the Guild 

I kin happy to be able at lust to state that the memorandum of our 
constitution, drawn up for us by Mr. Barber, and already published iu 
the 55th number of the first series of /-'urn, has heeu approved by the 
Board of Trade, with noma few, but im|ierutii*e. ru oil it) cat ions, to which 
I both respectfully and gladly submit, seeing them to be calculated iu 
every way to increase both our own usefulness, and public confidence 

The organization of lh-- Guild, thus nu.ililii'd. will be. by the time thia 
letter is published, announced, as required by the Board, in the public 
journals ; uud, if not objected to on the ground of some unforeseen in. 
juriousriess to existing interests, ratified, f believe, during the current 
month, or at all events within a few weeks, I have prepared a brief 
abstract of our constitution and aims, to be issued with thia letter, and 
sent geiieriilly in uunrer I" inquiry. 

I stated in my last letter that I meant to take our accounts into my 
own hands ; — that is to nay, while tlicy v, ill nhvaj s U- printed in their 
properly formal arrangement, as furnished by our kind accountants, 
Mr. Kydings and Mr. Walker, 1 shall idso give my own abstract of thcin 
in the form most intelligible to myself, and I should think also to some 
of ray readers. This abstract of mine will be the only one given in 
Fort: the detailed accounts will be sent only to the members of the 
Guild. OntO the registration of the Guild, 1 nm still obliged to hold 
the Abbey Dale estate in my own name ; and as v 
new trustees till we arc sure of our own official act 
order the payment of (subscript ious to my own accoi 
to meet the calls of ourrent expenses, lor which 1 have no authority to 
draw on the account, of the Qcrild but by cheque from its trustees 

1 shall only further in the present article a-ck now ledge the sums 1 have 
myself received siuce the last statement of our accounts. The twenty 
days since the beginning of the year have melted into their long nighta 
without sufficing fur haif the work they htul benu charged t'i do; and 
have hail farther to meet claims of unexpected duty, not profitless to 
the Guild, assuredly ; but leaving me still unable to give the somewhat 
lengthy explanations of on r year's doings, witli.u! which our accounts 
would be unintelligible 



e cannot appo; 

ce, I am obliged to 
it the Union Bunk, 



248 FOJiS CLAVI&EJIA. 

1877. £ i. 4 

jfiw. 1. Joseph Staploton 10 

7. Mr. Talbot (Tithe) 100 

15. John Gay S I U 

'■ Frances .11. Henderson 3 3 I) 

Sale of Mr, Sillar's pamphlets on Uiury. . 17 U 

Drc 17. Louisa A. Keighley 5 

28. Helen J. Orrnerod 1 1 

81. Elizabeth Green 10 9 

1878. 

Jan 1. Margaret Cox 5 

4. R. B. Litchfield SO n n 

10. William Hall 2 3 

30. Ada Hartwell B 

£148 19 7 

II. Affairs of the Master. 

The lengthy oorrrsinjiidcHW! j.-iv.-n in our l.i-t article leaves oie n< 
farther space for tnlk of myself. People say I invite their attention ti 
that subject loo often : but I must havo n long gossip in March. 



III. 



"8, Kinusuatk Street, Winchester, 23rd ,W.. 1877. 



' ' Dear Sir —If yon will not help us. I do not know who will. 

'• Oue of the loveliest parts of the meadows close to the town is going 

i., i,.- i i,i ifi-ly mi i in-i'itni.ii;ilih -j.nilid  an engine house in to be built, 
and all the drains are to be brought into a field in the middle of the 
lichen valley, so that the building* will be a blot In tlif landscape, 
fin i-yesiiri. 1 fr.nn evi-ry point, whether limliini; tmviu'ils South I'm-* 
or back from there to the Cathedral and College; or almost worn! 
than these, from every hill rou»<l the town they will be the most con- 
spicuous, objeata. I think you know the town ; bnt do you know that 
this is its urettiest part'/ You can have some idea what it would Ik: to 
have a «p 'l wlii'.'li bus I n;uii dear [o you ::'.[ your lift, ami whirb y, >u ■>■(> 
ilny I'y ilfiy in fill its aspectf.. utterly ruined', and besides, ii seems so 
wrong- that this gene ml ion should spoil that which is not theirs, but in 
which none have really more than a life interest, but which God has 
given uh to enjov and to leave in its loveliness for those after us. 1 
wish I could speak as strongly as I feel, if it would induce you to speak 
for us, or rather (tint I oonld show you the real need for speaking, as I 
know yon would not keep silence fot any but good reasons. Surely de- 
stroying beauty to save a little money ii doing the d vil's work, though 
I um told that it is wrong to nay so. 

" Tours respectfully and gratefullv, 

"A, n. w. 

"Ther'' is another plac: wtii're the work* might be. whore they could 
bo planted out. and wher-.i the trees would bean improvement; some 
engineers nay that, the soil too m bolter suited to the purpose. Do help 
us if you can ! It is a haunting misery to me — both what we shall lo-e. 
and the sin of it" 






FORS CLAVIGERA. 



249 



Alas, my poor friend, no mortal can help you, England has bred up 
a race of doggish iind vile persons, for the last fifty years. And they 
will do their doggish work, be euro of that, whatever you or 1 can say, 
pntil, verily, him that dieth of them the dogs shall eat. 



.ugh for i 



I work, I have n 



"Art: 



' House, 1«W /»(',, i 



■' My dear Mr. Ruskin. — It is very singular that the day after 1 wrote 
to jou on the evils of drainage as udopteil l>y modern engineers, such 
nu artiek- as the enclosed should appear in Llie Timet, The time must 
come when most of tin': rsjifii.ln lire mi these drains "ill prove useless. 
But the evil continues, viz., of adding daily more streets to the present 
system, often choking the drains and converting tlicui Into stagnant 
elongated cesspools, tea times mora injurious than the old ones, because 
of thi: risk of contagious mid infectious genus being introduced from 
some house to multiply and infect a number. The remedy I think 
should be, 1st. to prevent additions to tliu present syt-tein ; 2udly, to 
enact that instead of fresh constructive works, (waring interest to he 
paid in rates, e»eji house above a certain rental, say above till a year, 
shall be compelled to deodorize and riniove its own sewage — i.e., fiecal 
matter in its original concentrated f»vm ; nud that all smaller houses 
should be done by the municipality or local board, who should employ 
a staff of labourers to do it, l,y districts, weekly the uuiterbd being very 
valuable to agriculturists if kept concentrated and deodorized by the 
charcoal of peat or of inn, of Hnwlu-t. and of rubbish of nil sorts. La- 
bour of this kind would employ a gnat many imw burdensome to the 
rates, unemplnycl ; bind »milil be fertilized instead of impoverished; 
and eventually perhaps districts now infested with drains that don i 
drain might be gradually won from the senseless system of accumulat- 
ing streams, to the natural order of distribution and deposit under 
earth for fertilizing objects. 

"Just as ' dirt is something in its wrong place,' so social evils are 
mainly wrong applications of right powers ; nay. even sin itself is but 
the misuse of Divine Gifts,— the use at wrong times and places of right 
instincts and powers. 

" Pardon these scribbling- ; but when I see and feel deeply, I tlink 
perhaps if I put the thoughts "it paper to you, they may perhaps takn 
a better form, and be sown in places where they may take root nud 
spring up and bear fruit to man's benefit, and therefore to the glory of 
the Great Father. 

11 Ever most faithfully and gratefully. 






 lit: 



.' Wti 



V. The following "word about the notice which appeared in last 
For) abont the Cyfarthfa Ironworks" deserves the readers best atten- 
tion ; the writer's name anil position, which I am not nt liberty to give, 
being to me (sufficient guarantee of its trustworthiness. 






250 



FOBS CLAVIOEIiA. 



" Their owner has lately passed as a martyr to unreasonable deinaodi 
from his workmen, in more than one pnblication. But what are ihs 
facts? Mr. Uruwshay held himself aloof from the Ironmasters' com- 
bination which in 1N7il locked out the workmen. When the works o( 
The combined masters were reopened, it was upon mi agreed reduction 
Mr, Crawahny's workman sent a deputation to him, offering 10 work on 
the terms agreed upon at the other works of the district ; but Sir. 
i 'raw-hay would nor accede unless his men accepted ten per Cent, beioif 
the rate that was. to be paid by his rivals in trade, and received by hi- 
men's fellow-workmen in the same town and district ! In a month 01 
two the Associated Mas! its obtained another reduction of ten per cent 
from their men. Mr. Crawsbny's workmen waited upon him. mid of 
fered to go in at (litre new terms. But no ; they must still accept ten 
per cent, below their lie igh bourn, or be shut out. In another couple el 
mouths wages fell another ten per cent. Mr. Crawahuy's men made 
the same offer, and met with the same rebuff. This waa repeated. I 
think, a fourth time— [wages certainly fall forty per cent, in leas tbn 
a twelvemunth)— but Mr. Oawshny had nailed Lis colours to 
for ten per cent, below anybody else, 

"It is quke true, as Lord Aberdare says, that ' the Cyfarthfa Works 
Hi.' closed h'-trmihi- tin? i in-u Would nol « oik at the wages offered them.' 
liut what else is true ? The following :— 

" 1. The w>rks presumably rnnld have been worked at a profit, with 
wages at the same rate as was paid at rival works. 

"2. The demand that bis men should work at ten per . 
wages than was given ill the same market, was the tin justifiable act of 
an unscrupulous competition, and the heartless act of an unreasonable 
anil selfish o. aster. 

"3. Had the men submitted to his terms, it wuld have been the 
immediate iiii-iisinn of reducing the whole of their fellow- workmen in 
the Associated Works. Hence, 

"4. What has been called the unreasonable conductor infatuated 
workmeu. can he clearly traced to conduct on their masters' part fla- 
grantly unreasonable; and the stand they made was recouim ended alike 
l.y justice, tiv regard for the other employers, and by unselfish solicitude 
for their fellows in the trade. 

''I may add— Had the men quietly submitted, the works would hare 
run only a short time. Ironworker* are now suffering from one of 
these stairs in the march of civilisation which always produces suffer- 
ing to a few. Stcpl rails have supplanted iron rails, and capitalists 
who have not adopted their plant, accordingly must m-eds .-rami. Some 
may perhaps feel that a i^riat capitalist who, having amassed an enor- 
mous fortune, has neither built market, hall, fountain, or museum for 
the town where ho made it. might be expected, at all events, to ac- 
knowledge his rt'-ponsil lility by adapting his works to meet the times, 
so that a little population of wealth producers might be kept in bread. 
However that may lie. Cyfarthfa Works standing has no more to do 
with strikes and uurenBuu of workmen than  Teuterden steeple has to 
do with the Goodwin Sands,' The ironworkers— poor creatures ! —had 
nothing to do with putting the knife to their throats by helping II 
Bessemer to his invention of cheap steel ; but of course they have k 
since got the Manic »f I he collapv of the iron trade. All the ct "" ' 
in all the journals, have said so. They uit/bt exclaim with Trotty Voi 
1 We must be bom bad — that's how it is.' " 




FORS CLAVIOBBA, 251 

71. The following correspondence require*!  few, and hut a few, 
wordi of preliminary in fori mi I ion. 

For the last three or four years it has been matter of continually in 
creasing .surprise to me that I never received the smallest contribution 
to St. George's Fund from any friend or disciple of Mies Octavia Hill's. 

I had originally calculated largely ou the support 1 was likely to find 
among persona who had been satisfied with the result of the experiment 
made at Marylebone under my friend's superintendence. But thin hop" 
was utterly disappoints! ; am! to my more acute astonishment, because 
Miss Hill waa wont to reply to any more or lees direct inquiries on the 
subject, with epistles proclaiming my faith, charity, and patience in 
language so laudatory, that, ou the last occasion of my receiving such 
answer, to a request for a general sketch of the Marylebone work, it 
became impossible for me, in any human modesty, to print the reply. 

The increasing mystery was suddenly cleared, a month or two ago, 
by a St. George's Companion of healthily sound and impatient temper, 
who informed me of a earn) known to herself, in which a man of great 
kindness of disposition, who was well inclined to give aid to St. George, 
ha<l beea diverted from such intention by hearing doubts expressed by 
Mis- II ill of mj ability t" conduct any praelicn.1 enterprise successfully. 

I requested the lady who gave me this information to ascertain from 
HM Hill herself what she had really said on the occasion in question. 
To her letter of inquiry, Miss Hill replied in the following terms: 

"Madam.— In justice to Mr. Ruskiu, I write to say that there has 
evidently been some misapprehension respecting my words. 

" Excnse me if I add that beyond stating this fact I da not feel called 
upon to enter into correspondence with a stranger about my friend Mr. 
Raskin, or to explain a private conversation of my own. 
'' I am, Madam, yours truly, 

''Octavia Hill." 

Sow it would have been very difficult for Miss Hill to have returned 
a reply less satisfactory to her correspondent, or more irritating to a 
temper like mine. For. in the first place, 1 considered it her bouuden 
duty to enter into correspondence with :ill st rangers whom she could 
possibly reach, concerning her friend Mr. Ruskin, and to say to (hem, 
what she was in the habit of saying to me : and, in the second place, I 
considered it entirely contrary to her duty to say anything uf me in 
private conversation which she did not  fi.-.-l colled upon to explain "to 
whomsoever it interested I wrote therefore, at once myself to Miss 

Hill, requesting to know why she had not replied to Mrs. 's question 

more explicitly : and received the following reply : — 

"14, Nottisoham Placr, Get. lOi, 1877. 

"My dear Mr. Rnskin. — I wrote instantly on receiving Mm. 's 

letter to say that my words had been misunderstood. I could not enlflr 






FOBS CLAYTOEIiA. 






I) into anything n 



with a stranger, and audi 
ing a t fir-mi. or n private 

"But if /("•■■' like l" kimw an y tiling J ever said, or thought, ubout you 
(or the twenty -four year* I have known yoa, ' most explicitly : shall yuu 
know; and yon will find no trace of any thought, much left word, that 
was not nttorly loyal, and even reverently tender towards you " irqy 
heat thanks ! — had 1 been more roughly handled, who knows what 
might have come of it ¥ h " Cariylo, who never naw me, told you I was 
faithful. 1' lithful— I should think sol I could not. be anything else. 
Ask those who have watched my life. I have not courted ynu by 
Hattery ; I have not feigned agreement where I differed or did not 
understand ; I have not sought you among those I did not trust or 
respect;" thanks, again, in tlm name uf my neipiuiutanee generally, I 
'"I kiit mil wirrird ymi with intensive ijiicnMous or letters. I have 
lived very fat *W»J from FOB, bat has there been thought or deed of 
mine uncoloured by the influence of the early, the abiding, and the 
continuous teaching you gave ine? Ifavo I not striven to cany Out 
what you have taught in the place where I hate beeu called to live? 
Was there a moment when 1 would not have served you joyfully at any 
GOBt ? Ark i lio-e who kimiv. if, when ynu have fnih-ii or pained me, \.b) 
I have not invariably said, if 1 said aiiyiliing. i h.it you iiiiirlit have good 
reasons of which I knew nothing, or might have difficulties I could not 
understand ; or that ynu had had »o mueh sorrow in your life, that if it 
wan easier to you to not tlins or thus in ways affecting me, ho far at I 
was concerned I was glad you should freely choose the easier. You 
have seen nothing of me; I/) hut ask those who have, whether for 
twenty-four years I have lie i-n capable of any treasonable thought or 
word about you. It. matters imt/iin;/ tn me; [>! i but it is sad for you for 
babbling tongues to make yon think any one who ought to know you, 
obatterod, and ehattrred falsely, about you. 

" I remember n "Unrig uf what I s-nVr, (. 1 bin dittiii'-tly u bat 1 tfunij/td, 
and think, and will write that to yon if you Care. Or if yon feel there 
is more that I can do to set the rumour at rent than the strong positive 
assertion I have made that I have lieen misunderstood, tell me, (/) But 
my own ex)H-rience of idiaraeter and of the world makes me rtHiliittty 

ndhert to my h.iiij that though Mrs. would vastly /,■'/■( to get behind 

that, I;/ that, and nothing idee, is the right, true, raid wise jiosilion in 
far as you and as far as 1 (/:( am oonfsmed. Shall I not leave it there, 
then? 

" I am sony In wrile in pencil ; 1 hope you will not find It difficult to 
read. 1 am ill, and not able to he up. 



(it 1 R~rMt]y ],'.!,■[. n -i 1 - Ii.pm Km ii.'. I hi- -iii, m 

1/1 The onlv Itilnu In It.- il -. wlii'h l ■,- -| i*i- I in i r i? K 

ticv wM-wlH-h 1" thi-i caw Ml,. Hill tin. jint (IrtLwi 

(g) She cottnbilv * ■! ni..l w rtMrtt 1. 

M) -'A. I.r ru ] "— in COBEtned, lirobatily. 



ultier tti«t Hi~ Hill, in (u>- 
wn a >ftxxl Lienl ut ntt- 

: ausMly, t| au kM i 






FORS CLAVIGEHA. 



268 



" I have tried to ans vcr both points. First, to show that I hurt! con- 
tradicted tin- statement, mid that explanations of what I did say (fi 
(unless to yourself I seem to me most unwise and uncalled-for. 

"And wmrawHj. <■« n v ^ m ' .^ you, so tar us words will, that however in- 
adequate you may [eel the response the world has given, an old friend 
has not failed you in thought, uor intentionally, though she seems to 
have made a confusion, by some clumsy words. Hoping you luuy feel 
liotb things, 

" I ani, yours ns Always, 

"OCTAVIABtl.L." 

To this letter 1 replied, that it was very pretty ; but that I wanted 
to know, as far as possible, eiaatly what Miss Hill And said, or was in 
the habit o( saying. 

I received the following reply. The pnrtions omitted are irrelevant 
to the niiLl ter in band, but shall be supplied if Miss Hill wishes. 

"14, Nottingham Ft-Acu, W., Nob. 3rd, 1877. 
''Dear Mr. nankin,— I uttered immediately, on October h'tb, on re- 
ceiving your first letter, to tell yon anything 1 hiul > i'.r paid about you 
Whatever needed explanation seemed to me beat suid to you. 

" I have spoken to you, 1 think, and certainly to others, of what 
appears to me an incapacity in you for niiLiingi'Uiem ol prtiat practical 
work, dun in my .i|iinii.n. (inrlly t'l nu id<-:il -la in lard of perfection. 
which finds it hard to accept tiny limitations in perfection, even 
temporarily; partly to a strange jiohtx of gathering round you, and 
trusting, tiic wrung people, which 1 never could understand in you, os 
i' mingles so strangely with rare power- of perception of character, and 
which always seemed to me therefore rather a deliberate ignoring of 
disqualifications, in hope that that would stimulate to better action, but 
h hiirh In ipe was not realized. 

" In Mr. 'a ease, and so far as I can recollect in every case in 

which I have spoken of this, it has been when I have found people 
puzzled themselves by 0"t tiniliii;.' they can take you u* a practical guide 
in their own lives, yet feeling that you must mean practical result to 
follow on your teaching, and inclined to think yen cannot help them. 
Mr. — — and I were creat friends : when I was a girl, and he a young 
man, we read and talked over your books together. 1 had not Ml him 
for many years till he asked me to come and see him and his wife and 
children He i.s a manufacturer, face to face with difficult problems, 
full of desire to do right, with niciuoricR nf ideal- and resolutions, build- 
ing his house, managing his mills, with a riistinct desire to do well, I 
found him inclined tu thud; pciliiip- after nil lie had lucn wrong, and 
that you could teach him nothing, because be could not apply jour 
definite directions to his own life. The oldect of my words was jn.-t 
this: 'Ob, do not think so. All the nobility of standard and aim, all 
the conscience and clear night of right principles, is there, and meaii-i 
distinct action. Do not look to Mr Raskin fur definite direction nboi.t 



HI Psrtlj 







FORS CLAVIGBItA. 255 

"P.S.— Of all injuries yon could have done— not me— hnt the cause 
I have in hand, tin- givLrij; tin; sli^-tnesi countenance to the vulgar rnob's 
cry of 'unpractical' was the fatallest." 

The reader may perhaps, at first, think thia reply to Miss Hill's senti- 
mental letter somewhat hard. He will Bee by the following answer that 
I knew the ground ; — 

" 14 NoTTraaHAM Placb, W., 2ft*. 5, 1877. 
" Dear Mr. Ru*kin. — You say that I am a notable instance of your 
having trusted the wrong people. Whether you trove been right hith- 
erto, or are right now, the instance is ^quiilly one of failure to under- 
stand character. It is the only one I have a right to give. 1 absolutely 
refuse to give other instanced, or to discuss the characters of third 
parlies. My opinion oE your [tower 10 jud/e character is. and must re- 
main, a mailer of opinion. Di sous* ion s about it would be useless and 
endless : besides, after jour letters to me, yon will hardly be nstouished 
that I decline to continue this correspondence. 

" I leiuain, yours faithfully, 

"Octavia Hill." 

I vm*, however, a little astonished. thnui,'h it takes a good deal to 
astonish me nowadays, at the suddenness of the change in tone ; but 
it rendered ray next reply easier : — 

■' CoBt'UH CiintsTi College, Oxford, 
1th Nvoembtr, 1877. 

"My dear Octavia, — You err siusrularly in ium-jining I invited you to 
a 'discussion.' I am not apt to discuss "»//( luti- wii.li pernun>i of your 
sentimental volubility ; and those with wlium I enter ou discussion do 
not, therefore, liiul it either i melt-Mi or eudlesB, 

 1 required of you an answer to a perfect ly simple question. That 
answer 1 require again. Your most prudent friends will, 1 believe, if 
you consult thcni, recommend your rendering it; for they will prob- 
ably perceive— what it is strange should have escaped a mind so logical 
and delicate us youra— that you have a better right to express your 
'opinions ' of my discarded servants, to my-elf. who know them, and 
after the time is long past when your frankness could have injured 
them, than to express your ' opinions ' of your discarded master, to 
persons who know nothing of hiin, at the precise time when auch ex- 
pression of opinion is cal-nlnlcil to ilo lijm it..- most, fatal injury. 

" In the event of your final refusal, yon will oblige me by sending 
me a copy of my last letter for publication. — your own being visibly 
prepared for the press. 

"J. R. 

" Should you inadvertently have drat rayed my last letter, a short 
abstract of its contents, aa apprehended by yon, will be all that is 

" 14, Nr)TTrson\M Place. W.. Hth Not., 1877. 
"Dear Mr. Ituakin — 1 did consult friemls whom I consider both 
prudent and generoii" before I declined to make myself the accuser of 
third persons. 






256 



FURS CLAVIQERA. 



"1 send you at your request a copy of your last letter; bat I disap- 
prove of the publication of this imiHliimriftnf Kucb a publication 
obviously could not be complete," am! if incomplete must be mislead- 
ing. Neither do I see what. ;;<iod object it could eerve. 

"I feel it due to our old friendship to add the expression of ray 
conviction thul the publication would injure .von. nod could not injure 



- I I 



■sfaithfullv, 

"Oct/ — 






i for continuing the iiiw miMlllflwmu farther, and 
closed it on the receipt of tbis list letter, in a private note, which Miss 
Hill is welcome to make public, if aba has retained it. 

Respecting the general tenor of her letters, I have only now to ob- 
serve that she is perfectly right iu supposing me unfit to conduct, my- 
self, the operations with which 1 entrusted l"r ; but that she has no 
means of estimating the success of other operations with which t did 
net entrust her, — such as th-e organization of the Oxford Schools of Art; 
and that she has become unfortunately of late confirmed in the impres- 
sion, too common among reformatory labourers, that no work can be 
practical which is prospective. The real relations of her effort to that 
of the St. George's Guild have already been stated, { F»f«, Oct. 1871, 
pages 13, 14) j and the estimate which I had formed of it is shown not 
to have been unkind, by her acknowledgment of it in the following 
letter,— justifying dm, I think, iu the disappninttnent expressed iu the 
lieginning of this article. 

" 14 Nottingham Pi.acb, Oct. 3rd, 1875. 

" My dear Mr. Ruskin, — I send you accounts of both blocks of build- 
ings, and hare paid in to your bank the second cheque, — that for Paradise 
Place, £20 5». Bfi. I think neither account requires explanation. 

" But I have to thank you. more than words will achieve doing, in 
aiient gratitude, for your lust letter, which I shall treasure as one of 
my best possessions. 1 had no idea you could have honestly spoken -o 
of work which I have always though! had impressed you more with its 
imperfections, than as contributing to any good end. That it actually 
was in large measure derived from you, (here can bo no doubt. I hare 
been resiling ilurii;j my hulidiiy-. for the first time since before 1 knew 
you, the first volume of Mmlrrn Puintrri, which Mr. Bond was good 
enough to lend me these holidays ; and I was ranch impressed, not only 
with the distinct, recollection I had of paragraph after paragraph when 
once the subject was rcr-alieil.— not only with the memory of bow Uia 
p»ssages had struck me when a girl, — but how even the individual 
words had been new to me then, and the quotations. —notably that 
from George Herbert about the not fooling.— had first sent me to lead 
the authors quoted from. I could not help recalling, and seeing dis- 
tinctly, how the whole tone and teaching of the book, striking on the 
imagination at an impressionable age, had biassed, not only this public 

em cuuiploto it to Urn taut eyIIhIiIb, it Mia HiiL 







FORS CLAttGERA. 



257 



work, hut all my life. I always knew it, but I traced tbe distinct lines 
of influence Like nil derived work, it has been, as I said, limit out of 
material niy own experience has furnished, and built very differently 
to anything others would have dune ; liut I know something of how 
much it owes to you. and in as fur aa it has bean in any way successful, 
I wish you would put it among the achievement* of your life. You 
sometimes seem to sec so fi-w of these. Mine in indeed poor and im- 
perfect and small ; but it is in this kind •■;' inty that the best influence 
tells, going right down into people, and coming out in a variety of 
forms, not easily recognised, ycl distinctly Lnowu l.y those who know 
best ; and hundreds of people, whose powers are tenfold my own, have 
received, — will receive. —their direction from your teaching. and will 
do work better worth your caring to have influenced. 

" I am, yours always affectionately, 

" Octavia Hill." 

With this letter the notice of its immediate subject in Fun will cease, 
though I have yet a word to say for my other acquaintances and fellow- 
labourers. Mies Hill will, I hope, retain the ail ministration of the 
Marylebone houses as long as she Is inclined, making them, by her 
zealous and disinterested service, as desirable ami profit.ii bleu possession 
to the Guild as hitherto to me It is always to he remembered that she 
has acted as the administrator of this property, and paid me five per 
cent, upon it regularly, — entirely without sulary, and in pure kindness 
to the tenants. Hy own part in the work was in taking five instead of 
ten per cent., which the houses would hnve been made to pay to 
another landlord ; and in pledging myself neither to sell the property 
□or raise the routs, thus enabling Miss Hill to assure tbe tenants of 
peace in their homes, and encourage every effort at the improvement 
of them. 

Vol. 17.— 17 



FOBS CLA VIOh'JiA. 



LETTER I.XXXVTL— (LETTER III., NEW SERIES] 



" YEA, T11K WORK OF OUR LANDS, KSTABUWH T1IOU I 



By my promise that, in the text of this aeries of Furs, 
there shall be " no syllable of complaint, or of acorn," I pray 
the reader to understand that I in no wise intimate anv 
change of feeling on my own part. I never felt more diffi- 
culty in my life than I do, at this instant, in not lamenting 
certain thing's with more than common lament, and in not 
speaking of certain people with more than common acorn. 

Nor is it possible to fulfil these rightly warning functions 
of Font without implying some measure of scorn. For in- 
stance, in the matter of choice of books, it is impossible to 
warn my scholars against a book, without implying a (■■■r- 
tain kind of contempt for it. For I never would warn them 
against any writer whom I had complete respect for, — how- 
ever adverse to me, or my work. There are few stronger 
adversaries to St. George than Voltaire. But my scholars 
are welcome to read as much of Voltaire as they like. His 



Whereas thev i 



infidel, but 



voice is mighty among the ages 
forbidden Miss Martineau, — not bed 
because she is a vulgar and foolish one.* 

Do not say, or think, I am breaking my word in 
once for all, with reference to example, this necessary prin- 
ciple. This very vow and law that I have set myself, mutt 
be honoured sometimes in the breach of it, so only that the 

• I use the word vulgar, here, in its first senee of egoiam, not of self* 
Ubuess but of not seeing out's own relations lo the universe. Miss 
Martinrau plans a book — afterwards popular— and goes to breakfast, 
"not knowing what a great thing had been done." So Mr. Buckle, 
dying, thinks "iilv — In' sluill not finish hi* book. Not at all whether 
God reilj ever make up Ilia. 




FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



253 



transgression bo visibly not wanton ( 
this very instance it is because I a 
contempt, but have lately been as 
beauty of a piece of Miss Martineau'* 
grieved by the deadly effect of her v 



incontinent. Nay, in 
not speaking in pure 
uch surprised by the 
'Htings, as I have been 
itings generally on the 



mind of one of my best pupils, who had read them without 
lulling me, that I make her a definite example. In future, it 
will be ordinarily enough for me to say to my pupils privately 
that they are not to read such and such books ; while, for 
general order to my Fura readers, they may be well content, 
it seems to me, with the list of the books I want them to 
read constantly, and with such casual recommendation as I 
may be able to give of current literature. For instance, 
there is a quite lovely little book just come out about Irish 
children, Oattie Bltiir, — (which, let me state at once, 1 have 
strong personal, though stronger impersonal, reasons for rec- 
ommending, the writer being a very clear friend ; and some 
Irish children, for many and many a year, much more than 
that). But the impersonal reasons are — lirst, that the book is 
good and lovely, and true ; having the best description of a 
noble child in it, (Winny,) that I ever read ; and nearly the 
best description of the next best thing — a noble dog ; and rea- 
son second is that, after Miss Edgeworth's OrmOfid *nd Al>- 
.;,./,-., this little book will give more true insight into the 
proper way of managing Irish peuple tlian any other I know.* 
Wherewith I have some more serious recommendations to 
give ; and the first shall be of this most beautiful passage of 
Mitt Murtirieau, which is quoted from Deerbrook in the re- 
view of her autobiography : — 









"In the house of every wise parent 
epitome of life— a sight whose consolai 

* Also, I have had it long on my mind to name the Adrentnra of * 
Phaeton aa a very delightful and wine benk of it* kind - very full or 
pleasant play, and deep and pure feeling , much interpretation of some 
of tho best points of German character ; uuil, last and leuot, with piece* 
of description in it which I should be (find, st.-llinlily, to think inferior to 
what the public praise iu Modern Painter*, — I can oiily lay, they noem 
to m quite an good. 




260 FGWS CLAVIQERA. 

perhaps, by all. Which of the little children of a virtuous 
household can conceive of his entering into his parents' pur- 
suits, or interfering with them ? How sacred are the study 
and the office, the apparatus of a knowledge and a power 
which he can only venerate! Which o£ these Little ones 
dreams of disturbing the course of his parents' thought or 
achievement ? Which of them conceives of the daily routine 
of the household— its going forth and coining in, its rising and 
its rest — having been different before its birth, or that it would 
be altered by his absence ? It is even a matter of surprise to 
him when it now and then occurs to him that there is any- 
thing set apart for him — that be has clothes and couch, and 
that his mother thinks and cares for him. If he lags behind 
in a walk, nr finds himself alone among the trees, he does not 
dream of being missed ; but homo rises up before him as he 
lias always seen it — his father thoughtful, his mother occu- 
pied, and the rest gay, with the one difference of his * not be- 
ing there. This be believes, and has no other trust than in bis 
shriek of terror, for being ever remembered more. Yet, all 
the while, from day to day, from year to year, without one 
moment's intermission, is the providence of bis parent around 
In rn, brooding over the workings of bis infant spirit, chasten- 
ing its passions, nourishing its affections — now troii/'/hu/ it 
with mlttliirif 2'iii/i, hot uniinatini/ it with even more whulf- 
tome detiyht. All the while, is the order of the household 
affairs regulated for the comfort and profit of these lowly 
little ones, though they regard St reverently, because they 
cannot comprehend it. They may not know of all this — 
how their guardian bit-mis over their pillow nightly, and lets 
no word of their careless talk drop unheeded, and records 
every sob of infant grief, hails every brightening gleam of 
reason and every chirp of childish glee — they may not know 
ibis, because they could not understand it aright, and each 
little heart would be inflated with pride, each little mind 
would lose the grace and purity of its unconsciousness ; but 
the guardianship is not the less real, constant, and tender 
for its being unrecognised by its objects. 

This passage is of especial value to me just now, because 1 
have presently to speak about faith, and its power : and I 
have never myself thought of the innocent ftritftiMtntM tA 
children, but only of their faith. The idea given here by 




FOIIS CLAVIUBIIA- 



2C1 



Miss Martineau is entirely new to me, and most beautiful 
And had she gone on thus, expressing- her own feelings mod- 
estly, she would have been a most noble person, and a verily 
'great * writer. She became a vulgar person, and a little 
writer, in lier conceit ; — of which I can say no more, else I 
should break my vow unnecessarily. 

And by way of atonement for even this involuntary dis. 
obedience to it, I have to express great shame for some 
words spoken, in one of the letters of the first series, in total 
misunderstanding of Mr. Gladstone's character. 

I know so little of public life, and see so little of the men 
who are engaged in it, that it has become impossible for me 
to understand their conduct or speech, as it is reported in 



J"' 



ids. 



, difficulties, limits, excite- 
ments, in all their words and ways, which are inscrutable to 
me ; and at this moment I am unable to say a word about 
the personal conduct of any one, respecting the Turkish or 
any other national question, — remaining myself perfectly 
clear as to what was always needed, and still needs, to be 
done, but utterly unable to conceive why people talk, or do, 
or do not, us hitherto they have spoken, done, and left un- 
done. But as to the actual need, it is now nearly two years 
since Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Froude, and several other men of ' cred- 
itable' (shall we say) name, gathered together at call of Mr. 
Gladstone, as for a great national need, together with a few 
other men of more retired and studious mind, Edward Burne 
Jones for one, and myself for another, did then plainly and to 
the best of their faculty tell the English nation what it had 

The people of England answered, by the mouths of their 
journals, that Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Froude know nothing of 
history, that Mr. Gladstone was a dishonest leader of a party, 
and that the rest of us were insignificant, or insane, persons. 

Whereupon the significant and sagacious persons, guiding 
the opinions of the public, through its press; set themselves 
diligently to that solemn task. 

And 1 will take some pains to calculate for you, my now 






FOBS CLAVIUKBA. 



doubl leas well-in formed ;i 
expenditure of type 



itidly purposed readi 
significant 



what 



i, gmd- 
i by those significant persons, in these 
last two years. 

I am fretting into that Cathedra Pestilentiie again ! — My 
good reader, I mean, truly and simply, that I hope to get, 
for next month, some approximate measure of the space in 
heaven which would be occupied by the unfolded tissue or 
web of all the columns of the British newspapers which have 
during these last two years discussed, in your pay. the Turk- 
ish question. All that counsel, you observe, you have bought 
with a price. Mr. (Jarlyle. and Mr. Froude gave you theirs 
gratis, as all the best thing's are given ; I put nearly i 



hibitory tax upon 
with your boots 

paid for it. I cai: 
million nine hui 
eighteen pound: 



-.ill i 



Yot 



, that you might not merely travel 

; but here was an article of counsel 

apt ion at market price. You have 

>u that, approximately, just now, one 

.nd four thousand nine hundred and 

t have voted also in your beautiful 

i manner, and daily directed your governors what they 

> do for British interests and honour. And your rc- 

well, you shall tell me your opinions of that next 

month ; but— whatever your opinions may be — here is the 
result for you, in words which are not of the newest, certainly, 
and yet are in a most accurate sense " This Evening's News." 



fremuerunt (ientes, et Popnli meditati 



" Disrunipa 




loquetur ad i 



If you can read that bit of David and St. Jerome, as it 
stands, so be it. If not, this translation is closer than the 
you, 1 suppose, don't know : — 




FOBS CLAVIGEItA. 



203 



" Why have the nations foamed as the sea ; anil the people 
meditated emptiness? 

"The Kings of the earth stood, and the First Ministers 
met together in conference, against the Lord, and against 
his Christ, 

" Let us break, they said, the chains of the Lord and Christ. 
I^et us cast away from us the yoke of the Lord and Christ. 

"He that inhabits heaven* shall laugh at them, and the 
I.i-r.l shall mock them. 

"Then shall He speak to them in Hi* auger, and torment 
them with His strength." 

There are one or two of the points of difference in this 
version which I wish yon to note. Our 'why do the heathen 
rage' is unintelligible to us, because we don't think of onr- 
«eliie» as 'heathen' usually. But we are; and the nations 
spoken of are — the British public,— and the All-publics of 
our days, and of all days. 

Nor is the word 'rage' the right o 
means to "fret idly," like useless sea 
rage, or of any sense, — foaming out i 
"The wicked are like the troubled sea, 
whose waters east up nitre and dirt 
now — the purest and best of public men spitting t 
uess only and mischief. " Kluctibus et fremitu :■ 
Menace mahijjo." In the Scptuagint, the word is 
like a. horse — ("They were as fed horses in the morning; 
every one neighed after his neighbour's wife.") 

Than, I have put the full words 'of the Lord and Christ' 
in the third verse, instead of 'their,' because else people 
ilim't si.t' wli<> ' lli'.'V ' arc. 

And in the fourth verse, observe lliat the 'anger' of the 
Lord is the mind in which He speaks to the kings ; but His 
'fury' is this practical stress of the thunder of His power, 
and of the hail and death with which He 'troubles' them 
and torments. Read thin piece of evening's news, for in- 
stance. It is one of thousands such. That is what is meant 
by "He shall vex them in His sore displeasure," which words 
you have chanted to your pipes and bellows so sweetly and 
a long, — ' His so-o-o-ore dis-plea-a-sure.' 



ic, in the least. It 

, — Incapable of real 
nly its own shame, 
when it cannot rest, 
; " — and even just 
mpti- 
?ens, 
■eigh 



FOBS CLA VIOEJCA. 



But you 



s the thing, nearly at your doors, reckoning bj 
nee. "The mother got impatient, tlmi.-r tin 
a snow, anil hurried on — not looking' back." 



vexed, you say ? 



i very good. And perhaps the 



—perhaps thai 



ulh'lr 



iE you don't eat them. 
Vet if, after breakfast, you look out of window westward, 
you may see some "vexation" even in England and Wales, 
of which more, presently, and if you read this second Psalm 
again, and make some effort to understand it, it mav be pro- 
visionally useful to you, — provisionally on your recognising 
that there is a God at all, and that it is a Lord that rciyn- 
eth, and not merely a Law that reigtieth, according to the 
latter-day divinity of the Duke of Argyll and Mr. George 
Dawson. Have patience with me. I'm not speaking as 1 
didn't mean to. I want you to read, and attentively, some 
things that the Duke of: Argyll and Mr. Dawson have said : 
but you must have the caterpillar washed out of the cabbage, 
first, 

1 want you to read, — ever HO many things. First of all, 
and nothing else till you have well mastered that, the his- 
tory of Montenegro given by Mr. Gladstone in the Xlii'- 
teenth Century for May 1877, p. 360. After that 'Some 
Current Fallacies about Turks,* etc., by the Rev. Malcolm 
MacCoIl, Nineteenth Century, December 1877, ]•. 831. After— 
that, the Duke of Argyll's 'Morality in Politics.' And after- 
thai, the obituary of 'George Dawson, Politician, I,ecturer,__ 
and Preacher,' by the Rev. R. W. Dale, Nineteenth <V» — 
tury, August 1877, p. 4A. 

It is an entirely kind and earnest review of one of tli'-— 
chief enemies of Evangelicalism, by an Evangelii 
man. The closing passages of it (pp. 59 to 61) a 
beautiful and wise, — the last sentence, let me ihunkfuliv 
place for an abiding comfort and power in St. George's 
schools. 

"To despise (he creeds i ri which the noblest intellects 
I 'hristendom in past times found rest, is presumptuous folly — 
to suppose that these creeds are a final and exact statement 



FOJIS CLAVIOEKA. 



S65 



of ;ill that the Church can ever know, 13 to forget that in 
every treed there are two elements, — the divine substance, 
and the human form. The form must change with the 
changing thoughts of men ; and even the substance mav 
come to shine witli clearer light, and to reveal unsuspected 
glories, as God and man come nearer together." 

And the whole of the piece of biography thus nobly closed 
is full of instruction ; but, in the course of it, there is a 
statement (p]>. 41) — 51) respecting which I have somewhat 
contradictory to say, and that very gravely. I am sorry to 
leave out any of the piece I refer to r but those of my read- 
ers who have not access to the book, will find the gist of 
what I must contradict, qualifiedly, in these following frag- 

A. "The strength of his (George Dawson's) moral teach- 
ing was largely derived from the firmness of his own convic- 
tion that the laws which govern hutnan life are not to be 
evaded ; that they assert their authority with relentless 
severity ; that it is of no use to try to cheat them ; that 
they have no pity ; that we must obey them, or else suf- 
fer the consequences of our disobedience. He insisted, with 
a frequency, an earnestness, and an energy which showed 
the depth of his own sense of the importance of this part 
of his teaching, that what a man sows he must also reap, — 
no matter though lie has sown ignoralitly or carelessly ; that 
the facts of the physical and moral universe have a stern 
reality ; and that, if we refuse to learn and to recognise the 
facts, the best intentions are unavailing. The iron girder 
must be strong enough to bear the weight that is put upon 
it, or else it will give way, — no matter whether the girder is 
meant to support tin- muf uf u. railway station, or the Moor of 
a church, or the gallery of a theatre. Hard work is necessary 
for success in business ; and the man who works hardest — 
other things being equal — is most likely to succeed, whether 



B. "The facts of the 
changed by human fancii 



■ntlci 



nd will 1 



uiverse are steadfast, and not 11 
i or follies ; the laws of the univ 
 1 relax in the presence of hui 
ider the pressure of human pas 



weakiu 
and force." 

c. " No matter though you have a most devout and c 



266 F0R3 CLAVIGEItA. 

scientious helief that by mere praying you can save a town 
from typhoid fever ; if the drainage is bad and the mtaf 
foul, praying will never save the town from typhoid." 

Thus far, Mr. Dale has been stating the substance of Mr. 
Dawson's teaching ; he now, as accepting that substance, so 
far as it reaches, himself proceeds to carry it farther, and to, 
apply the same truths — admitting them to be truths — to 
spiritual things. And now, from him we have this follow- 
ing most important anil noble passage, which I accept for 
wholly true, and place in St. George's schools. 



" It wo. 

is they 



Id b 



"£'■' 



if these truths became false as 
:he religious side of the life of 



 applied t 
man. The spiritual u 
a man's own head, lhau the material i 
universe. There, too, the conditions of human life are fixed. 
There, too, we have to respect the facts; and, whether we 
respect them or not, the facts remain. There, too, we have; to 
confess the authority of the actual laws ; and, whotli-r m 
confess it or not, we shall suffer for breaking them. To 
suppose that, in relation to the spiritual universe, it is s:ife 
or right to believe what we think it pleasant to believe.— tt 
suppose that, because we think it is eminently desirable that 
the spiritual universe should be ordered in a particular way, 
therefore we are at liberty to act as though this were cer- 
tainly the way in which it is ordered, and that, though we 
happen to be wrong, it will make no difference,— is prepos- 



terous. No 






rtb 



No belief of a 
f the spirit (I ill uni 
laws, and to le< 



.s, fi 



;, whether we bel 
ge the facts, or reverse 
se. 11 is our first bus' 
how the facts stand. " 



,■11] --I,;., 



I accept this passage — observi 
for itself. The basis of it — the prec 
ments, a, b, and c,— I wholly deny, 
tian. If the Word of Christ be tru. 
cat universe are not steadfast. Th< 
the infidel. But these signs shall 

believe. "They shall take up serpents, and if they di 
any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." N' 
bad the drainage of the town, how foul the water, " He shalf 



tot*lry,— but T accept iu 
ceding Dawsonian state — 
so far as I am a Chris- 
le, the facts of the physi— 
steadfast only for 
follow them that 




F0S8 CLAVIQBRA. 



267 



pestilence J and though il 
t shall not come nigh t/iee." 
to believe. This, speaking 
:i bound to proclaim, whatever the conse- 
the town, or the opinion of me formed bv 
21I ; as a Christian,, I believe prayer to be, 
uffioient for the salvation of the town ; 
•  l:isi si'iisi-, iiisiilnViciit fur iis siLlviiiii.in. 



deliver thee from thi 

thousand fall at thy rigli 

This, as a Christian, 1 ai 

as a Christian, I i 

quences may bo t 

the Common Con 

in the last sense, 

and drainage, in i 

Not that you will find me, looking hack through the pages 

of /lira, unconcerned about drainage. But if, of the two, 

I must choose between drains and prayer — why, " look you " 

 — -whatever you may think of my wild and whirling words, 

I will go pray. 

And now, therefore, for St. George's schools, I most sol- 
emnly reverse the statement 11, and tell my scholars, with 
all the force that is in me, that the facts of the universe are 
not steadfast, that ihey are changed by human fancies, 
and by human follies (much more by human wisdoms),— that 
the laws of the universe are no more relentless than the God 
who wrote them,— that they will relax in the presence of 
human weakness, and do give way under the pressure of 
human passion and force, and give way so totally, before so 
little passion and force, that if you have but ' faith ' as a 
grain of mustard seed, nothmy shall be impossible unto 

"Are these merely line phrases, or is he mad, as people 
say ?" one of my polite readers asks of another. 

Neither, oh polite and pitying friend. Observe, in the 
first place, that 1 simply speak «« a Christian, and express 
to you accurately what Christian doctrine is. I am myself 
so nearly, as you are so grievously faithless to less than the 
least grain of — Col man's— mustard, that 7 can take up no 
serpents, and raise no dead. 

But I don't say, therefore, that the dead are not raised, 
nor that Christ is not risen, nor the head of the serpent 
bowed under the foot of the Seed of the Woman. I say 
only,- — <f »>}' faith is vain, it is because I am yet in my sins. 
And to others I say — what Christ bids toe say. That, aim- 






2(18 FOtiS CI.A VI'JBltA. 

ply, — that, literally, — that, positively; and no more. "If 
thou wilt believe, iliou shait see the salvation of God." 

If thou teiti (wouldest) — Faith being essentially a, matter 
of will, after some other conditions are met. For how shall 
they believe on whom they have not heard, and how shall 
they hear without a preacher ? Yea ; but — asks St. George, 
murmuring behind his visor, — much more, how shall they 
hear without — ears? 

He that /talk ears, (it is written) — let him hear ; — but how 
of him that hath none f 

For observe, far the greater multitude of men cannot hear 
of Christ at all. Vou can't tell an unloving person, what 
love is, preach you till bis doomsday. What is to become of 
them, God knows, who is their Judge ; but since they can- 
not hear of Christ, tliey cannot believe in Him, and for 
tlieni, the Laws of the Universe are unchangeable enough. 
Hut for those who ran hear — comes the farther question 
whether they will And then, if they do, whether they will 
be steadfast in the faith, steadfast behind the shield, point 
in earth, cross of iron — (compare Latot of Fe&ok, chapter 
iii., and the old heraldic word ' restrial,' of bearings, first 
written in blood,) — else, having begun in the spirit, they 
may only be " made perfect in the flesh." {Gal. iii. 3.) But 
if, having begun in the Spirit, they grieve it not, ihere will 
be assuredly among them the chorus-leader. He that " leads 
forth the choir of the Spirit," and worketh miracles among 
you. (Gal. iii. 5.) 

Now, lastly, read in the ninth chapter of Froude's J/intoiy 
of England, the passage beginning, " Here, therefore, we 
are to enter upon one of the grand scenes of history," * down 
to, " He desired us each to choose our confessor, and to con- 
fess our sins one to another ; " and the rest, I give here, for 
end of this Fbr«: — 

"The day after, he preached a sermon in the chapel on 
the 50th Psalm : ' O God, Thou hast cast us off, Thou hast 
destroyed us ; ' concluding with the words, ' It is better thai 

* Octavo edition of I85S, vol. ii., p. 341. 





FOBS C LA VIQ ERA. 



268 



r faults, than he 






nplonng 



we should suffer here a short penance for < 

reserved for the eternal pains of hell he 

ending, he turned to us, and bade ua all do as we sa 

do. Then rising from his place he went direct to the 

of the brethren, who was sitting nearest to himseli 

kneeling before bun, begged hi* forgiveness f 

which in heart, word, or deed, he might ha 

against him. Thence he proceeded to the I 

the same ; and so to the next, through us ! 

ing him, and saying as he did, — eacli from ( 

"Thus, with unobtrusive nobleness, did ill 
prepare themselves for the end ; not less beai 
resolution, not less deserving the everlasting 
of mankind, than those three hundred who i 
morning sale combing their golden hair in the passes of 
Thermopyhi?. We will not regret their cause ; there is no 
cause for which any man can more nobly suffer than to wit- 
ness that it is better for him to die than to speak words 
which he does not mean. Nor, in this their hour of trial, 
were they left without higher comfort. 

" ' The third day after,' the story goes on, ' was the mass 
of the Holy Ghost, and God made known His presence 
among us. For when the host was lifted up, there came as 
it were a whisper of air, which breathed upon our faces as 
we knelt. Some perceived it with the bodily senses; all 
fell it as it thrilled into their hearts. And the 



10ft I 



md of i 



which 1 



rable fat he 



ing the melody, and feeling the 
our spirits, but knowing neither 
Only our hearts rejoic 



bnndantly manifest among 
and for a long time could 
remaining stupefied, hear- 
larvellous effects of it upon 
whence it came nor whither 
d as wo perceived that God 



was with u 

It can't be the end of this Fort, however, I find, (15ih 
February, half-past seven morning,) for I have forgotten 
twenty things I meant to say ; and this instant, in my morn- 
ing's reading, opened and read, being in a dreamy state, and 
not knowing well what I was doing,— of all things to find a 
new message ! — in the first chapter of Proverbs. 

I was in a dreamy stale, because I had got a letter about 




FOBS CLA \1GKRA. 

the Thirlmere debate, which was to me, in my purposed qui- 
etness, like one of the voices on the hill behind the Princess 
Pairzael. And she could not hold, without cotton in her 
cars, dear wise sweet thing-. But luckily for me, I have just 
had help from the Beata Vigri at Venice, who sent me ber 
own picture and St. Catherine's, yesterday, for a Valentine ; 
and so I can hold on : — only just read this first of Proverbs 
with me, please. 

"The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of 

"I'd /,'ii'iir wisdom and instruction." 

(Not to 'opine' them.) 

" To perceive the words of understanding." 

(He that hath eyes, let him read — he that hath  
And for the Blind and the Deaf, — if patient ( 
the right road-side,— there may also bi 
'He is coming.') 

" To receive the instruction of Wn 
Judgment, and Equity." 

Four things,— oh friends, — which you have not c 
perceive, but to receive. And the species of thes 
things, and the origin of tlieir species,- 
doubtless, well, — in these scientific days? 

"To give subtlety to the simple; to the young mal 
knowledge anil discretion." 

(Did ever one hear, lately, of a young man's wantin 
either? Or of a simple person who wished to lie subtle 
Are not we all subtle — even to the total defeat of our half 
antagonists, the Prooshians and Rooshians ?) 



I 




nil in; 



vill 



{e.g. "A stormy meeting took place in the Binningha' 
Town Hall last night. It was convened by the Conserva- 
tive Association for the purpose of passing a vote of co: 
deuce in the Government ; but the Liberal Association « 
issued placards calling upon Liberals lo attend. Tin* el 
was tak.-n by Mr. Stone, the President of the Conse 
Association, but the greater part of his i 
dible even upon the platform, owing to the (requem 




FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



71 



of applause, groans, 



entish fire, intermingled with 
j the words ' Vote for Bright* 
arid 'Vole for Gladstone* were hoisted, and were torn to 
pieces by the supporters of the Government. Dr. Sebas- 
tian Evans moved, and Alderman lirinsley seconded, a reso- 
lution expressing confidence in Her Majesty's Government. 
Mr. J. S. Wright moved, and Mr. R \V. Dale seconded, an 
amendment, hut neither speaker could make himself heard ; 
and on the resolution being put to the meeting it was de- 
clared carried, but the Liberal speakers disputed the decision 
of the chairman, and asserted that two-thirds of the meet- 
ing were against the resolution." — J 'all Mull Gazette, Feb- 
ruary 13th, 1878.) 

"And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise 

counsels." 

(Yes, in due time ; but oh me — over what burning marie, 
and by what sifting of wheat !) 

" To understand a proverb, and tlie interpretation." 
(Yes, truly — all this chapter 1 have known from my moth- 
er's knee — and never understood it til) this very hour.) 
"The words of the wise and their dark sayings." 
(Behold, this dreamer cometii, — and this is his dream.) 
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: 
but fools despise wisdom and h 

(e.ff. " Herr , one of the 

that he and his friends, since they do not fear earthly IW 
ers, are not likely to be afraid of Powers of any other 
kind."— Pail Mall Gazette, same date.*) 

* 1 take this passage out of nn important piece of intelligence of a 
qtiitc contrary and greatly encouraging kiud. "A new political party 
has just been added to (lie many parties which already existed in Ger- 
many. It calls ilself 'the Christian Social party.' It is headed hy 
aeverol prominent Court preachers of Merlin, who, alarmed at the prog- 
ress made by the Socialists, have taken this means of resisting their 
subversive doctrines. The object of the party is to convince the people 
that there can bo no true system of government which is not bused 
upon Christianity; ai»i this principle is being elaborately si>t forth in 
large and enthn sialic meeting* Herr Most, one of the Socialist lead- 
ers, has given the political pastors- an excellent text for their orations 
by declaring thoL he and his friend*, since they do not fear earthly 







272 



FOBS C LA VTQ BRA. 



"My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake 
not the law of thy mother." 

The father is to teach the boy's reason ; and the mother, 
his will. He is to take his father's word, and to obey his 
mother's — look, even to the death. 

(Therefore it is that all laws of holy life are called ' moth- 
er-laws' in Venice. — Fore, vol. iii., p. 387.) 

"For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head.'' 

Alas, yes ! — once men were crowned in youth with the 
gold of their father's glory ; when the hoary head was 
crowned also in the wav of righteousness. 

And so they went their way to prison, and to death. 

But now, by divine liberty, and general indication, even 
Solomon's own head is not crowned by any means. — Fur*, 
vol. iv., p. 32. 

" And chains about thy neck " — (yes, collar of the knight- 
Heat. Let not thy mother's Mercy and Truth forsake thee) 
bind them about thy neck, write them upon the tables of 
thine heart. She may forget : yet will not I forget thee. 

(Therefore they say- — of the sweet mother laws of their 
loving God and lowly Christ — 'Disrumpamus viiintltt eorum 
et projiciamus a nobis, jitffiim ipsorum.') 

Nay — nay, but if they Bay thus then ? 

"Let us swallow them up alive, as the grave." 

(Other murderers kill, before they bury ;— but YOU, you 
observe, are invited to bury before you kill. AH these 
things, when once you know their meaning, have their 
physical symbol quite accurately beside them. Read iho 
story of the last explosion in Yorkshire — where a woman's 
husband and her seven sons fell — all seven — all eight — 
together : about the beg/inning of barley harvest it was, I 
think.) 

"And whole as those that go down into the pit." 

(Other murderers kill the body only, but Ton are invited 

Powers, are not likely to be afraid of Powers of any other kind. 
Branches of the Christian Socialist party have been formed in several 
of the moat important German towns; and tliey confidently expect to 
be able to secure a definite position in the next Imperial Parliament." 




FOBS CLAVniKltA. 



to kill ' whole '—body and s 
wholeness that the creature 
had a soul, any more than a 
think you. Ah, but hear yt 
"We shall find all precio 



ul. Yea — and to kill with such 
shall not even know they ever 
frog o£ Egypt. You will not, 
— forseeond thoughts are beat.) 
s substance. We shall fill our 



vith 






(Aii precious substance. Is there anything in those 
houses round the park that could possibly be suggested us 
wanting? — And spoil, — all taken from the killed people. 
Have they not sped — have they not divided the spoil — to 
every man a damsel or two. Not one bit of it all worked 
for with your own hand, — even so, mother of Sisera.) 

"Cast in thy lot among ««." — (The Company is limited.) 

" Let us all have one " — (heart ? no, for none of us have 
that ; — mind ? no, for none of us have that ;— but let us all 
have one — ) "purse," And now— that you know the mean- 
ing of it — I write to the end my morning's reading. 

My son, walk not thou in the way with them. 

Refrain thy foot from their path. For their feet run to 
evil, and hiisten to shed blood. 

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. 

And they lay wait for their men blood. 

They lurk privily for their own lives. 

SO ABE THE WAYS Ok' EVERY ONE THAT IS tiREEDY OP GAIN 
WHICH TAKETII AWAY THE UTS OK THE OWNERS THEREOF. 

Now, therefore, let us see what these ways are — the Vias 
I'eccatorum, — the Pleasantness of them, and the Peace. 

The following are portions of a letter from the brother of 
one of my country friends here, who has been pastor of the 
English Haptist church in Tredegar about twenty years. 

"Tkkdeoar, 11(A February, 1878. 
" Some three hundred men are said to have been discharged 
from the works last week. The mills are to be closed all 
this week, and the iron-workers do not expect to be able to 
earn a penny. About a day and a half per week, on the 
average, is what they have been working for several mouths. 
The average earnings have been six shillings a week, and out 
of that they have to pay for coal, house-rent, and other en- 



voi,. IV.— 18 






FORfi CLAVIOERA, 



, leaving very little for fo 
en divided into districts. 



to investigate and relie 
hundred and thirty famili 
relieved on an average < 
family for the last uiont 
every week without anyt 
water to drink : they In 



>d and clothing. The place 
1 have one of these districts 



In that district there are i 
i distress, and which have been 
ro shillings per week for each 
Many of them are some days 
to eat, and with nothing but 
>thing but rags to cover them 
id very little beside their wearing apparel to cover 
their beds at night. They have sold or pawned 



their furniture, and everything for which they could obtain 
the smallest sum of money. It fact, they seem to me to be 
actually starving. In answer to our appeal, we have received 
about three hundred pounds, and have distributed the greater 
part of it. We also distributed a large quantity of clothing 
hist week which we hud received from different places. We 
feel increasing anxiety about the future. When we began, 
we hoped the prospect would soon brighten, and that we 
should be able before Ioiijt to discontinue our efforts. Instead 
of that, however, things look darker than ever. We cannot 
tell what would become of us if contributions to our funds 
should now cease to come in, and we do not know bow long 
we may hope that they will continue to come in, and really 
cannot tell who is to blame, nor what is the remedy." 

They know not at what they stumble. How should tbev ? 

Well— will they hear at last then? Has Jael-Atropos'at 
last driven her nail well down through the Helmet of Deatli 
he wore instead of the Helmet of Salvation — mother of 
Sisera ? 



FORS CLAVW/CSA. 



LETTER LXXXVIIL— (LETTER 3V., NEW SERIES.) 



HE WORK of IHI1 



is, ESTABLISH THOt' IT. 



Bramtwood, 8W Februiirg, 188U. 
two years since I was struck by the illness 
ight these Letters to an end, as a periodic 



.-, that I should ever be able 
ian by a few comments in 



iTian 
which bi 

nor did I think, on first 
to conclude them oth 
arranging their topical index. 

But my strength is now enough restored to pen 
add one or two more direct pieces of teaching to tl 
statements of principle which it has become difficult 
out of the mixed substance of the book. Thes 
written at such leisure as 1 may find, and form i 
volume, which with a thin ninth, coritaiiiiin; 



broken 
gather 

will be 

I shall 



i this tenth year from the begin- 



ba thankful if I ca 
ning of the work. 

To-day, being my sixty-first birthday, T would ask leave 
to sav a few words to the friends who care for me, and the 
readers who arc anxious ahout nic, touching the above-named 
illness itself. For a physician's estimate of it, indeed, I can 
only refer them to my physicians. But there were some 
conditions of it which I knew better than they could : 
namely, first, the precise and sharp distinction between the 
state of morbid inflammation of brain which gave rise to 
false visions, (whether in sleep, or trance, or waking, in 
broad daylight, with perfect knowledge of the real things in 
the room, while yet I saw others that were not there,) and 
the not morbid, however dangerous, states of more or less 
excited temper, and too much quickened thought, which 
gradually led up to the illness, accelerating in action during 
eight or ten days preceding tiie actual giving way of 



me etgni or u 



276 



FOJtS CLAVIGERA. 



the bruin, (as may be enou 
ing of the first edition of m 
and yet, up to the transits 
entirely healthy, and in th 
jusl as the natural inflami: 
flesh is sane, up to i In 



gh seen in the fragmentary writ- 
y notes on tlie Turner exhibition); 
 tin I moment of first hallucination, 
e full sense of the word 'sane'; 
lation about a healing wound in 
nsitional edge where it may pass 
at a crisis into morbific, or even mortified, substance. And 
this more or less iiifl&med, yet stil! perfectly healthy, con- 
dition of mental power, may be traced by any watchful 
reader, in Fors, nearly from its beginning, — that manner of 
mental ignition or irritation being for the time a great addi- 
tional force, enabling me to discern more clearly, and say 
more vividly, what for long years it had been in my heart 10 
say. 

Now I observed that in talking of the illness, whether 
during its access or decline, none of the doctors ever thought 
of thus distinguishing what was dt-finiti'lv diseased in the 
brain action, from what was simply curative — had there been 
time enough — of the wounded nature in me. And in the 
second place, not perceiving, or at least not admitting, this 
difference ; nor, for the most part, apprehending (except the 
one who really carried me through, and who never lost hope 
— Dr. Parsons of Hawkshead) that there tcere any mental 
wounds to be healed, they made, and still make, my friends 
more anxious about me than there is occasion for : which 
anxiety I partly regret, as it pains them ; but much more if 
it makes them more doubtful than they used to be (which, for 
some, is saying a good deal) of the "truth and soberness" 
of Fors itself. Throughout every syllable of which, hitherto 
written, the reader will find one consistent purpose, and 
perfectly conceived system, far more deeply founded than 
any bruited about under their founder's names; including 
in its balance one vast department of human skill, — the 
arts, — which the vulgar economists are wholly incapable of 
weighing ; and a yet more vast realm of human enjoyment 
— the spiritual affections, — which materialist thinkers are 
alike incapable r<( imagining: a system not mine, nor Kant's, 
nor Comte's ; — but that which Heaven has taught every true 




FOBS CLAV1GERA. 



277 
8 work, from the 



man's heart, and proved by every true n 
beginning of time to this day. 

1 use the word 'Heaven' here in an absolutely literal 
sense, meaning- the blue sky, and the light and air of it. 
.Men who live in that light, — "in pure sunshine, not under 
inixed-up shade," — and whose actions are open as the air, 
always arrive at certain conditions of moral and practical 
loyalty, which are wholly independent of religious opinion. 
These, it has been the first business of Fors to declare. 
Whether there be one God or three, — no God, or ten thou- 
sand,— children should have enough to eat, and their skins 
should be washed clean. It is not / who say that. Every 
mother's heart under the sun says that, if she has one. 

Again, whether there be saints in Heaven or not, as long 
as hs stars shine on the sea, and the thunnies swim there — 
every fisherman who drags a net ashore is bound to say to 



as many human creatures as he cai 


i, 'Come and dine.' And 


the fishmongers who destroy Hi 


eir fish by cartloads that 


they may make the poor pay dear 


for what is left, ought to 


be flogged round Billingsgate, and 


□ ut of it. It is not /who 


say that. Every man's heart on si 


jft and shore says that— if 


he isn't at heart a rascal. Whate 


ver is dictated in Fort is 


dictated thus by common sense, 




humanity, and common sunshine — 


■not by me. 


But farther. I have just now 


used the word ' Heaven ' 


in a nobler sense also : meaning, 


Heaven and our Father 



therein. 

And beyond the power of its sunshine, which all men may 
know, Forn has declared also the power of its Fatherhood, 
— which only some men know, and others do not, — and, 
except by rough teaching, may not. For the wise of all the 
earth have said in their hearts always, " God is, and there is 
none beside Him ; " and the fools of all the earth have said 
in their hearts always, " I am, and there is none beside me." 

Therefore, beyond the assertion of what is visibly salutary, 
Fors contains also the assertion of what is invisibly salutary, 
or saivat ion-bringing, in Heaven, to all men who will receive 
mch health : and beyond this an invitation — passing gradu- 



ation health ; ;i 






278 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

ally into an imperious call — to all men who trust in God, 

that they purge their conscience from dead works, and join 
together in work separated from the fool's; pure, undeliled, 
and worthy of Him they trust in. 

But in the third place. Besides these definitions, first, of 
■what is useful to all the world, and then of what is useful to 
t lie wiser part of it, Fora contains much trivial and desultorv 
talk by the way. Scattered up and down in it, — perhaps bv 
the Devil's sowing tares among the wheat, — there is much 
casual expression of my own personal feelings and faith, to- 
gether with bits of autobiography, which were allowed place, 
not without some notion of their being useful, but yet im- 
prudently, ami even incontinently, because I could not at 
t hold my tongue about what vexed or interested 
lothingty to my memory. 

Now these personal fragments must be c 
from the rest of the book, by readers who 
stand it, and taken within their own limits, — n 
For instance, when I say that "St. Ursula st 
with her love," it means that I myself am 
thinking of the Greek Persephone, 
and the Gothic St. Ursula, as of the 



_ 



urefully sifted 
wish to under- 
j whit farther, 
nt me a flower 
n the habit of 
Latin Proserpina, 
ving spirit ; and 
so far regulating my conduct by that idea as to dedicate my 
book on liotany to Proserpina; and to think, when I want 
to write anything pretty about flowers, how St. Ursula 
would like it said. And when on the Christmas morning in 
question, a friend staying in Venice brought me a pot of 
pinks, ' with St. Ursula's love,' the said pot of pinks did 
afterwards greatly help me in my work ; — and reprove me 
afterwards, in its own way, for the failure of it. 

All this elTort, or play, of personal imagination is utterly 
distinct from the teaching of Font, though I thought at the 
time its confession innocent, without in any wise advising 
my readers to expect messages from pretty saints, or rep- 
robation from pots of pinks : only being urgent with them 
to ascertain clearly in their own minds what they do expect 
comfort or reproof from. Here, for instance, (Sheffield, 12th 
February,) I ain lodging at an honest and hospitable gro- 




F0H8 CLAVIOBHA. 279 

cer's, who has lent me his own bedroom, of which the princi- 
pal "i nainenl ts a card printed in black and gold, sacred to 
the memory of his infant son, who died aged fourteen 
months, and whose tomb is represented under the figure of 
a broken Corinthian column, with two graceful- winged 
ladies putting garlands DO it. He is comforted by thia con- 
ception, and, in that degree, believes and feels with me : the 
merely palpable fact is probably, that his child's body is 
lying between two tall chimneys which are covering it grad- 
ually with cinders, I am quite as clearly aware of that fact 
as the most scientific of my friends ; and can probably see 
more in the bricks of the said chimneys than they. But if 
they can see nothing in Heaven above the chimney tops, 
nor conceive of anything in spirit, greater than themselves, 
it is not because they have more knowledge than I, but be- 
cause they have less sense. 

Less cowimo/i-sense, — observe : less practical insight into 
the things which are of instant and constant need to man. 

I must yet allow myself a few more words of autobiogra- 
phy touching this point. The doctors said that I went mad, 
this time two years ago, from overwork. 1 had not been 
then working more than usual, and what was usual with nie 
had become easy. But 1 went mad because nothing came 
of my work. People would have understood my falling 
crazy if they had heard that ihe manuscripts on which I had 
spent seven years of my old life had all been used to light the 
fire with, like Carlyle's first volume of the FVenek Revolution. 
But they could not understand that I should be the least 
annoj'ed, far less fall ill in a frantic manner, because, after 
I had got them published, nobody believed a word of them. 
Vet the first calamity would only have been misfortune, — 
the second (the enduring calamity mi.l.-r which I toil) is hu- 
miliation, — resisted necessarily by a dangerous and lonely 
pride. 

I spoke just now of the 'wounds* of which that fire in the 
flesh came ; and if any one ask me faithfully, what the 
wounds were, I can faithfully give the answer of 7,echariah's 
silenced messenger, "Those with whtch 1 was wounded in 



2S0 



FORS CI.AVKJERA. 



the house of my friends." All alike, in whom I had most 
trusted for help, failed me in this main work r some mocked 
at it, some pitied, some rebuked, — all stopped their ears ai 
the cry : and the solitude at last became too great to be en- 
dured. I tell this now, because I must say some things that 
grieve me to say, about the recent work of one of the friends 
from whom I had expected most sympathy and aid, — the his- 
torian J. A. Froude. Faithful, he, as it appeared to me, Hi 
all the intent of history : already in the year 1858 shrewdly 
cognizant of the main facts (with which he alone professed 
himself concerned) of English life past and present ; keenly 
also, and impartially, sympathetic with every kind of heroism, 
and mode of honesty. Of him I first learned the story of 
Sir Richard Grenville ; by him was directed to the diarii-* 
of the sea captains iti Haklnyt ; by his influence, when he 
edited Fraatr's Jfti</'tzine, 1 had been led to the writing of 
Mitnera Pitliieris : his Rectorial address at St. Andrews was 
full of insight into the strength of old Scotland ; his study 
of the life of Hugo of Lincoln, into that of yet elder Eng- 
land ; and every year, as Auld Reekie and old England sank 
farther out of memory and honour with others, I looked more 
passionately for some utterance from him, of noble story 
about the brave and faithful dead, and noble wrath against 
the wretched and miscreant dead-alive. But year by year 
his words have grown more hesitating and helpless. The 
first preface to his history is a quite masterly and exhaustive 
nummary of the condition and laws of England before the 
Reformation ; and it most truly introduces the following 
book as a study of the process by which that condition and 
those laws were turned upside-down, and inside-out, "as a 
man wipeth a dish, — wiping it, and turning it upside-down;" 
so that, from the least thing to the greatest, if c 
light, those ages were dark ; if our age is right, tho 
were wrong, — and vice versa. There is no possible consent 
to be got, or truce to be struck, between them. Those 
ages were feudal, ours free ; those reverent, ours impudent : 
those artful, ours mechanical ; the consummate and ex- 
haustive difference being that the creed of the Dark Ages 



F0R8 CL.i VIOBtlA. 



2S1 



was, " I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker 
of heaven and earth ; " and the creed of the Light Ages has 
become, 'I believe in Father Mud, the Almighty Plastic; 
and in Father Dollar, the Almighty Drastic.' 

Now at the time when Mr. Fronde saw and announced 
the irreconcilableness of these two periods, and then went 
forward to his work on that time of struggling twilight 
which foretold the existing blaze of day, and general detec- 
tion of all impostures, lie had certainly not made up his 
mind whether he ought finally to praise the former or the 
latter days. His reverence for the righteousness of old Eng- 
lish law holds staunch, even to the recognition of it in the 
most violent States of — literal — ebullition : such, for instance, 
as the effective check given to the introduction of the arts 
of Italian poisoning into England, by putting the first Eng- 
lish cook who practised them into a pot of convenient size, 
together with the requisite quantity of water, and publicly 
boiling him, — a most concise and practical method. Also 
he rejoices in the old English detestation of idleness, and 
determination that every person in the land should have a 
craft to live by, and practise it honestly : and in manifold 
other matters I perceive the backward leaning of his inmost 
thoughts ; and yet in the very second page of this other- 
wise grand preface, wholly in contravention of his own prin- 
ciple that the historian has only to do with facts, he lets 
slip this— conciliating is it? or careless? or really intended? 
— in any case amazing — sentence, "A condition of things" 
(the earlier age) "differing both outwardly and inwardly 
from that into which a happier fortune hag introduced our- 
selves." An amazing sentence, I repeat, in its triple as- 
sumptions, — each in itself enormous : the first, that it is 
happier to live without, than with, the fear of God ; the 
second, that it is chance, and neither our virtue nor our wis- 
dom, that has procured us this happiness; — the third, that 
the 'ourselves' of Onslow Gardens and their neighbourhood 
may sufficiently represent also the ourselves of Siberia and 
the Rocky Mountains— of Afghanistan and Zul< 

None of these assumptions have found*' 



None of 




262 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

cuing the outline of their shadowy and meteoric form, Mr. 
Froude w working under two deadly disadvantages. In- 
tensely loving and desiring Truth before all things, nor with- 
out sympathy even for monkish martyrs, — see the passage 
last quoted in my last written J-'ors, p. 268, — lie has yet allowed 
himself to slip somehow into the notion that Protestantism 
and the love of Truth aresynonymous ; — so that, for instance. 
the advertisements which decorate in various fresco the sta- 
tion of the Great Northern Railway, and the newspapers 
vended therein to the passengers by the morning train, appear 
to him treasures of human wisdom and veracity, as compared 
with the benighted ornamentation of the useless Lesche of 
Delphi, or the fanciful stains on the tunnel roof of the Lower 
Church of Assist. And this the more, because, for second 
deadly disadvantage, he lias no knowledge of art, nor care 
for it ; and therefore, in his life of Hugo of Lincoln, passes 
over the Bishop's designing and partly building, its cathedral, 
with a word, as if he had been no more than a woodman 
building a hut : and in his recent meditations at St. Alhans, 
he never puts the primal question concerning those long cliffs 
of abbey-wall, how the men who thought of them and built 
them, differed, in make and build of soul, from the apes who 
can only pull them down and build bad imitations of them: 
but he fastens like a re mora on the nearer, narrower, copper- 
coating of fact — that countless bats and owls did at last 
cluster under the abbey-eaves ; fact quite sufficiently known 
before now, and loudly enough proclaimed to the votaries of 
the Goddess of Reason, round her undefiled altars. So that 
there was not the slightest need for Mr. Froude's sweeping 
out these habitations of doleful creatures. Hud he taken an 
actual broom of resolutely bound birch twigs, and, in solemn 
literalness of act, swept down the wrecked jnckdaws' nests, 
which at this moment make a slippery dunghill-slope, and 
peril of spiral perdition, out of what was once the saro 
and decent staircase of central Canterbury tower, he would 
have better served his g-eneration. But after he had, to his 
own satisfaction, sifted the mass of bone-dust, and got at th« 
worst that could be seen or smelt in the cells of monks, it was 




F0R8 CLAVIGEliA. 



2S3 



next, find at least, his duty, as an impartial historian, to 
compare with them the smells of modern unmonastic cells ; 
(unmonastic, that is to say, in their scorn of sculpture and 
painting, — monastic enough in their separation of life from 
life). Yielding no whit to Mr. Froude in love of Fact and 
Truth, I will place beside his picture of the monk's cell, in 
the Dark Ages, two or three pictures by eye-witnesses — yes, 
and by line-and- measure witnesses — of the manufacturer's 
cell, in the happier times " to which Fortune has introduced 
ourselves." I translate them (nearly as Fors opens the pages 
to me) from M. Jules Simon's L' ' Onvriere, a work which I 
recommend in the most earnest manner, as a text-book for 
the study of French in young ladies' schools. It must, how- 
ever, be observed, prefatorily, that these descriptions were 
given in 1864; and I have no doubt that as soon as this 
Fors is published, I shall receive indignant letters from all 
the places named in the extracts, assuring me that nothing 
of the sort exists there now. Of which letters I must also 
say, in advance, that I shall take no notice ; being myself 
prepared, on demand, to furnish any quantity of similar 
pictures, seen with my own eyes, in the course of a single 
walk with a policeman through the back streets of any mod- 
ern town which has fine front ones. And I take M. Jules 
Bimon'3 studies from life merely because it gives me less 
trouble to translate them than to write fresh ones myself. 
But I think it probable that they do indicate the culminating 
power of the manufacturing interest in causing human deg- 
radation ; and that things may indeed already be in some 
struggling initial state of amendment. What things were, 
at their worst, and were virtually everywhere, I record as a 
most important contribution to the History of France, and 
Europe, in the words of an honourable and entirely accurate 
and trustworthy Frenchman. 

" Elbceuf, where the industrial prosperity is so great, ought 
to have healthy lodgings. It is a quite new town, and one 
which mav easily extend itself upon the hills (cotMu.r) which 
surround it. We find already, in effect, jugrju'a mi-c6te (I 
don't know what that means, — half-way up the hill"/), btttidt 






2S4 



FOBS CLAYIGERA. 



a little road bordered by smiling shrubs, some small houses 
built without care and without intelligence by little specula, 
tors scarcely less wretciied than the lodgers they get together" 
— (this sort of landlord is one of the worst modern forms of 
Centaur, — half usurer, half gambler). "You go up two or 
three Steps made of uncut stones" (none the worse for that, 
though, M. Jules Simon.) "and you find yourself in a little 
room lighted by one narrow window, and of which the four 
walls of earth have never been whitewashed nor rough-cast. 
Some half-rotten oak planks thrown down on the soil pntend 
to be a flooring. Close to the road, an old woman pays 
sevenpence halfpenny a week," (sixty-live centimes, — roughly, 
forty francs, or tinny shillings a year,) " for a mud hut whicli 
is literally naked — neither bed, chair, nor table in it (c'est en 
ttemwrer confundu). She sleeps upou a little straw, too 
rarely renewed ; while her son, who is a labourer at the port, 
sleeps at night upon the damp ground, without either straw 
a steps farther on, a little back from the 



road, ; 



old, inhabits a 



lot form a 



try-box, (for one does not Kno 
which the filth makes the heart 
too— -fait soutever le cceur). " . 
a yard and a quarter broad ; he 
day for twenty years. He is no 
to occupy a better lodging 
"The misery is not less 1 
era], at Rouen. One i 
tain houses without having seen it. 
their fire with the refuse of the appl 
make cider, and which they get g 
They have quantities of thi 
a hyhrid vegetation conies out of thi 
matter in putrefaction. Sometimes I 
neglect the most urgent repairs. In 
Matelas, the door, entirely rotten, ti 
of the visitor ; at two feet from th 
than the body of a man. The 



k" (he mean 
" It is only a man 
he has remained ii 
now nearly an idic 
Inch one proposes 



if but o 
j give it,) of 
. the stomach 
s length, and 
it night and 
t, and refuses 
.o him. 



h more gen- 
dea of the filth of cer- 
l'he poor people feed 
which have served to 
en them for nothing, 
f their rooms, and 
r masses of vegetable 
e proprietors, ill paid, 
garret of the Rue des 
utiles under the step 
door is a hole larger 
unhappy 



live there are obliged to cry to you 

have not anything to put over the bole, not even rne end 01 
a plank. There is nothing in their room but their spinning- 
wheel, two low chairs, and the wrecks of a wooden bedstead 
without a mattress. In a blind alley at the end of the Rue 
des Canettes, where the wooden houses seem all on the point 
of falling, a weaver of braces lodges with his family in a 



his family in a room 



FOIiS CLA VIQEBA. 



285 



two yards and a half broad by four yards and three-quarters 
long, measured on the floor ; but a projection formed by the 
tunnels of the chimney of the lower stories, and all the rest, 
is so close to the roof that one cannot make three steps up* 
right. When the husband, wife, and four children are ail in 
it, it is clear that they cannot move. One will not be sur- 
prised to hear that the want of air and hunger make fre- 
quent victims in such a retreat (i*ee/ctf)- Of l ' le f° llr chil- 
dren which remained to them in April, I8G0, two were dead 
three months afterwards. When they were visited in the 
month of April, the physician, M. Lcroy, spoke of a ticket 
that he had given them the week before for milk. ' She has 
drunk of it,' said the mother, pointing to the eldest daughter, 
half dead, but who bad the strength to smile. Hunger had 
reduced this child, who would have been beautiful, nearly to 
the state of a skeleton. 

"The father of this poor family is a good weaver. He 
could gain in an ordinary mill from three to four francs a day, 
while he gains only a franc and a half in the brace manu- 
factory. One may ask why he stays there. Because at the 
birth of his last child he had no money at home, nor fire, 
nor covering, nor light, nor bread. He borrowed twenty 
francs from his patron, who is all honest man, and he cannot 
without paying his debt quit that workshop where his work 
nevertheless does not bring him enough to live on. It is 
clear that he will die unless some one helps him, but his fam- 
ily will be dead before him." 

Think now, you sweet milkmaids of England whose face is 
your fortune, and vou sweet demoiselles of France who are 
content, as girls should be, with breakfast of brown bread 
and cream, (read Scribe's little operetta, La JtentoimtUe a 
Murier), — think, I say, how, in this one, — even though she 
has had a cup of cold milk given her in the name of the 
Lord, — lying still there, " nearly a skeleton, 7 ' that verse of 






of s 

r for >• 



which is Solomon's 
" We have a little nw 



espousals ? " 

" For the cellars of Lille, those who di 
of Lille itself, have not seen them. Tl 
■10 of the Rue des Etaques ; the laddei 



ust take a new 

and she has no 
i the day of her 




fend them, were they 
applied against the 



I 



all to go down 



thefot 



FOJtS CLAYIUEHA. 



icli a bad state that you will do well 
wiy. There is just light enough to read at 
of the ladder. One cannot read there without corn- 
ing one's eyes : the work of sewing is therefore dau- 
in that place ; a. step farther in, it is impossible, anil 
the back of the cave is entirely dark. The soil is damp and 
unequal, the walls blackened by time and tilth. One breathes 
a thick air which can never be renewed, because there is no 
other opening but the trap-door {xvupirail). The entire 
space, three yards by four, is singularly contracted by a 
quantity of refuse of all sorts, shells of eggs, sheila of mus- 
sels, crumbled ground and filth, worse than that of the dirt- 
iest dunghill. It is easy to see that no one ever walks in this 
cave. Those who live in it lie down and sleep where they 
fall. The furniture is composed of a very small iron stove 
of which the top is shaped into a pan, three earthen pots, a 
stool, and the wood of a bed without any bedding. There 
is neither straw nor coverlet. The woman who lodges in the 
bottom of this cellar never goes out of it. She is sixty- 
three years old. The husband is not a workman : they have 
two daughters, of which the eldest is twenty-two years old. 
These four persons live together, and have no other domicile. 

" This cave is one of the most miserable, first for the ex- 
treme filth and destitution of its inhabitants, next bv itsdimen 
Blons, most of the cellars being one or two yards wider, 
These caves serve for lodging to a whole family ; in eonse- 
mother, and children sleew in the same place, 
whatever their age, in the same bed. Th.; 
greater number of these unhappies see no mischief in this 
confusion of the sexes ; whatever comes of it, thev neither con- 
ceal it, nor blush for it ; nav, they scarcely know that the rest 
of mankind have other manners. Some of the caves, indeed, 
are divided in two by an arch, and thus admit of a separation 
which is not in general made. It is true that in most cases 
the back cellar is entirely dark, the air closer, and the 
stench more pestilent. In some the water trickles down the 
walls, and others are close to a gully- hole, and poisoned by 
mephitic vapours, especially in summer. 

"There are no great differences between the so-called 
'courettes' (little alleys) of Lille, and the so-called 'forts' 
of Houhaix, or the 'convents' of St. Quentin ; everywhere 
the same heaping together of persons and the same un- 
healthiuess. At Houhaix, where the town is open, space is 
not wanting, and all is. new, — for the town has just sprung 



and too oftei 




FORS CLAVIOBRA. 287 

out of the ground, — one has not, as at Lille, the double ex- 
cuse of a fortified town where space is circumscribed to be- 
gin with, and where one cannot build without pulling down. 
Also at Roubaix there are never enough lodgings for the 
increasing number of workmen, so that the landlords may 
be always sure of their rents. Quite recently, a manufact- 
urer who wanted some hands brought some workwomen 
from Lille, paid tbem well, and put them in a far more 
healthy workshop than the one they had left. Nevertheless, 
coming on Thursday, they left him on Saturday; they had 
found no place to lodge, and had passed the four nights un- 
der a gateway. In this open town, though its rows of lodg- 
ings are more than half a mile from the workshops, they 
are not a bit more healthy. The houses are ill-constructed, 
b against another, the ground between not lev* 
l gutter to carry away the 
' i stagnant pools till 
the sun dries them, tlere at hazard ts the description of 
some of the lodgings. To begin with a first floor in Wattel 
Street : one gets up into it by a. ladder and a trap without 
a door ; space, two yards and a half by three yards ; one 
window, narrow and low ; walls not rough-east ; in habitants, 
father, mother, and two children of different sexes, — one 
ten, the other seventeen : rent, one franc a week. In Hal- 
luin Court there ia a house with only two windows to its 
ground floor, one to the back and one to the front ; but this 
ground floor is divided into three separate li idlings, of which 
the one in the middle" — (thus ingeniously constructed in 
the age of light)— " would of course have no window at all, 
but it is separated from the back and front ones by two lat- 
tices, which fill the whole space, ami give it the aspect of a 
glass cage. It results that the household placed in this 
lodging has no air, and that none of the three households 
have any privacy, for it is impossible for any person of them 
to hide any of his movements from the two others. One of 
these lodgings is let for five francs a month ; t 



squeezed 

elled, and often 

thrown-out slops, which 



inhabits it has fiv 
has got a sort of cage 
can be got up to by a 
a bed. This the lodge: 
times a week, 



.■hi.-li- 






hough all young, but she 
he angle of her room, which 
laircase, and which can hold 
iderlet, at seventy-five cen- 
abandoned by her lover, 1 



child of some weeks old. This child is laid on the bed, where 
it remains alone all the day, and the mother comes to suckle 
it at noon. A gown and a bonnet, with a little parcel which 









888 FOItS CLAVIOERA. 

may contain, at the moat, one chemise, are placed on a shelf, 
and above them an old silk umbrella — an object of great 
luxury, the dibrus of loat opulence. Noarly all the inhabit- 
ants of this court are subject to fever. If an epidemic 
came on the top of that, the whole population would be car- 
ried off. Vet it is not two years since Halluiu Court was 
built." 

Such, Mr. Froude, are the 'fortresses' of free — as opposed 
to feudal — barons ; such the 'convents' of philosophic — as 
opposed to catholic — purity. Will you not tell the happy 
world of your day, how it may yet be a little happier? It 
is wholly your business, not mine ; — and all these unwilling 
words of my tired lips are spoken only because you are 
silent. 



I do not propose to encumber the pages of the few lust 
numbers of J-'ors with the concerns of St. George's Guild : of 
which the mustard-seed state (mingled hopefully however 
with that of cress) is scarcely yet overpast. This slackness 
of growth, as I have often before stated, is more the Mas- 
ter's fault than any one else's, the present Master being a 
dilatory, dreamy, and — to the much vexation of the more 
enthusiastic members of the Guild — an extremely patient 
person ; and busying himself at present rather with the 
thiogs that amuse him in St. George's Museum than with 
the Guild's wider cares ; — of which, however, a separate re- 
port will be given to its members in the course of this year, 
and continued as need is. 

Many well-meaning and well-wishing friends outside the 
Guild, and desirous of entrance, have asked for relaxation 
of the grievous law concerning the contribution of the tithe 
of income. Which the Master is not, however, in the least 
minded to relax ; nor any other of the Guild's original laws, 



e of which were set down l 
requirement of tithe doe 
stiff stockade, and apparently I 
in the face of all more or '■-.-.- 



ithout consideration, though 

indeed operate as a most 

^surmountable hurdle-fence, 

id, so to speak,  



-eighted. well-wishers. For I find, practically, that lifty 






FORS CLAVIOBRA. 



pounds a year can often save me fi 
of them ; nor should I be the lea) 
hearted apprentice lad, starting ii 
pounds or so, were to send me one 
on hie way with the remaining ni 
of ten thousand a year should cc 
prudence and self-denial, to live 



e — or at a pinch, seven — 
surprised if some merry- 
life with a capital of ten 
il them, and go whistling 
e. But that ever a man 
trive, by any exertion of 
upon so small a sum as 



ind, and give one thousand to the poor, — this is 
a height of heroism wholly inconceivable to modern pious 
humanity. 

Be that as it may, I am of course ready to receive sub- 
scriptions for St. George's work from outsiders — whether 
zealous or lukewarm — in such amounts as they think fit : 
and at present I conceive that the proposed enlargements 
of our museum at Sheffield are an object with which more 
frank sympathy may be hoped than with the agricultural 
business of the Guild. Ground I have, enough — and place 
for a pleasant gallery for such students as Sheffield may send 
up into the clearer light [• — but I don't choose to sell out 
any of St. George's stock for this purpose, still less for the 
purchase of books for the Museum, — and yet there are many 
I want, and can't yet afford. Mr. Quaritch, for instance, has 
nn eleventh century Lectionary, a most precious MS., which 
would be a foundation for all manner of good learning to us : 
but it is worth its weight in silver, and inaccessible for the 
present. Also my casts from St. Mark's, of sculptures never 
cast before, are lying in lavender— or at least in tow — invis- 
ible and useless, till I can build walls for them : and I think 
the British public would not regret giving me the means of 
placing and illuminating these rightly. And, in fine, here I am 
yet for a few years, I trust, at their service — ready to arrange 
such a museum for their artisans as they have not yet 
dreamed of ; — not dazzling nor overwhelming, but comfort- 
able, useful, and — in such sort as smoke-cumbered skies may 
admit, — beautiful ; though not, on the outside, otherwise 



Uayiliinc gf Art 

Vol. IT- 19. 






290 F0R8 CLAVIOERA. 

decorated than with plain and easily-worked slabs of Derby- 
shire marble, with which I shall face the walls, making the 
interior a working man's Bodleian Library, with cell and 
shelf of the most available kind, undisturbed, for his holiday 
time. The British public are not likely to get such a thing 
done by any one else for a time, if they don't get it done 
now by me, when I'm in the humour for it. Very positively 
I can assure them of that ; and so leave the matter to their 
discretion. 

Many more serious matters, concerning the present day, I 
have in mind — and partly written, already ; but they must 
be left for next Fors, which will take up the now quite im- 
minent question of Land, and its Holding, and Lordship. 



FORS CLAVIOEHA. 



LETTER LXXXIX.— (LETTER V., NEW SERIES.) 



* OUR HANDS, ESTAIILISH THOU IT." 



TO THE TRADES UNIONS OF ENGLAND. 

Beauvais, Aug\ul%\, 1880. 
.My hear Friends, 

This is the first letter in Mrs which has been ad- 
dressed to you as a body of workers separate from the other 
Englishmen who are doing their best, with heart and hand, 
to serve their country in any sphere of its business, and in 
any rank of its people. I have never before acknowledged 
the division marked, partly in your own imagination, partly 
in the estimate of others, and of !a.te, too sadly, staked out 
in permanence by animosities and misunderstandings on 
both sides, between you, and the mass of society to which 
you look for employment. But I recognise the distinction 
to-day, moved, for one thing, by a kindly notice of last Fors, 
which appeared in the JUngle;/ Telephone of April 23rd of 
this year ; saying, "that it was to be wished I would write 
more to and for the workmen and workwomen of these 
realms," and influenced conclusively by the fact of your hav- 
ing expressed by your delegates at. Sheffield your sympathy 
with what endeavours I had made for the founding a Museum 
there different in principle from any yet arranged for work- 
ing men : this formal recognition of my effort on your part, 



signifying to me 
plaining my aim 
possible to me. 
But, believe m 

special interests. 
you, that, as a si 



virtually, that the 
to you, fully, and i 






the clearest ' 



», there have been more reasons than I need 

!w, for my hitherto silence respecting your 

Of which reasons, this alone might satisfy 

iparate class, I knew scarcely anything o£ 







292 



FOItS CLAVIOERA. 




you hut your usefulness, and your distress ; and thai the 
essential difference between me and other political writers 
of your day, is that I never say a word about a single thing 
that I don't know ; while they never trouble themselves to 
know a single thing they talk of ; but give you their own 
'opinions' about it, or tell you the gossip they have bean! 
about it, or insist on what they like in it, or rage against 
what they dislike in it ; but entirely decline either to look 
at, or to learn, or to speak, the Thing as it is, and must be. 

Now I know many things that are, and many that must 
be hereafter, concerning my own class : but I know nothing 
yet, practically, of yours, and could give you no serviceable 
advice either in your present disputes with your masters, or 
in your plans of education and action for yourselves, until I 
had found out more clearly, what you meant hy a Master, 
and what you wanted to gain either in education or action, 
— and, even farther, whether the kind of person you meant 
by a Master was one in reality or not, and the things you 
wanted to gain by your la.bour were indeed worth your hav- 
ing or not. So that nearly everything hitherto said in Forts 
has been addressed, in ma.in thought, to your existing Mas- 
ters, Pastors, and Princes, — not to you, — though these all I 
class with you, if they knew it, as "workmen and labour- 
ers," and you with them, if you knew it, as capable of the 
same joys as they, tempted by the same passions as they, 
and needing, for your life, to recognise the same Father 
and Father's Law over you all, as brothers in earth and in 
heaven. 

But there was another, and a more sharply restrictive rea- 
son for my never, until now, addressing you as a distinct 
class ; — namely, that certain things which I knew positively 
must be soon openly debated— and what ia more, deter- 
mined — in a manner very astonishing to some people, in the 
natural issue of the transference of power out of the hands 
of the upper classes, so called, into yours, — transference 
which has been compelled by the crimes of those upper 
classes, and accomplished by their follies, — these certain 
things, I say, coming now first into fully questionable shape, 






FOBS CLAVIOERA. 293 

could not be openly announced as subjects of debute by any 
man in my ihen official position as one of a recognised body 
of University teachers, without rendering him suspected and 
disliked by a large body of the persons with whom he had to 
act. And I considered that in accepting such a position at 
all I had virtually promised to teach nothing contrary to the 
principles on which the Church and tiic Schools of England 
believed themselves — whether mistakenly or not — to have 
been founded. 

The pledge was easy to me, because I love the Church 
and the Universities of England more faithfully than most 
churchmen, and more proudly than most collegians ; though 
my pride is neither in my college boat, nor my college plate, 
nor my college class-list, nor my college heresy. I love both 
the Church and the schools of England, for the sake of the 
brave and kindly men whom they have hitherto not ceased 
to send forth Into all lands, well nurtured, and bringing, as 
a body, wherever their influence extended, order and charity 
itito the ways of mortals. 

And among these I had hoped long since to have obtained 
hearing, not for myself, but for the Bible which their Moth- 
ers reverenced, the laws which their Fathers obeyed, and the 
wisdom which the Masters of all men — the dead Senate of 
the noblest among the nations — had left for the guidance 
of the ages yet to be. And during seven years I went on 
appealing to my fellow-scholars, in words clear enough to 
them, though not to you, had they chosen to hear ; but not 
une cared nor listened, till I had sign sternly given to me 
that my message to the learned and the rich was given, and 
ended. 

And now I turn to you, understanding you to be associa- 
tions of labouring men who have recognised the necessity 
of binding yourselves by some common law of action, and 
who are taking earnest counsel as to the conditions of your 
lives here in England, ami their relations to those of your 
fellow-workers m foreign lands. And I understand you to 
be, in these associations, disregardant, if not actually defiant, 
of the persons on whose capital you have been hitherto 



i 



294 



FOBS CLAVIGKltA. 



passively dependent Cor occupation, and who have always 
taught you, by tlie mouths of their appointed Economists, 
that they and their capital were an eternal part of the Prov- 
idential arrangements made for this world by its Creator. 

In which self-assertion, nevertheless, and attitude of in- 
quiry into the grounds of this statement of theirs, you are 
unquestionably right. For, as things are nowadays, you 
know any pretty lady in the Elysian fields of Paris who can 
set a riband of a new colour in her cap in a taking way, 
forthwith sets a few thousands of Lyonuaise spinners and 
dyers furiously weaving ribands of like stuff, and washing 
them with like dye. And in due time the new French edict 
reaches also your sturdy English mind, and the steeples of 
Coventry ring in the reign of the elect riband, and the Ely- 
sian fields of Spital, or whatever other hospice now shelters 
the weaver's head, bestir themselves according to the French 
pattern, and bedaub themselves with the French dye ; and 
the pretty lady thinks herself your everlasting benefactress, 
and little short of an aiigel sent from heaven to feed rou 
with miraculous manna, and you are free Britons that rule 
the waves, and free Frenchmen that lead the universe, of 
course ; but you have not a bit of land you can stand on — 
without somebody's leave, nor a house for your children that 
they can't be turned out of, nor a bit of bread for their 
breakfast to-morrow, but on the chance of some more yards 
of riband being wanted. Nor have you any notion that th< 
pretty lady herself can be of the slightest use to you, except 
as a consumer of ribands ; what God made her for — you do 
not ask : still less she, what God made you for. 

How many are there of you, I wonder, landless, roofless, 
foudk'ss, unless, for such work as they choose to put you 
to, the upper classes provide you with collars in Lille, glass 
cages in Tlalluin Court, milk tickets, for which your children 
still have "the strength to smile — "* How many of you, 
tell me, — and what your united hands and wits are worth, 
at your own reckoning ? 

• Sec Fon, vol iv . p. 235. with the sequel 



FOBS CLAVWERA. 



295 



Trade Unions of England — Trade Armies of Christen- 
dom, what's the roll-call of you, and what part or lot have 
you, hitherto, in this Holy Christian Laud of your Fathers ? 
Is not that inheritance to be claimed, and the Birth Right 
of it, no less than the Death Right? Will you not deter- 
mine where you may be Christianly bred, before yon set 
your blockhead Parliaments to debate where you may be 
Christianly buried, (your priests also all a-squabble about 
that matter, as I hear, — as if any ground could be conse- 
crated that bad the bones of rascals in it, or profane where 
a good man slept !) But how the Earth that you tread may 
be consecrated to you, and the roofs that shade your breath- 
ing sleep, and the deeds that you do with the breath of life 
yet strengthening hand and heart, — this it is your business 
to learn, if you know not ; and this, mine to tell you, if you 
will learn, 

Before the close of last year, one of our most earnest St. 
George's Guiklsmeti wrote to me saying that the Irish Land 
League claimed me as one of their supporters ; and asking if 
he should contradict this, or admit it. 

To whom I answered, on Christmas Day of 1879, as fol- 



i Irish- 
tely, a 



" Brahtwood, Chrittmat, '79. 

" You know I never read papers, so I have never seen b 
word of the Irish Land League or its [ iurposes ; but I a 
the purpose to be — that Ireland should belong t 
men ; which is not ordy a most desirable, but, ultim 
quite inevitable condition of things, — that Ixdng the 
intention of the Maker of Ireland, and all other hinds. 

" But as to the manner of belonging, and limits and rights 
of holding, there is a good deal more to be found out of the 
intentions of the Maker of Ireland, than I fancy the Irish 
league is likely to ascertain, without rueful experience of 
the consequences of any and all methods contrary to those 
intentions. 

"And for my own part 1 should be wholly content to con- 
fine the teaching — as I do the effort — of the St. George's 
Guild, to the one utterly harmless and utterly wholes 
principle, that land, by whomsoever held, is to be r 




290 




FOItS CLAVIOEltA. 



the most of, by human strength, and not defiled,' 
waste. But since we live in an epoch assuredly of chat 
and too probably of devolution ; and thought* which a 
be put aside are in the minds of all men capable of thought, 
1 am obliged also to affirm the one principle which can — ami 
in the end will — close ail epochs uf He volution, — that each man 
shall possess the ground he can use — and no more, — use, 
I say, either for food, beauty, exercise, science, or any other 
sacred purpose. That each man shall p08MM f for his own, 
no more than such portion, with the further condition that 
it descends to his son, inalienably — right of primogeniture 
being in this 1 
about division 
and when you 
fathom— if to 



r eternally sure. The nonsense talked 
i temporary ; you can't divide for ever, 
t got down to a cottage and a square 
> far — still primogeniture will 



hold the right of that. 

"But though potaettion is, and must be, limited by use 
(see analytic passages on this head in Munera !'"!'■•. ri«). Au- 
thority is not. And first the Maker of the Land, and then 
the King of the Land, and then the Overseers of tbe Land 
appuinted by the King, in their respective orders, must all in 
their ranks control the evil, and promote the good work of 
the possessors. Thus far, you will find already, all is stated 
in furs ; and fttrtlttr, the right of every man to possess so 
much land as he can line on— especially observe the meaning 
of tbe developed Corn Law Rhym 




meaning that Bread, Water, and the Hoof over his hei 
must bo lax- (i.e. rent-) free to every man. 

"But I have never yet gone on in for* to examine t 
possibly best forms of practical administration. I alwavi 
felt it would be wasted time, for these must settle themselves 
In Savoy the cottager has his garden and field, iiii-1 babow 
with his family only ; in Berne, the farm labourers of ;. 
aiderable estate live under the master's roof, and are strictly 

* And if not tbe land, still lew the water. I bare kept by me now 

;earB. a report on thn condition of the Colder, drawn u[i by 

Mr. James Fowler, of Waken t Id, in !"•>'>, mid kindly sent to rue by tbe 

author on my mention of Wakefield in Fart. I preserve it 

;«, in i piece of English History characteristic to tbe utt 

ir Fortunate Times. Sec mij.i ii'li\ (■■ this number. 

f See An, Letter LXXIV. p. 880 (note). 



F0R8 CLAYIQEHA. 



297 



domestic ; in England, farm labourers might probably with 
best comfort live in detached cottages ; in Italy, they might 
live in a kind of monastic fraternity. All this, circumstance, 
time, and national character must determine ; the one thing 
St. George affirms is the duty of the master in every case to 
make the lives of his dependants noble to the best of his 
power." 

Now you must surely feel that the questions I have indi- 
cated in this letter could only he answered rightly by the 
severest investigation of the effect of each mode of human 
life suggested, as hitherto seen in connection with other na- 
tional institutions, and hereditary customs and character. 
Vet every snipping and scribbling Mock head hired by the 
bookseller to paste newspaper paragraphs into what may sell 
for a book, has his ' opinion ' on these things, and will an- 
nounce it to you as the new gospel of eternal and universal 
salvation — without a qualm of doubt — or of shame — in the 
entire loggerhead of him. 

Hear, for instance, this account of the present prosperity, 
and of its causes, in the country of those Sea Kings who 
taught yon your own first trades of fishing arid battle : — 

"The Norweg; 
of ground which 
has all the virtues of a freeman — an open character, a mind 
clear of every falsehood, an hospitable heart for the stranger. 
His religious feelings are deep and sincere, and the Bible is 
to be found in every hut. He is said to be indolent and 
phlegmatic ; but when necessity urijes, he sets vigorously to 
work, and never ceases till his task is done. His courage 
and his patriotism are abundantly proved by a history of a 
thousand years. 

"Norway owes her present prosperity chiefly to her liberal 
constitution. The press is completely free, and the power of 
the king extremelv limited. All privileges and hereditary 
titles are abolished.* The Parliament, or the ' Storthing,' which 
assembles every three years, consists of the ' Ode] thing,' or 
Upper House, and of the ' Logthing,' or Legislative Assem- 
bly. Every new law requires the royal sanction ; but it the 
'Storthing' has voted it in three successive sittings, it is 
definitely adopted in spite of the royal veto. Public edu- 









298 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

cation is admirably cared for. There is an elementary school 
in every village ; mid where the population is too thinly 
scattered, the schoolmaster may truly be said to be abroad, 
as he wanders from fnrm to farm, so that the most distant 
families have the benefit of his instruction. Everv town lias 
its public library ; and in many districts the peasants annu- 
ally contribute a dollar towards a collection of books, which, 
under the care of the priest, is lent out to all subscribers. 

" No Norwegian is confirmed who does not know bow to 
read, and no Norwegian is allowed to marry who has not 
been confirmed. II.' who attains his twentieth year with- 
out having been confirmed, has to fear the House of (.'or- 
reation. Thus ignorance is punished as a crime in Norway, 
an excellent example for far richer and more powerful gov- 
ernments." 



I take this account from a book on the Arctic regions, 
in which I find the facts collected extremely valuable, the 
statements, as far as I can judge, trustworthy, the opin- 
ions and teachings — what you can judge of by this specimen. 
iJo you think the author wise in attributing the prosperity 
of Norway I'liiclly l>> lu-r king'* U'ing crippled, and her news- 
papers free ? or that perhaps her thousand years of courage 
may have some share in the matter? and her mind clear 
of every falsehood? and her way of never ceasing in a task 
till it is done? and her circulating schoolmasters? and her 
collected libraries ? and her preparation for marriage by edu- 
cation ? and her House of Correction for the uneducated? 
and her Bible in every hut ? and, finally, her granted piece 
of his native land under her peasant's foot for bis own ? 
Is her strength, think you, in any of these tilings, or only 
in the abolition of hereditary titles, the letting loose of ber 
news-mongers, and the binding of her king? liatu of their 
modern constitutional measures, you observe, not given ! 
and con sequences, perhaps, scarcely yet conclusively ascer- 
tainable. If you cannot make up your own minds on one or 
two of these open questions, suppose you were to try an 
experiment or two? Your scientific people will tell you — 
and this, at least, truly — that they cannot find out anything 



without experim 



; you may also in political matters think 






FORS OLAVIQBRA. 



B99 



and talk for ever — reeultlessly. Will you never try what 
comes of Doing a thing for a few years, persevering] y, and 
keep the result of that, at least, for known ? 

Now I write to you, observe, without knowing, except in 
the vaguest way, who you are! — what trades you belong to, 
what arts or crafts you practise — or what ranks of workmen 
you include, and what manner of idlers you exclude. 1 have 
no time to make out the different sets into which you fall, or 
the different interests by which you are guided. But I know 
perfectly well what sets you nhoulit fall into, anil by what in- 
s you should be guided. And you will find your profit 



listei 






exp 






what li 



clearly than your penny-a-paragraph liberal papers will. 
In the first place, what business have you to call your- 



selves only Trade Guilds 


as if 


trade' and not production, 


were your main concern 


? Ar 


you by profession nothing 


more than pedlars and t 


.longer 


a of things, or are you also 


makers of things ? 







It is too true that in our City wards our chapmen have 
become the only dignitaries — and we have the Merchant- 
Tailors' Company, but not the plain Tailors' ; and the Fish- 
mongers' Company, but not the Fishermen's ; and the 
Vintners' Company, but not the Vinedressers'; and the 
Ironmongers' Company, but not the Blacksmiths'; while, 
though, for one apparent exception, the Goldsmiths' Com- 
pany proclaims itself for masters of a craft, what proportion, 
think you, does its honour bear compared witii that of the 
Calf -worshipful Guild of the Gold Mongers? 

Be it far from me to speak scornfully of trade. My Father 
— whoso Charter of Freedom of London Town I keep In my 
Brant wood treasury beside missal and cross — sold good wine, 
and had, over his modest door in Billiter Street, no bush. 
But he grew his wine, before he sold it ; and could answer 
with his head, that no rotten grapes fermented in his 
ats, and no chemist's salt effervesced in his bottles. Be you 
Tradesmen — in your place — and in your right ; but be 
primarily. Growers, Makers, Artificers, Inventors, of 
hings good and precious, What talk you of Wages T 









300 



F0J18 CLAVIGERA. 



Whose is the Wealth of the World but yo 
the Virtue ¥ Do you mean to go on for ever, 1 
wealth to be consumed by the idle, and your I 
mocked by the vile? 

The wealth of the world is yours ; even your c- 
and rabble of economists tell you that — " no wealth » 
industry." Who robs you of it, then, or beguiles joq? 
Whose fault is it, you clothmakers, that any English cMMi* 
in rags ? Whose fault is it, you shoemakers, that tat 
street harlots inince in high-heeled shoes, and your n«n 
babes paddle barefoot in tlie street slime? Whose fault it 
it, you bronzed husbandmen, that through all your furrowed 
England, children are dying of famine? Primarily, at 
course, it is your clergymen's and masters' fault : but alio 
in this your own, that you never educate any of yum 
children with the earnest object of enabling them to see 
their way out of this, not by rising above their father! 
business, but by setting in order what was amiss in it: also 
in this your own, that none of you who do rise above vour 
business, ever seem to keep the memory of what wrong they 
have known, or suffered ; nor, as masters, set a better ?\- 
• tuple- than others. 

Your own fault, at all events, it will be now, seeing thai 
you have got Parliamentary power in your hands, if you can- 
not use it better than the moribund Parliamentary body has 
done hitherto. 

To which end, 1 beg you first to lake these following 
truths into your good consideration. 

First. Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles 
but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by 
work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; 
and take that of Labourers' Unions. 

And, whatever divisions chance or special need may have 
thrown you into at present, remember, there aie essential 
and eternal divisions of the Labour of man, into which vou 
must practically fall, whether you like it or not ; and these 
eternal classifications it would be infinitely better if you at 
once acknowledged in thought, name, and harmonious ac- 





KOIIS CLAYKiEUA. 



301 



tion. Several of the classes may take finer divisions in their 
own body, but you will find the massive general structure of 
working humanity range itself under these following heads, 
the first eighteen assuredly essential ; the three last, making 
twenty-one altogether, 1 shall be able, I think, to prove to 
you are not superfluous : — suffer their association with the 

1. Shepherds. 
3. Fishermen. 

3. Ploughmen. 

4. Gardeners. 

5. Carpenters and Woodmen, 

6. Builders and Quarrymen. 

7. Shipwrights. 

8. Smiths and Miners.* 
0. Bakers and Millers. 

10. Vintners. 

11. Graziers and Butchers. 

12. Spinners. 

13. Linen and Cotton-workers. 

14. Silk-workers. 

15. Woollen-workers. 

16. Tanners and Furriers. 

17. Tailors and Milliners. 

18. Shoemakers. 

19. Musicians. 

20. Painters. 

21. Goldsmiths. 
Get these eighteen, or twenty-one, as ye 

each thoroughly organized, proud of the 
it under masters, if any, of their own ran 
sagacity and vigour, and the world is 
pleasures of it, that are true ; while al 
such a life fall transparent, and the hook; 



like to take them, 
r work, and doing 
, chosen for their 
ours, and all the 
false pleasures in 
are seen through 

the baits of them. But for the organization of these classes. 

you see there must be a certain quantity of land available to 






302 



FOJJS CLAVIOERA. 



them, proportioned to their multitude : and without tha 
possession of that, nothing can be done ultimately ; though 
at present the mere organization of your masses under these 
divisions will clear the air, and the field, for you, to astonish - 

And for the possession of the land, mind you, if you try to 
take it by force, you will have every blackguard and vau- 
rien in the world claiming his share of it with you, — for by 
that law of force he has indeed as much right to it as you ; 
but by the law of labour, he has not. Therefore you must 
get your land by the law of labour ; working for it, saving 
for it, and buying it, as the spendthrifts and idlers offer it 
you ; but buying never to let go. 

And this, therefore, is practically the first thing you have 
to bring in by your new Parliaments — a system of land- 
tenure, namely, by whicli your organised classes of labour- 
ing men may possess their land as corporate bodies, and add 
to it — as the monks once did, and as every single landlor 
can, now ; but I find that my St. Georges Guild cannot, w 
cept through complications or legal equivocations almost" 
endless, and hitherto indeed paralyzing me in quite un> 
pectedly mean and miserable ways. 

Now I hope all this has been clearly enough said, 
once : and it shall be farther enforced and developed as yo _ >«dii 
choose, if you will only tell me by your chosen heads whethes^er 
you believe it, and are any of you prepared to act on it, an *nJ 
what kinds of doubt or difficulty occur to you about it, an ^r iJ 
what farther questions you would like me to answer. 

And that you may have every power of studying tL -s»T"he 
matter (so far as /am concerned), this Fora you shall hai^- -^ 
gratis ; — and the next, if you enable me to make it fartb— .*er 
useful to you. That is to say, your committees of each traiL^E: i<  
guild may order parcels of them from my publisher in ai^viiy 
quantities they wish, for distribution among their memhe K 

To the public its price remains fixed, as that of all my oth^aw 
books. One word only let me say in conclusion, to expl^^-'V; 
at once what T mean by savins? that the pleasures of t- lie 



FOJiS VLAVIUE11A. 



God haB made man to take pleasure in the use of his eyes, 
wits, and body. And the foolish creature is continually try- 
ing to live without looking at anything, without thinking 
about anything, and without doing anything. And he thus 
becomes not only a brute, but the ttnhappiest of hrutes. All 
i In- lusts and lazinesses lie can contrive only make him mure 
wretched ; and at this moment, if a man walks watchfully 
the streets of Paris, whence I am now writing to you, — a 
city in which every invention that science, wit, and wealth 
can hit upon to provoke and to vary the pleasures of the 
idle, — he will not see one happy or tranquil face, except 
among the lower and very hard-labouring classes. Every 
pleasure got otherwise than God meant it — got cheaply, 
thievingly, and swiftly, when He has ordered that it should 
be got dearly, honestly, and slowly, — turns into 
burden, and, past as a pleasure, remains as a 1 
ing day by day its deadly coat of burning mail. The joys of 
hatred, of battle, of lust, of vain knowledge, of vile luxury, 
all pass into slew torture : nothing remains to man, nothing 
is possible to him of true joy, but in the righteous love of his 
fellows ; in the knowledge of the laws and the glory of God, 
and in the daily use of the faculties of soul and body with 
which that God has endowed him. 

Paris, IStA September, I860. 



F0118 CLAYIGEIU. 



NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



"Joira Rt'BKts, Esq. 

" Dear Sir, — Ma; I take an advantage of this note, and coll your 
attention to a fact of much importance to Englishmen, and it id this 
On reference to some Freethmight papers — notably, the Nntton-il Rt- 
former — I And a movement o-o foot amongst llie Atheists, vigorous 
and full of life, for the alteration of [ha Land Lawn in our much-loved 
country. It is a movement of much moment, and likely to lead to 
great results. The first great move on the part of Charles Bradlaugn, 
the premier in the matter, is the calling of a Conference to discus* tb< 
whole question. The meeting is to be attended by all the Natioi 
Secular Society's branch.-* 1 liroiiyhnnt the empire ; representatives o^B 
nearly every Itct'orm Axsucisitioii in England, .Scotland, and Ireland;^r 
deputations from bunded bodies of workmen, colliers, etc,- — such »*^» 
the ini]Mirtimt baud of Durham miner* — trade unionists ; and, in *•-*. ~ 
a most weighty repnaentatiTe Conference will tie gathered together. — 
I sin. for many rea.-mi*. grieved mid shocked to find the cry for Refont^^M 

coming with 'itch -i heading to the front. Where are our statesmen, 

flwr clergy? The terrible crying evils of our land system are coming t^~-  
the front in onr politics wit hunt tba help of the so-called u pper elaatet -■ 

nay, with a deadly hatred of any disturbance in that direction, ourver 

clergy are taking up arms against the popular cry. 

" Only a week ago I was spending a few days with a former n n  - 
Chester, and learned to ray sorrow and dismay that the Dean and Cbap-^3 
ter of that city, who own most of the farms, etc , in the district wherei _™ 
my friend resides, refuse now — and only noir — to accept other tlni M 
g/tirtii tenant* for these farms, liave raised all the rents to an exorbitaiz^iB 
pitch, and ouly allow the land to be sown with wheat, oats, or whatev*^— 
else in seed, etc, on a personal inspection by their agent. The cona^^s 
quenoe of all this is, that poverty h prevailing to an alarming extend— 
the workers, all the bitter, hard toil  the clergy, one may say, all tW J 

Erofits. It is terrible, heart breaking; I never longed so much ^ = ^ = i 
Sort* searching, vivid eloquence, so that I might move men with u 

irresistible tongue to do the Right. 

'• I wonder how many of these great ones of our Engl; " " 
the following linen from Emerson; and yet what 




FORS CLAVWERA. 



Baton Bym*. 

"I can only pray and hope Chat some mighty pen as yours, if nat 
yourself, may be moved to show Englishmen the right way before it is 
too late. I have the honour to remain, 

" Mr. UuaKiN. 

•■ Dear Sir.— I hove seen a letter from you to Mr. G. J. Holyoake, in 
which you Hay 'the only calamity wliii.li [ pr-rceire or dread for nu 
Englishman is his becoming a rascal : and eo < >|>^riit inn ninoiigst rascals 
— if it were possible — would bring a curse. EetTij gear nee* our Work- 
men more eager to it" /mil- ir-,ii:, unit rah their cr/.i., ■„.■,« , m the. sly. All 
political movement ninoni; mh'Ij animals I call essentially fermentation 
and putrefnetiou — not co-operation.' 

■' Now, sir I see. I think, as completely and consequently us intuitively 
a« you possibly can. the truth of your general statement — that is, that 
there is a widespread 'nidi iictj aud lutbit of producing work that has the 
appearance of being good when yet it is a fraud : its reality is not ac- 
cording to the appearance. But, sir, il the part that I have underlined 
correct '■ It is said that I. measure send.i rj. India Ciilico with lime or 
paste put in it to make it fee! stout ; — is that the workman 1 ! fault? 

" I myself am a workman in what is called fancy hosiery, and to get 
a living have to make a great quantity of work— iu some instance" 
turning very good wool into rubbish, when yet I know that it is capable 
of being in rule into very nice ;m<l serviceable Hl.iIiliil.- ; but if 1 made it 
into anything of the sort I should be ruining my employer, because he 
could uot sell it at a profit : somel bing at. f.mr shillings, that should be 
fourteen, is what is required — I should like to see it stopped. How is 
it to be done ? 

*' If you, sir, were to ask a merchant in tlie-e goods why they were 
not made better, more serviceable, aud perfect, he would moat certainly 
tell you that the Gtrmnn* are in our market with enormous quantities 
of these goods at terribly low prices, and that he has no market for 
goods of superior quality and higher prices. 1 produced a great novel I y 
about six years ago ; it wan a beautiful class of goods, and a vast trade 
came on in thetu ; and now those goods are entirely run out in conse- 
quence of their being made worse, and still worse, till they were turned 
iuto rubbish. Competition did that — 'fermentation and putrefaction;' 
but 1 cauuot see that thu workman was to blame : he was ordered ti 



(No answer to this is expected. 
Answer was sent, nevertheless ; promising a m 
Fein; which may be briefly to the first question, 
lined correct * "—too sorrowfully. Yes ; and to the second question— Is 
it the workman's fault? — that the workman can judge of that, if hi 
will, for himself. Answer at greater length will bu given in next Fort. 
Vol. IV.— 30 



t respectfully." 



sufficient o 
s the part under 






306 FOBS CLAVIQEBA. 

" i 'is i s i.i-:ii.ii, Surrey, May SrMA, 1880. 

'• Reverend Rir.~-Yon auk m« how I came to be one of your pupils. 
I have always been fond of books, noil in my reading I often saw your 
name [ but one day, when reading a newspaper account of a book-sale, 
I saw thnt one of your books fetched E8B for tl W five volumes : I was 
Finnic with the amount, anil thought tLat they mnst he worth reading; 
I made up my iiiiiul to liud out more about them, and if possible to buy 
Borne. The next time 1 went to London I nuked a bookseller to show 
me Home of your works : lie told mo that he did not keep them. I got 
the same answer from about half a dozen more that I tried ; bat this 
Only made mo more determined to get them, and at lost I found a book- 
seller who agreed to get me An 

"When I got it. 1 saw that I could get them from Mr. Allen. I ham 
done so ; and have now most nf your works. 

" I rend Fen with ntw interest, but it was a tough job foe me. 
on account of the numb' r of words in it that I bad never met with 
before ; and as I never hod any schooling worth mentioning, I was 
obliged to look at my dk-lioijiirii  pretty often : 1 tiiink 1 have found 
out now the meanings of all the Kiiylisk words in it 

" I got more good nnd real knowledge from Furs than from all the 
books put together thnt 1 hud ever read. 

" I am now trying to carry out your principles in my business, which 
is that of n grocer, draper, and clothier ; in fact, my shop is seppostd 
by the Cronleigh people to contain afaOMt everything that folks leqnire. 

" I have ill ways <: luet. il my business honestly : it is not fo difficult 

to do this in a village as it is in larger places. As far as I can sec. the 
larger the (own thevxirte it it for the hrmett trmlwi'iti. [Italics mine. 
—J. R.] 

" The principal difference I make now in my business, since I read 
Fori, is to recommend hand- made goods instead of maehiue-nu.de. I 
am sorry to say that most of my eusap niura will have the latter. I don t- 
know what 1 can do further, as I nin not the maker of the goods I sell,, 
bat only the distributor. 

" If I understand your torching. ! ought to keep hiiinl-mi.de good» 
only,' and those of the best quality obtainable. If I did this. I oei — 
tninly should lose nearly all my trade ; and as I have a family to sup- 
port, I cannot do no. No ; I shall stick to it, and sell as good articles* 
as I can for the price paid, rind tell my customers, as I always have* 
done, that the be-t irooila (ire the cheapest. 

"I know you are right about the sin of usury. I have but little times 
to-day, but 1 will write to yout again Mime day about this. 

" I met with a word (Adicititious) in ' I arlyle,' I cannot find in any 
dictionaries that I can get at. 

" I sent the mineral.-, off yi jstiTrlny peeked in a box.f I am hnlf-afroiLl 
now that you will not think them good enough for the Slamom. 

"Your grateful pupil, 
John Rtjskik, LL.D. •STEirrEN Howlakd." 




FOBS CLA YIUbUlA. 



APPENDIX I. 



MR. FOWLER'S REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF 
THE CALDEE. 

Given in evidence before the Royal Commissioners at 
WitArfie-id, -wl )mlilisfu:<l in flu:ir Ri'pnrt, pai/e 1~ 
(trith some additions). 

It would be difficult to find a more striking instance than 
that afforded by the Calder, of the extent to which our 
rivers have been defiled by sewage and refuse from manu- 
factories. Its green banks and interesting scenery made it 
formerly a pleasant resort for the artisan and operative in 
hours of leisure, while its clear and sparkling waters invited 
the healthful recreations of boating, bathing, and fishing. 
"In 1820 the water was clear, and the bottom was free 
from mud ; it was a gravelly, sandy bottom, and 1 have fre- 
quently myself sent stones into it for boys to dive down 
after ; the water at a depth of seven or eight feet was suffi- 
ciently clear to distinguish stones at the bottom ; some of 
the streams running in, for instance the Alverthorpe Beck, 
at that time were full of fish ; there was a great deal of fish 
e frequently seen kingfishers there, which 
i of the water." — Krtrwt from 
Pike of all sizes, trout up to 
n trout, dace, and bream were 
within the last twenty years, 
\\\ afternoon catch a basketful 
chub, each weighing at least two or three pounds ; and 
during freshes, with a cast net, very frequently ninety or a 
hundred, sometimes even a hundred and fifty pounds, of 
roach, chub, gudgeon, etc, were caught in an evening. On 
one occasion, where the water was let off from a quite short 
cutting belonging to the Calder and Kebble Navigation 
Company, at least four hundred and fifty pounds of eels 
were taken ; in fact, whenever any one wanted fish, a sack- 
fnl might readily be obtained. Nothing of this kind has been 
known, however, since the springing up of manufactories in 
the Vale of the Calder. Soon after the Thornes Soap Works 



shows the 
Mr. Milner'* evidence, p. CA 
three pounds in weight, sail 
plentiful. Even so lately i 
any one with a fly might i 



308 FORS CLAVIOEJiA, 

were begun near Wakefield, many stones of fish, which had 
come up the river to spawn, were to lie seen floating dead 
upon the surface. During that year all fish forsook this part 
of the stream as regular inhabitants. For some time after, 
however, during freshes, a fish was occasionally lo be seen 
as a curiosity ; and so lately as 18JS, an experienced fisher- 
man succeeded, on one of several persevering trials, in 
capturing two small chub. 

At present, the condition of the river is most disgusting. 
Defiled almost from lis source, it reaches us with the accu- 
mulated refuse of Tadinorden, Hebden Bridge, Sowerby 
Uridine, Halifax, Elland, Brigliouse, Cooper Bridge, Holm- 
firth, Hudd.-rslicld, Mirfiold, Dewabury, Earlsheaton, Thorn- 
hill, and Horbury. At the suspension bridge, about a mile 
and a half above Wakefield, it runs slowly, and in many 
places is almost stagnant. It has a bhiisli-black, dirty-slate 
colour ; and a faint, nauseous smell, which leaves an ex- 
tremely unpleasant impression for long after it has been once 
thoroughly perceived, — considerably worse than that made 
by the Thames after a stage on a penny boat. The banks 
and every twig and weed in reach are coated with soft, black 
slime or mud, which is studded on the edges of the stream 
with vivid patches of annelid.es. Above are overhanging 
willows ; and where the branches of these touch the water, 
especially in any quiet pool, large sheets of thin bluish or* 
yellowish green scum collects, undisturbed save by the rising" 
to the surface of bubbles of ftetid gas. Between this point. 
and Wakefield, the refuse of extensive soap-works and 
worsted-mills enters, causing discolouration for several hun- 
dred yards. I have, in fact, traced large quantities of soap 
scum beyond Portobello, a distance of about half a mile. 
Nearer the town, quantities of refuse from large dvc-works 
are continually being discharged, to say nothing <■( tic 
periodical emptying of spent liquor and vat sediments. It 
U tuittirurt/ttj that irhrn-as formerly goods "•■■>■<: hr.-mjli' /■> 
Wakefield to l>e dyed on account of '!<■ tuperiorittf of >>-■ 
water for the purpose,the trade ha&now /</' WaktjM 
ruimiih-riilile vrtfnt, "•••I the Wakefield mamtfbeturtn htm 
themselves to send away their finer goods from AeoM tc it 
dyed. On the opposite side are two full streams, olio of 
sewage, the other apparently from some cotton-nulls ; a i„l 
here it may be stated that the exact degree to which influxes 
of this kind injure in different cases is extremely difficult to 
estimate ; some manufacturers using ummonia, while others 




FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



309 



adhere to the old-fashioned pigs' dung and putrid urine. 
The banks on each side are here studded with granaries and 
malting houses, from the latter of which is received that 
most pernicious contamination, the steep-liquor of malt. 
There is also the refuse of at least one brew-house and 
piggery, and of a second soap manufactory drained into the 
river before it reaches the outlet of lugs Beck, at the drain 
immediately above Wakefield Bridge. In this situation, on 
any warm day in summer, torrents of gas may be seen rising 
to the surface, and every now ami then large masses of mud, 
which float for awhile and then, after the gas tliey contain 
has escaped and polluted the atmosphere, break up and arc 
re-deposited, or are at once carried ilown the river, stinking 
and putrefying in their course. The L'alder and Hebble 
Navigation Company are periodically put to great iuconven- 
ving collections of this kind, the 



smell of which is 
once caused seriou 
two years ago the 
feet, and, tin; m 
thousand tons wei 
any kind was disc 
water-mill for 



oftet 



; oft. 



;sted in the 



to the 
ud had ace. 
r having liueu d 
■re removed, but no 

covered. At the b 
least seven hundred 
:iell of partially __ 



omit to sta 

Mm w of solid feces 
which the water is str 
ward, except in wet w 
stagnant pond of the 
dark-coloured mud ct 
town and the West Hiding Asvh 
ted, woollen, and cloth "" 



brewbooaea, slaughter-in 
mills, and grease-works e 
surface covered with froi 
degree of lilthines: 
are entangled an 
objects. The scu 
for a considerable distance. 
is that from some extensi 1 
vitriol is largely emploved. 

The lngs Beck, to Which 1 have a!n 
few particular remarks, being the mosl 
the balder receives in this district. ) 



and has more that) 

rkinen emoloyed. About 

ulated to a depth of five 

lined off, at least two 

fish or living being of 

dge there has been a 

years, and any one in- 

idized sewage should not 

ids from the wheel. 

een at the grating through 

ooking from the bridge west- 

a large, open, shallow, almost 

character, with tracts of 

f the 

h the refuse of the 

malt-house 



t.lv (■xpofied. 



uses, dye-works, fibre 

iters by the drain just below ; its 
roth of every conceivable colour and 
erhungljy willows, in whose branches 
poaed t" view the most disgusting 
ay readily be traced down the river 
.mv. The last defilement of moment 
grease-works, in which oil of 



idy alluded, merits a 
important tributary 
'n the day I last ex- 



amined its 
general res' 
than water, 
colour, wh. 
Its bed ii 



FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

>utlet, the smell arising wa 
■mblanoe of the stream wai 
and it had a dirty, greasy, 
tre not coated by froth, b 
lted to a considerable 



most offensive. The 
rather to thick soup 
'ellowish, indigo-slate 
urn, or floating filth, 
by black, fcetid mud. 



: outlet partially obstructed by two large ash h< 
It may be observed, however, that this is perhaps the only 
place in the neighbourhood at present where refuse ashes 
have been tilted, and that, though the height of the water in 
the river alters considerably according to the state of the 
weather, the raising of the bed is due for the most part to 
matters washed down from a higher source. Such is the 
case with the mtseellaneuuslv constituted sediment dredged 
by the Calder and llebble Navigation Company iie»r the 
Wakefield dam, and with the shoal at I.upset pond above 
Wakefield ; an accumulation of ashes and dye-woods having 
risen in the latter situation during the last five or six years. 
Walking up the bank of the beck, one may form a fair idea 
of the kind of contamination received. Besides dead dogs, 
tin kettles, broken pots, old pans, boots, hats, etc., we find 
house-sinks and surface drains, public-house refuse and factors' 
privies flowing in unscrupulously, 
the mud upon the banks subsist i 
the neighbourhood of a 

railway waggon- maker's est; 
an artificial manure factory 
general pollution. 

At the bottom of ThomhiU Street are two strong foul 
streams, one of sewage, the other, on the day I visited it, 
discharging deep indigo-coloured stuff. Immediately above 
this the beck, though receiving muddy refuse from soma 
cement-works, was purple coloured, and where the branches 
of overhanging shrubs dipped beneath its surface, a polv- 
chroine froth and scum collected. A few hundred yards 
higher, having passed the place of entrance of the purple 
dye, the stream regained nearlv its original dirty indigo ap- 
pearance. Near the Low Hill bridge was a fall of hot mauve 
refuse, with several yards of rainbow-coloured sciitn. Where 
the water could be seen, in one light it would have a bluish 
tint, in another a dirty yellowish ; and the mud was deep 
and flocculent. Nearer Chald Lane there was an extremely 
filthy ditch, covered with bcuih, and loaded with the privy 
and house refuse of a large uumber of cottages and low 



Myriad- of annelides 

n the impurities ; that in. 

.varm sewer being, in fact, for somw 

led by sheets of moving pink. A. 

was a little while ago* 

ibuted greatly to the 







FORS ULAVIGERA. 



311 
of 



lodging-houses ; and a little higher two large 
thick purple dye refuse. Above the dam in this situation 
enter the waste of a dye-works and shoddy-mill, with the 
filthy privy and surface drains of Salt Pie Alley. The water 
here is the colour of the contents of a slop-pail, is almost 
stagnant, coated in patches of several yards with scum, and 
is in other respects very offensive. At Brooksbank a kind 
of long oblong pond is formed, two sides of which are of 
thick mud, one exposing the privy refuse and excrements in 
three drains from the neighboring cottages and lodging- 
houses ; and about here does or did recently enter the flush- 
ings of the cesspools from the prison with its sixteen hun- 
dred inmates, and the refuse of the chemicals used in the 
annual manufacture, dyeing, and bleaching of about seven 
hundred and iifty tons of matting. Balne Beck also enters 
at ibis point. Going upwards we find the Westgato Beck 
receiving the fouled water and other refuse of two large 
worsted-mills, of surface drains, of piggeries, and of privies ; 
then muddy water, apparently from some brick-vnrds, and 
hot waste from a large woollen-mill. Immediately above 
healthy green conferva begin to show themselves; long 
grass floats on the surface ; shrubs grow upon the banks ; 
and if a brown scum collects where the branches touch the 
surface, it has altogether a less disgusting character. Fairly 
out in the country the water is bright and clear, and boys 
bathe in it in summer when deep enough. 

Balue Beck is on the whole as yet tolerably clean, the 
sides only being lined with mud patched with red, and the 
stones at the bottom coated with long trails of green con- 
ferva.-. The principal impurities are from a soap-works, a 
coal-mine, a skin-preparing shed, and a brick-field. The 
Yorkshire Fibre Company did a short time since drain a 
large quantity of poisonous matter into the beck, but is at 
present restrained by an injunction. 

The Water Company's works are situated about two and 
a half miles below Waki-lield Bridge, and consequently re- 
ceive the water in an extremely unfavourable condition. It 
has received the unchecked and accumulating filth and pol- 
lution of -100,000 inhabitants (number now much greater), 
and their manufactures, to which Wakefield itself, with Its 
50,000 inhabitants, has contributed. The large live-stock 
market also, with its average sale of 800 beasts and (1,000 
sheep, has added a grave pollution. As if to show how 
completely we acquiesce in the abandoned corruption ot 






I 



312 FOBS CLMIGEUA. 

the stream, the putrefying carouses of animals — not only of 
dogs and cats, but of piirs. sheep, and calves — are allowed 
to drift along with their surfeiting 1 smell, until stopped of 
themselves ;it Stanley Kerry. On stirring up the nn, 
the bottom, (i Winchester ijuart of gas was rciarlilj Of 
by means of au inverted funnel, and was found, on examin- 
ation, tu consist chiefly of carbonic acid, light carin: 
IiviInjin n, sulphuretted hydrogen, and free nitrogen. 

It is nut easy to estimate accurately the effect of nuisance* 
of this kind on the public health. Two years and a half ago, 
whilst the waterworks were undergoing improvement, ami 
for some months the supply to the town KM men lj pumped 
up from the ri»« into tin- mains without nitration, th.- act- 
ual mortality did not appear directly to increase. This, 
however, may be explained by the fact that a peculiar at- 
mospheric condition is necessary in order to develop fully 
ihe death-bearing properties of impure water ; and it may 
be added that, as it was, and as I had occasion to repti 
to the Local Hoard at that time, there was a greater amount 
of diarrhcea, continued fever, erysipelas, o;!- . 
of cutaneous and subcutaneous cellular in (lamination ; while 
the inflammation generally was peculiarly liable to lake on 
the erysipelatous form and become unmanageable, and the 
convalescence from various diseases to be unwontedly inter* 
rupted and prolonged. Possibly this, and even an ini ; 
death-rate, had it occurred, might have been explained in 
part by other causes ; but 1 cannot resist the conviction that 
bad water as a beverage, and the taint which it com ill. lo- 
cates to the atmosphere, bear a most important pari both in 
causing actual disease and in weakening the powai of the 
constitution to bear up against disease, and so shorten life 
in that way. Greatly improved bouses have been built for 
the artisan class duringthe last few years ; greater attention 
has been paid to the ventilation of mills and workshops; the 
agitation for a. people's park, indicates how wide-awake the 
population is to the benefit of fresh air ; wages have in- 
creased ; the character of the food consumed is more closely 
inspected ; the drainage is more efficient ; many open sewers 
have been closed ; bad wells have been stopped ; but both 
the death-rate aod the amount of disease have increased ; 
the former reaching so high as '.'7.4 per thousand in the pres- 
ent year. The whole of the excess in this mortality is due 
to preventable disease, which includes diairhii'a. cholera, and 
typhoid, the poison of winch may unquestionably and ha 





FORS CLAVIGEIiA 



313 



frequently been known to be conveyed through water. An 
indication of the extent to which constitutional vigour has 
at the same time diminished, is found in the fact that less 
than twenty years ago to blister, bleed, and purge was the 



of the physi 



oil a 



Thi.- 



while 



r both dis 



nly did r 

strength to bee 



adeof treat- 
for the pa- 
r up against 
tow, I will vent- 
ure to say, that ninety-nine per cent, of our patients would 
sink under the depletory measures of bygone days ; and dur- 
ing last year, in a practice of only 2,700 patients, it was 
found necessary to prescribe no less than twenty-three gal- 
lons of cod-liver oil, and sixty-four ounces of quinine, to say 
nothing of nourishment anil stimulants. An atmosphere 
saturated with smoke, and shutting out instead of convey- 
ing the light of the sun, sedentary habits, dense population, 
and unhealthy pursuits, have doubtless shared in bringing 
about this general lowness of constitution ; but the healthy 
textural drainage and repair of the body, and consequently 
the perfect activity of its functions, can sc 
if, instead of pure water, it be supplied 1 
with which it is not organised to operate. 

1 have nothing to add respecting the mo 
of material fihhiness, since that is out of in 

k'iee, and other forms of intellectual 
i, if not originated, by mental de- 
t; the things which should, in the 
e, be pleasing and refreshing to the 
At least we are taught that 



rely da: 

insensibility, are fostei 
spair and disnppoiu 
ordinary course of : 



,pU, 

.■it!] a compound 

■al contamination 
I- province. But 



in the heavenly Ji 

throne of God is clear as cr 

to the tree of life for the hi 



the r 



which proceeds from the 
ring birth on either side 
the nations ; whereas 



" Upon the bunks a scurf, 
From the foil I Miv:mi i'uiiilciiw.1. encrust lul; hsmjTH, 
That hulds flniqi t'dinlmt. wii.h l!n> si^ln mill smell," 



freighted by devils, in the dingy regioi 
(Signed) 
Wakekiklo, 1WA October, lSGu. 

(The Commissioners at th 
ceived the utmost amount of 
was capable, — but it is much 



i of the damned. 
James Fowler. 



i said the river had re- 
lation of which a. river 



FOJtS CLAVIOERA, 



APPENDIX II. 



The business of mining is put in this subordin 



e there is already 
want in the world, if it be us 
of tliis surplus is even now to 
always a. loss. I did not know 
to recent gold-workings. Tin 
Athenifum of April 3 of tl 
worthy : — 



;d prude 



.tly i . 
imng, i 



than we 
id the effect 
n the whok\ 
.^tended even 
following extract from the 
i year is, I suppose, trust- 

i the SarUm Rum 



By Alexander Del Mar, M.B. (Bell and Sons.) 

It is not often that a volume which deals with such * 
subject as that which Mr. Del Mar has written on can be 
considered interesting by the general reader. Vet in the 
present instance this really might be the case if the reader 
were to occupy himself with those chapters in this work 
which deal with mining for the precious metals in America. 
A residence of some years in California has given Mr. Del 
Mar a practical acquaintance with the manner in which min- 
ing is conducted, and the history of that industry there from 
the commencement. This knowledge also has enabled him 
to describe with the vividness derived from actual knowledge 
the operations of the Spaniards in Central America while 
searching for gold from the fifteenth century onwards. The 
picture Mr. Del Mar draws of the results of the OUT* MOTA 
fiiimm which consumed both curlier and later seekers after 
wealth is indeed terrible. Empires were overthrown, and 
their industrious and docile populations were swept away in 
numbers almost beyond belief, or ground down by every 
(suffering which avarice, cruelty, and sensuality could inflict. 
The ultimate utter exhaustion both of conquerors and con- 
quered marks the period, reaching far into the eighteenth 
century, when forced labour was employed. The statement 
that "the Indies had become 'a sort of money '"(p. 03), ex- 




FOJiS CLAYItiEKA. 



315 



presses perhaps as forcibly as possible what the fate of the 
native inhabitants o£ Southern America was under the rule 
of the Spaniard. And if, during the comparatively short 
period that has elapsed since the famous discovery of gold 
at Mill Race in California, the reckless consumption of life 
has not been associated with the utter brutality which 
marked the conduct of the followers cf Cortez and Pizarro, 
the economic results are scarcely more satisfactory. Mr. 
Del Mar calculates that the outlitv on mining fur outweighs 
the proceeds ; he estimates that the £00,000,000 of gold 
produced in California from 384S to 185G inclusive "cost 
in labour alone some £450,000,000, or five times its mint 
 value" (p. 263). Nor is this estimate of the uett product 
even of the "Cumstock Lode" more favourable to the own- 
ers (p. 2(16). Here also the total cost is placed at five 
times the return. Beyond this the mining country is dev- 
astated. Destruction of timber, consequent injury to cli- 
mate, ruin to fertile land by hydraulic mining, are but a part 
of the injury. The scale on which operations are carried 
on may be judged from the fact that the aggregate length 
of the "mining ditches," or aqueducts, employed in bring- 
ing water to the mines, is put down as 6, 585 miles in Cali- 
fornia in 1879 (]). 'iW)\ These works are maintained at much 
cost. The reader will ask, ' How can such an industry con- 
tinue? The country is desolated, the majority of those em- 
ployed lore Why'isall this labour thus misapplied? The 
The spirit of gambling and the chance of a lucky 
ure the venturers on. The multitude forgot the misfort- 
i of the many, while they hope to be numbered among 
the fortuuate few. 



FOTiS CLA VZ9MBA, 



LETTER XC.— LETTER VI., NEW SERIES. 

"YKA, THE WORK. OF Ol'K HASPS, ESTABLISH TU.U17 IT." 

I am putting my house in order ; and would fain put my 
past work in order too, if I could. Some guidance, at least, 
may be given to the readers of l-'or* — or to its partial read- 
ers — in their choice of this or that number. To this and 
I have now given each monthly part its own name, indica- 
tive of its special subject. The connection of all these sub- 
jects, and of the book itself with my other books, may 
perhaps begin to show itself in this letter. 

The first principle of my political economy will be found 
again and again reiterated in all the said books, — that the 
material wealth of any country is the portion of its posses- 
sions which feeds and educates good men and women in it ; 
the connected principle of national policy being that the 
strength and puivernf ;i country dciirtid.s absolutely <v\ tin.' 
quantity of good men and women in the territorv of it, and 
not at al! on the extent of the territorv — still less on the num- 
ber of viie or stupid inhabitants. A good crew in a. good ship, 
however small, is a power ; but a bad crew in tha biggest 
ship — none, — -and the best crew in a ship cut in half by a 
collision in a hurry, not much the better for their numbers. 

Following out these two principles, I have farther, and 
i, taught that, briefly, the wealth of a country ia m its 
good men and women, and in nothing else : that the riches 
of England are good Englishmen ; of Scotland, good Scotch- 
; of Ireland, good Irishmen. This is first, and more or 
less eloquently, stated in the close of the chapter called 
the Veins of Wealth, of Unto thia /."•■/ ; and is scientifically, 
and in sifted terms, explained and enforced in Munera I'ul- 
veris. I have a word or two yet to add to what I have writ- 
ten, which I will try to keep very plai 



ind unfigurative. 



FORS CLAViaSJOl. 317 

It is taught, with all the faculty I am possessed of, in 
Sesame and Lilies, that in a state of society in which men 
and women are as good as they can be, (under mortal limi- 
tation,) the women will be the guiding and purifying power. 
In savage and embryo countries, they are openly oppressed, 
as animals of burden ; in corrupted and fallen countries, 
more secretly and terribly. I am not careful concerning the 
oppression which they are able to announce themselves, 
forming anti-feminine-slavery colleges and institutes, etc. ; 
but of the oppression which they cannot resist, ending in 
their destruction, I am careful exceedingly. 

The merely calculable phenomena of economy are indeed 
supposed at present to indicate a glut of them ; but our 
economists do not appear ever to ask themselves of what 
quality the glut is, or, at all events, in what quality it 
would be wisest to restrict the supply, and in what quality, 
educated according to the laws of God, the supply is at 
present restricted. 

I think the experience of most thoughtful persons will 
confirm me in saying that extremely good girls, (good chil- 
dren, broadly, but especially girl*,) usually (lit- young. Tin- 
pathos of their deaths is constantly used in poetry and nov- 
els ; but the power of the fiction rests, I suppose, on the 
fact that most persons of affectionate temper have lost their 
own May Queens or little Nells in their time. For my own 
part of grief, I have known a little Nell die, and a May Queen 
die, and a queen of May, and of December, also, die ; — all 
of them, in economists' language, 'as good as gold,' and in 
Christian language, 'only a little lower than the angels, anil 
crowned with glory and honour.' And I could count the 
like among my best-loved friends, with a rosary of tears. 

It seems, therefore, that God takes care, under present 
circumstances, to prevent, or at least to check, the glut of 
that kind of girls. Seems, I say, and say with caution — for 
perhaps it is not entirely in His good pleasure that these 
things are so. But. they being so, the question becomes 
therefore yet more imperative — how far a country paying 
this enforced tax of its good girls annually to heaven is 






313 



FOES CLAVIGEUA, 



wise in taking little account of the number it has left? for 
observe that, just beneath iliese girls of heaven's own, come 
another kind, who are just, earthly enough to be allowed to 
stay with us ; but who get, put out of the way into convents, 
or made mere sick-nurses of, or take to mending the irreme- 
diable, — {I've never got over the loss to me, for St. George's 
work, of one of the sort). Still, the nuns are always happy 
themselves ; and the nurses do a quantity of good that may 
be thought of as infinite in its own way ; and there's a 
chance of their being forced to marry a King of the Lom- 
bards and becoming Queen Theodolin'das and^the like : pass 
these, and we come to a kind of girl, just as good, but with 
less strong will* — who is more or less spoilable and mis- 
inanageable ; and these are almost sure to come to grief, by 
I lie faults of others, or merely by the general fashions and 
chances of the world. In romance, for instance, Juliet— 
Luoy Ash ton — Amy Robsart. In my own experience, I 
knew one of these killed merely by a little piece of foolish 
pride — the exactly opposite fault to .luliet's.f She was the 
niece of a most trusted friend of mv father's, also a much 



trusted friend 

Cock Robin-hood ; when 

Dowie, into 'Mr. Good-tti 



i likely t 



Heme Hill days of my 
transmute his name, Mr. 
tig otherwise clear about. 
His niece was an old sea-captain's only 
388, and may have been about twentv years 
'elve. She was certainly the most beauti- 
e English -Greek J type I ever saw, or ever 
f any type whatever. I've only sinoe seen 



* Or, it may 1m, Mtronjtrr nnim.ll pa«9iou,— a greater inferiority. 

f Juliet, being a girl of n noble Veronese house, had no business to 
fall in love at firet, sight with anybody. It is her humility that ii the 
death of her; and Imogen would have died in the same way. but for 
her helpful brothers. Of Desdemona, see Fur* for November 1877 
(vol. iv., p. 177). 

t By the English Greek type, I mean the features of the statue of 
Psyche at Naples, with lini-h'-jieiidllfd dark brows, rather dark hair, 
and bright pure colour. 1 never forgrt beautiful faces, nor confuse 
their orders of dignity, so that I am quite sure of the statement in the 






FO/IS CI.AYIQEHA. 



319 



one who could match hi 
mother was her only o 
ing mostly in gentle 
people, or was difficult 
with her father ; and did 



, but she was Norman-English. My 
ifidante in her love affairs : consist- 
iusals — not because she despised 
;o please, but wanted simply to stay 
serenely, modestly, and with 



avoidance of all pain she c 

quickly and firmly, never tempting or playing with them. 

At last, when she was some five or six and twenty, came 
one whom she bad no mind to dismiss ; and suddenly finding 
hereetf caught, she drew up like a hart at bay. The youth, 
unluckily for him, dared not push his advantage, lest he 
should be sent away like the rest ; and would not speak, — 
partly, could Dot, loving her better than the rest, and struck 
dumb, as an honest and modest English lover is apt to be, 
when he was near her ; so that she fancied he did not Due 
for her. At last, she came to my mother to ask what she 
should do. My mother said, " Go away for a while, — if be 
cares for you, he will follow you ; if not, there's no harm 



But she dared not put it to the 
on, where she could sometimes see ! 
pride, lest he should find out sh< 
worse than she had anybody eve 
piece of wisdom soon brought 
gave up all hope, went away, ai 
died of the then current plagi 
sister — I do not know whether 



touch, thu: 



but lingered 
:, in her girl's 
treated him 
Of course this 
nd. The youth 
n a month or two after, 
iholera : upon which his 
wrath or folly — told his 



liked bit 
before. 



showed her v 
piietly taking 



it she had 
ire of her 
with some 



mistress the whole matter, 

done. The poor girl went 

father, till his death, which soon followed ; th 

kindly woman-companion, went to travel, 

Some five or six years afterwards, my fathi 
and I were going up to Chamc 
under the Cascade de Che'de. ' 
beggar-girl, who always walked up beside the chars, not 
Ugly or cretinous, but inarticulate and wild-eyed, moaning a 
little at intervals. She came to be, in time, year after year, 
a part of the scene, which one would even have been sorry 



and mother 
by the old char-road 
used to be an idiot 






BBO 



FOBS CLAYIGKRA. 



the t'.'i) of the long hill, ami 
g, a lady got out of a char 
id ran up to ours, holding 



to have lost. As we drew near 
this girl had just ceased folio wi 
at some little distance behind, ; 
out her hands. 

We none of us knew her. There was something in the 
eyes like the wild look of the other's ; the face was wrinkled, 
and a little hard in expression —Alpine, now, in its beauty. 
"Don't you know SybillaV" said she. My mother made 
her as happy as she could for a week at Chamouni, — I am 
not sure if they ever met again : the girl wandered about 
wistfully a year or two longer, then died of rapid decline. 

1 have told this story in order to draw two pieces of gen- 
eral moral from it, which may perhaps be more useful than if 
they were gathered from fable. 

First, a girl's proper confidant is her father. If there is 
any break whatever in her trust in him, from her infancy t<i 
her marriage, there is wrong somewhere, — often on his part, 
but most likely it is on hers ; by getting into the babit of 
talking with her girl-friends about what they have no business 
with, and her father much. What she is not inclined to tell 
her father, should be told to no one ; and, in nine cases 
out of ten, not thought- of by herself. 

And I believe that few fathers, however wrong-headed or 
hard-hearted, would fail of answering the habitual and pa- 
tient confidence of their child with true care for her. On 
the other hand, no father deserves, nor can he entirely and 
beautifully win, his daughter's confidence, unless he loves 
her better than he does himself, which is not always the 
case. But again here, the fault may not be all on papa's 
side. 

In the instance before us, the relations between the moth- 
erless daughter and her old sea-captain father were entirely 
beautiful, hut not rational enough. He ought to have known, 
and taught his pretty Sybilla, that she had other duties in 
the world than those immediately near his own arm-chair ; 
and she, if resolved not to marry while he needed her, should 
have taken more care of her own heart, and followed my 
mother's wise counsel a,t once. 




FOBS CLAVIGBRA. 



321 



b should I 
rely, with 



lit the second place, when a youth is 1 
girl, ami feels that he is wise in lovin 
once tell her so plainly, and take lii.s c 
other suitors. No lover should have the insolence to think 
of being accepted at once, nor should any girl have the 
cruelty to refuse at once ; without severe reasons. If she 
simply doesn't like him, she may send him away for seven 
years or so — he vowing to live on cresses, and wear sack- 
cloth meanwhile, or the like penance : if she likes him a lit- 
tle, or thinks she might come lo like him in time, she may 
let him stay near her, putting him always on sharp trial to 
see what stuff he is made of, and requiring, figuratively, as 
many lion-skins or giants' heads as she thinks herself worth. 
The whole meaning and power of true courtship is Probation ; 
and it oughtn't to be shorter than three years at least, — 
seven is, to my own mind, the orthodox time. And these re- 
lations between the young people should be openly and 
simply known, not to their friends only, but to everybody 
who has the least interest in them : and a girl worth any- 
thing ought to have always half a dozen or so of suitors under 
vow for her. 

There are no words strong enough to express the general 
danger and degradation of the manners of mob-courtship, as 
distinct from these, which have become the fashion, — almost 
the law, — in modern times : when in a miserable confusion 
of candlelight, moonlight, and limelight — and anything but 
daylight, — in indecently attractive and insanely expensive 
dresses, in snatched moments, in hidden corners, in accidental 
impulses and dismal ignorances, young people smirk and 
ogle and whisper and whimper and sneak and stumble and 
Ilutter and fumble and blunder into what they call Love ; — 
expect to get whatever they like the moment they fancy it, 
and are continually in the danger of losing all the honour of 
life for a folly, and all the joy of it by an accident. 

Passing down from the class of good girls who have the 

power, if they had the wisdom, to regulate their lives instead 

of losing them, to the less fortunate classes, equally good — 

(jften, weighing their adversity in true balance, it might 

Vol. IV.— 21 




FOBS CLAVIGEBA. 



be conjectured, better.) — v 
and every provocation to i 
from their births, much ag 
tually, none to guide, — hoi 
of its girl-wealth to the Bri 
probably worse ; for if thei 
md they c" 



io have little power of ruling, 
isruling their fates : who have, 
inst them, few to help, and, vir- 
are we to count the annual low 
ish nation in these? Loss, and 
he fire and genius in these neg- 
to have beauty also, they are 



apt to become to us long-running, heavy burdening, incalcu- 
lable compound interest of perdition. God save them, and all 
of us, at last 1 

But, merely taking the pocket-book red-lined balance of 
the matter, what, in mere cash and curricle, do these bright 
reverses of their best human treasures cost the economical 
British race, or the cheerful French ? That account you 
would do well to cast, looking down from its Highgate upon 
your own mother — (of especially these sort of children ';) 
city ; or, in Paris, from the hill named, from the crowd of its 
Christian Martyrs, Mont Martre, upon the island m Seine 
named ' of our Lady ' — the He Notre Dame ; or, from top of 
Ingleborough, on all the south and east of Lancashire and 
Yorkshire, black with the fume of their fever-fretted Cities, 
rolling itself along the dales, mixed with the torrent mists. 
l>o this piece of statistic and arithmetic there, taking due 
note that each of these great and little Babylons, if even on 
the creditor side you may set it down for so much (dubitable) 
value of produce in dynamite and bayonet, in vitriol, brass, 
and iron, — yet on the debtor side has to account for annual 
deficit indubitable ! — the casting away of things precious, 
the profanation of thiiigs pure, the pain of things capable of 
happiness — to what sum ? 

I have told you a true story of the sorrow and death of 
a maid whom all who knew her delighted in. I want vou 
to read another of the sorrow and vanishing of one whom 
few, except her father, delighted in ; and none, in any real 
sense, cared for. A younger girl this, of high powers — and 
higher worth, as it seems to me. The story is told in absolute 
and simple truth by Miss Laffan, in her little grey and red 
book, — Bauble Clarke. (Blickwood and Sons. Edinburgh, 




FOBS CLAVIOBRA. 

1880.) " It al! happened in Edinburgh," Miss Laffan says 
in a private letter to me, "exactly as I relate : I went into 
every place in which this child was, in order to describe them 
and her, and I took great pains to give the dialect exactly. 
1 remember how disappointed you were to learn that Flitters' 
death was not true ; — this story is quit e true, from first to last." 
1 must leave my darling Baubie for a moment, to explain 
the above sentence with a word or two about my still better 
beloved Flitters, in Tatlers, Flitters and the Councillor. 
The study of those three children, given by Miss Laffan, is, 
in the deepest sense, more true, as well as more pathetic, 
than that of Baubie Clarke,— for Miss Laffan knows and sees 
the children of her own country thoroughly,* but she has no 
clear perceptions of the Scotch. Also, the main facts con- 
cerning Tatters and Flitters and their legal adviser are 
all true — bitterly and brightly true : but the beautiful and 
heroic death was — I could find it in my heart to say, un- 
happily, — not the young girl's. Flitters, when last I heard of 
her, was still iiviug her life of song ; such song as was pos- 
sible to her. The death, so faithfully and beautifully told, 
was actually that of an old man, an outcast, like herself. I 
have no doubt Flitters could, and would, have died so, had it 
become her duty, and the entire harmony of the story is per- 
fect ; but it is not so sound, for my purpose here, as the 
pure and straightforward truth of Baubie Clarke. 

I must give the rude abstract of it at once : Miss La (fan's 
detailed picture will not, I believe, be afterwards of less 



Baubie, just thirteen, lived with her father and mother, in 
lodgings, such as the piety of Edinburgh provides for her 
poor. The mother was a hopeless drunkard, her father the 
same — on Saturday nights ; during the week carrying adver- 

* II iacuri..ns. Ijy rl»; Wiiv.Iinw ti'itnllv Mi km |;.1l''^i>i[!i fnik-d in draw- 
ing Irish children, though aha could di> English unes perfectly— and hew 
Ut Bum Sfmpk Satan is than Tht Orphans — while her Irishmen and 
women are per feat, and nhe is, in fuut, the only classical authority in 
the matter 0'. Irish LhiiracLer. 



324 KOIIS CLAVIGERA. 

lisement-boards for what stipend that kind of service obtains. 
Baubie, a vagrant street-singer, is the chief support and 
guardian both of father and mother. She is taken captive 
one clay, at a street corner, by a passing benevolent Udy ; 
(I can't find out, and Miss Laffan is to be reprehended for 
this omission, if Baubie was pretty ! — in her wild way, I 
gather — yes ;) carried off to an institution of sempstresses, 
where she is cross-examined, with wonder, and some pity; 
but found to be an independent British subject, whose liber- 
ties, at that moment, cannot be infringed. But a day or 
two afterwards, her father coming to grief, somehow, and 
getting sent to prison for two months, the magistrate very 
properly takes upon him the responsibility of committing 
Baubie, in the meantime, lo .Miss Mackenzie's care. (I forget 
what becomes of the mother.) 

She is taken into a charitable, religious, and Mtremelj 
well-regulated institution ; she is washed and combed prop- 
erly, and bears the operation like a courageous poodle ; 
obeys afterwards what orders are given her, patiently and 
duly. To her much surprise and discontent, her singing, the 
chief pleasure and faculty of her existence, is at once stopped, 
under penalties. And, while she slays in the institution, she 
makes no farther attempt to sing. 

But, from the instant she heard her father's sentence in 
the police court, she lias counted days and hours. A perfect 
little keeper of accounts she is: the Judgment Angel him- 
self, we may not doubt, approving and assisting, so far as 
needful. She knows the day and the hour by the Tron 
church, at which her father, thinking himself daughterless, 
istful, from his prison gate. She is only 
md beautifully self-distrusting, of missing 



will be thrust out 
fearful, prudently a 
count of a day. 

In the dormitory i 
shutter, in the shade, 
punctual notch. 

And the weary sixty days pass by. The notches are 
oounted true to the last, — and on the last night, her 
all taken, and her points and methods of attack all planned, 



institution, on an unregarded 

, morning after morning she t 



liaubie, with a back- 

■em, — with tacit an- 
ient people of Edin- 
th is in theatres, as 
je-shops; and police. 



FORS CLAVIQERA. 325 

she opens the window-sash silently, leaps down into the 
flower-less garden, climbs its wall, cat-like, — Lioness-like,— 
and Dies into Edinburgh before ihe morning light, And at 
noon, her father, faltering through the prison gate, finds hei 
sitting on its step, waiting for him. 

And they two leave Edinburgh together, and are seen— 

On the cover of the book which tells you this ower-truf 
Scots novel, there is a rude woodcut of 
ground consisting of a bit of a theatre, 
and the advertisement window of a ta 
plication that, according to the benevi 
burgh, all the mischief they contend w 
against chapels ; taverns, as against oofi 
as against universal Script .tire- renders. 

Partly, this is true, — in the much greater part it is untrue; 
— and all through Furs you will find the contrary statement 
that theatres should bo pious places ; taverns, holy places, 
and policemen an irresistibly benevolent power : which, in- 
deed, they mostly are already ; and what London crossings 
and cart-drivings would be without them we all know. But 
1 can write no more on these matters myself, tn this Fora, 
and must be content to quote the following extremely beau- 
tiful and practical suggestion by Sir John Ellesmore, and so, 
for to-day, end. 

"I don't care much about music myself. Indeed, 1 often 
wonder at the sort of passionate delight which Milverton, and 
people like him, have in the tinkling of cymbals ; but I sup- 
pose that their professions of delight are sincere. J proposed 
to a grave statesman, who looked daggers at me for the pro- 
posal, that the surplus of the Irish Church revenues should 
be devoted to giving opera-boxes to poor people who are 
very fond of music. "\Y hat are you all giggling at? I'll 
bet any money that that surplus will not be half so well em- 
ployed. Dear old Peabody used to send orders for opera- 
boxes to poor friends. I was once present when one of these 
orders arrived for a poor family devoted to music ; and I 
declare I have seldom seen such joy manifested by any hu- 
man beings. I don't mind telling you that since that time, I 





326 FOHS OLA VIO ERA. 

have sometimes done something of the same kind myself 
Very wrong, of course, for 1 ought to have given the money 
to a hospital." 

In looking back over Mir» with a view to indices, I find 
the Notes and Correspondence in small print a great plague, 
and purpose henceforward to print all letters that are worth 
my reader's diligence in the Mine-sized type as my own talk. 
His attention is Hrst requested to the following very valuable 
one, originally addressed to the editor of the Ptnafts'SJlKiti 
Jowmal; wbenoe reprinted, it was forwarded to jih-, ud il 
here gladly edited again; being the shortest and sensible*! 
I ever got yet on the vegetarian side. 



Vegetarianism. — u Sir,- 
four vegetarian children, n 
space in favour of a cause « 
a subject for jest rather tint 
out aiming at convincing m 



,, I won 

.ider th: 



d mother of 
dly grant me a little 
a seemingly regard as 
 With 



 •gel: 



hi ap[>eal principally 

s cause, if they wish K 

robust healthy children 






s,l 



enjoy good rest at nights t 

who are never fevered with fatty soups, w itDOW i 
the question about the use or abuse of the lower a 
would direct your attention to our own species — 
women— and the benefit of vegetarianism as regards them 
only, economy being one of my pleas ; health, comfort, and 
cleanliness the others. Look on the lower masses who live 
in fever duns, dress iri rags, are constant claimants of charity, 
invariable exhibitions of dirt and disease ; and go when you 
like to their dens, what fries of steaks and pork do you not 
sniff up, with the other compounds of abominations ! Look 
at the other picture. Scotsmen are all the world over fore- 
men in workshops and leaders of men. Who are the best 
men in Scotland but these porridge-fed, abstemious, clear- 
headed Aberdonians, who only grow weakly and unhealthy 
when they grow out of the diet that made their positions, 
and take to the customs about thein ? Is the man or woman 
to be laughed at, or admired, the most who can be content 
with a bit of bread or a basin of porridge as a meal, that he 
) buy clothes or books, or take a better hoi 
ave something to lay past for education, a 
give in charity after he lias paid his debts ; or is the custom 
to be advocated that encourages gorging three or four t 



lay be able t 
j live in, or h 



FOBS CLAYIHERA. 



a-day with all sorts 
workman, when his v 
Sir, to me — a vegeta; 
appears that no oon 
while poverty exists. 
; matter to d< 



i lu: 



to say from the personal ex peril 
healthier ami stronger than I 
strong children, who ncvi 
oatmeal porridge and pei 
the taste of beef, butter, 
a night's rest from thei 
food, but a drink of butt 
dinner,and through thet 
to the health of my childi 
out the hi 
that line 1 



leaning, to tho 

, slack, starvation or dependence? 

both from clioice and necessity — it 

jn of life can justify that practice 

As regards the laws of health I ieavt 

to take up and discuss. 1 have only 



of five years that 1 t 

> before, have healthy, 

mre a doctor, and who live on 

ntiocks, but who do not know 

i, and Woo have never lost me 

h. Porridge is our principal 

; or an orange often serve our 

ved 1 have been able to attend 

id the duties of my home with- 

of a domestic servant, my experiments in 

iornpletc failure. 

" I am, etc., Helen Nwbet. 
"35 Lome Street, Leith Walk." 

I am in correspondence with the authoress of this letter, 
and will give the results arrived at in next Fora, only saying 
now that Walter Scott, Burns, and Cnrlyle, are, among tho 
immortals, on her side, with a few other wise men, such as 
Orpheus, St. Benedict, and St. Bernard ; and that, although 
under the no less wise guidance of ihe living Kseulapius, Sir 
William Gull, (himself dependent much for diet on Abigail's 
gift to David, a bunch of raisins,) I was cured of my last 
dangerous illness with medicine of mutton-chop, and oysters ; 
it is conceivable that these drugs were in reality homoeo- 
pathic, and hairs of the dogs that bit me. I am content 
to-day to close the evidence for the vegetarians with Orpheus' 
Ilvmu to the Earth : — 
" Oh Goddess Eni'th, mother of the linjipy Gods and of mortal men. 

All -nursing, all-giving, oil-bearing, a ll- destroying ; 

Increasing in blossom, heavy with fruit, overflowing with beauty, 

Throne of eternal ordinance, infinitely adiiroed girl. 

Who nearest in birth-pang all manner of fruit ; 

Eternal, all- honoured, deep -hearted, happy-fated; 

Rejoicing in meadow sweetness, deity of II ower- multitude. 

And joyful in Ihy Night , round whom the fuirwrought order of the 




328 FOR8 CLAVIOERA. 

Rolls in its everlasting nature and dreadful flowing ; 
Ob bleuvd soddeM, buMMI thy fruits in gladness. 
And through thy happy seasons in kindness of tool." 

The second, and ID this number terminal letter, which I 
have to recommend to the render's study, is one from the 
agents to the Dean and Chapter of Chester, as follows : — 

"St Werburgh Chambers, Chester, April 17. 1683. 
"Sir, — Our attention has just been called to an anony- 
mous letter contained in your Font — vol, iv. — reflecting- on 
the Dean and Chapter of Chester in the management of their 
property. The paragraph occurs at p. 304, and commences 
thus : ' Only a week ago,' etc. ; and ends, • With an irresist- 
ible tongue, 1 etc. 

"Our answer is : — The Dean and Chapter have never re- 
fused to grant a lease to an eligible man, but have always 
complied when asked. They have nut "raised all the rents,' 
etc., but have materially reduced most of them since they 
igcnts never interfere with 
iift.-st.ly exhaustive ; and the 
the land to be sown,' etc., 
ir agents,' is untrue. Thev 
mating [sic) on their estale 
 extent at all. Surely 'tlie 
deserve to be 



acquired their property. 
the modes of fanning unless inai 
statement that they ' only allow 
on a ' personal inspection of thi 
never heard of any 'poverty pr 
alarming extent,' 



Workmen and labourers of Great Britain 
approached with verified facts, and not thus, 

"Yours obediently, Townsh end and Bakkcs. 

(Agents to the Dean and Chapter of Chester.) 
"Jno. Ruskin, Esq., LL.D." 

The only notice which it seems to me necessary to take of 
this letter is the expression of my satisfaction in receiving 
it, qualified with the recommendation to the Very Rev 1 the 
Dean and Rev 3 *' the Chapter of Chester, to advise their 
agents that ' prevailing ' is usually spelt with an ' \.' 

John Ku skin. 

Bbantwood. 98nl April. 1883. 




FOES CLAYIGERA. 



LETTER XCI.— (LETTER VIL, NEW SERIES.) 



ispondeuts, 
a beauty in 



mly do it be- 



:e, that the 
as that of 



I have receive*! several letters from young corr 
complaining that I attach too much importance t 
women, and asking. "What are plain girls to do? 
them putting this farther question, i 
"Why beauty is so often given to girls who have only the 
mind to misuse it, and not to others, who would hold it as a 
power for God's service?" To which question, however, it 
is to be answered, in the first place, that the mystery is quite 
as great in the bestowal of riches and wit ; in the second 
place, that the girls who misuse their beauty, < 
cause they have not been taught better, and it h 
other people's fault than theirs ; in the third pli 
privilege of seeing beauty is quite as rare a on< 
possessing it, and far more fatally misused. 

The question, " What are plain girls to do?" requires us 
first to understand clearly what ,; plainness" is. No girl who 
is well bred, kind, and modest, is ever offensively plain ; all 
real deformity means want of manners, or of heart. I may 
say, in defence of my own constant praise of beauty, that I 
do not attach half the real importance to it which is assumed 
in ordinary fiction ; — above all, in the pages of the periodical 
which best represents, as a whole, the public mind of Eng- 
land. As a rule, throughout the whole seventy-volume 
series of Punch, — first by Leech and then by Da Maurier, — 
all nice girls are represented as pretty ; all nice women, 
as both pretty and well dressed ; and if the reader will coin- 
pare a sufficient number of examples extending over a series 
of years, he will find the moral lesson more and more en- 
forced by this most popular authority, that all real ugliness 






330 



FOBS VLAYIGERA. 



in either sex means some kind of hardness of heart, or vul- 
garity of education. The ugliest man, for all in all, in And 
is Sir Gorgius Midas, — the ugliest women, those who are 
unwilling to be old. Generally speaking, indeed, Punch ii 
cruel to women above a certain age ; but this is the expres- 
sion of a real truth in modern England, that the ordinary 
habits of life and modes of education produce great plain- 
ness of mind in middle-aged women. 

I recollect three examples \a the course of only the last 
four or five mouths of railway travelling. The most in- 
teresting and curious one was a young woman evidently of 
good mercantile position, who carac into the carriage with 
her brother out of one of the manufacturing districts. Both 
of them gave me the idea of being amiable in disposition, 
and fairly clever, perhaps a little above the average in 
natural talent ; while the sister bad good features, and was 
not much over thirty. But the face was fixed in an iron 
hardness, and keenly active incapacity of any deep feeling 
or subtle thought, which pained me almost as much as  
physical disease would have done ; and it was an extreme 
relief to me when she left the carriage. Another type, pure 
cockney, got in one day at Paddiugton, a girl of the lower 
middle class, round-headed, and with the most profound ami 
sullen expression of discontent, complicated with ill-temper, 
that I ever saw on human features : — I could not at first be 
certain how far this expression was innate, and how far 
superinduced ; but she presently answered the question by 
tearing open the paper she had bought with the edge of her 
hand into jags half an inch deep, all the way across. 

The third, a far more common type, was of self-possessed 
and all-engrossing selfishness, complicated with stupidity ;— 
a middle-aged woman with a novel, who put up her window 
and pulled down both blinds (side and central) the moment 
she got in, and read her novel till she fell asleep over it : 
presenting in that condition one of the most stolidly dis- 
agreeable countenances which could be shaped out of organic 
clay. 

In both these latter cases, as in those of the girls described 






FOJiS CLAVIGERA. 



331 



in For* II., p. 14G, the offensiveness of feature implied, for 
one thing, a constant vexation, and diffused agony or misery, 
endured through every moment of conscious life, together 
with toial d uluess of sensation respecting delightful and 
beautiful things, summed in the passage just referred to as 
" tortured indolence, and infidel eves," and given there as an 
example of "life negative, tinder the curse," the state of 
condemnation which begins in this world, and separately 
affects every living member of the body ; the opposite state 
of life, under blessing, being represented by the Venice- 
imagined beauty of St, Ursula, in whose countenance what 
beauty there may be found (1 have known several people who 
saw none, and indeed Carpaccio has gifted her with no 
dazxling comeliness) depends mainly on the opposite char- 
a cut ""if diji'ii.*i.d j'\v, and ecstacy in peace. 

And in places far too many to indicate, both of Fors and 
my Oxford lectures, I have spoken again and again of this 
radiant expression of cheerfulness, as a primal element of 
Beauty, quoting Chaucer largely on the matter; and clinch- 
ing all, somewhere, (I can't look for the place now,) by say- 
ing that the wickedness of any nation might be briefly 
measured by observing how far it had made its girls miser- 

I meant this quality of cheerfulness to be included, above, 
in the word " well-bred," meaning original purity of race 
(Chaucer's "debonnairete") disciplined in courtesy, and the 
exercises which develop animal power and spirit. I do not 
in the least mean to limit the word to aristocratio birth and 
education. Gotthelf's Swiss heroine, Freneli, to whom I 
have dedicated, in Proserpina, the pansy of the Wengem 
Alp, is only a farm-servant ; and Scott's Jeatiie Deans is of 
the same type in Scotland. And among virtuous nations, or 
the portions of them who remain virtuous, as the Tyrolese and 
Bavarian peasants, the Tuscans (of whom I am happily en- 
abled to give soon some true biography and portraiture), and 
the mountain and sea-shore races of France, England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, almost everybody is "well-bred," and the 
girlish beauty universal. Here in Cotiiston it is almost im- 






332 FORS CLAVIOBHA. 

possible to meet a child whom It is not a real sorrow agaiii 
to lose sight of, So that the second article of St. George's 
creed, "I believe in the nobleness of human nature," mav 
properly be considered as involving the farther though minor 
belief in the loveliness, of the human form ; and in my nest 
course of work at Oxford, I shall have occasion to insist at. 
some length on the reality and frequency of beauty in 
ordinary life, as it has been shown us by the popular art of 
our own day. This frequency of it, however, supposing we 
admit the fact, in no wise diminishes the burden to be sus- 
tained by girls who are conscious of possessing less than 
these ordinary claims to admiration ; nor am I in the least 
minded to recommend the redemption uf their loneliness by 
any more than common effort to be good or wise. On the 
contrary, the prettier a girl is, the more it becomes her duly 
to try to be good ; and little can be hoped of attempts to 
cultivate the understanding, which have only been provoked 
by a jealous vanity. The real and effective sources of con- 
solation will be found in the quite opposite direct ion, of self- 
forgetfulness ; — in the cultivation of sympathy with others, 
and in turning the attention and the heart to the daily 
pleasures open to every young creature bom into this mar- 
vellous universe. The landscape of the lover's journey mav 
indeed be invested with authorial colours, and his steps be 
measured to heavenly tunes unheard of other ears ; but there 
is no sense, because these selfish and temporary raptures are 
denied to us, in refusing to see the sunshine on the river, or 
hear the lark's song in the sky. To some of my young 
readers, the saying may seem a hard one ; but they may rest 
assured that the safest and purest joys of human life rebuke 
the violence of its passions ; that they are obtainable with- 
out anxiety, and memorable without regret. 

Having, therefore, this faith, or more justly speaking, this 
experience and certainty, touching the frequency of pleasing 
feature in well bred and modest girls, I did not use the phrase 
in last Fbr», which gave (as I hear) great offence to some 
feminine readers, "a girl tevrth anything," exclusively, or 
even chiefly, with respect to attractions of person ; but very 






FORS CLA VIGEIiA. 



333 



[ solemnly 



i the full i 



i of V 



worthiness, or (re- 
1-worthiiiess, whicii 
qualifies a girl to be the ruling Sophia of an all-worthy work- 
man, yeoman, squire, duke, king, or Caliph ;■ — not to calculate 
the advance which, doubtless, the luxury of Mayfair and the 
learning of Gtrtoo must have made since the days when it 
was written of Koot el Kuloob, or Enees-el Jelees, that " the 
sum of ten thousand pieces of gold doll) not equal the cost of 
the chickens which she hath eaten, and the dresses which she 
hath bestowed on her teachers ; for she hath learned writing, 
and grammar, and lexicology, and the interpretation of the 
Koran, and the fundamentals of law, and religion, and medi- 
cine, and the computation of the Calendar, and the art of 
playing upon musical instruments,"* — not calculating, I say, 
any of these singular powers or preeiousnesses, but only 
thinking of the constant value generalized among the King's 
verses, by that notable one, " Every wise woman buildeth her 
house ; but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands," — 
and seeing that our present modes of thought and elements 
of education are not always so arranged as to foster to their 
utmost the graces of prudence and economy in woman, it was 
surely no over-estimate of the desirableness of any real house- 
builder among girls, that she should have five or six suitors 
at once under vow for her? Vow, surely also of no oppres- 
sive or extravagant nature ! I said nothing of such an one 
as was required by Portia's father of her suitors, and which 
many a lover instinctively makes, in his own bosom, — " her, 
or none." I said nothing of any oath of allegiance prevent- 
ing the freedom of farther search or choice ; — but only the 
promise of the youth that, until he saw one better worth win- 
ning, he would faithfully obey his chosen mistress's will in 
all things ; and suffer such test as she chose to put him to : 
it being understood that at any time he had the power as 
openly to withdraw as he had openly accepted the candida- 
ture. 

The position of Waverley towards Flora Maclvor, of Lord 

Evandale to Miss Bellenden, of Lovell to Miss Wardour, 

* Arabian A'uj/iis, Lane's translation, i U02. 






334 F0S8 GLAVtOERA. 

Tressilian to Amy Robsart, or Quentin Durward to the 
Countess Isabel, are all in various ways illustrative of tins 
form of fidelity in more or less hopeless endeavour : while 
also the frankness of confession is assumed both by Miss 
Edge worth and Richardson, as by Shakespeare, quite to the 
point of entire publicity in the social circle of the lovers.* 
And I am grieved to say that the casual observations which 
have come to my ears, since last For* appeared, as to thee 
absurdity and impossibility of such devotion, only further- 
prove to me what I have long since perceived, that very few- 
young people, brought up on modern principles, have ever- 
felt love, or even know what it means, except under the con- 
ditions in which it is also possible to the lower animals. I 
enuld easily prove this, if it were apposite to my immediate 
purpose, and if the subject were not too painful, by the evi- 
dence given me in a single evening, during which I watched 
the enthusiastic acceptance by an English audience of 8*1- 
vini's frightful, and radically false, interpretation of Othello. 
Were I to yield, as I was wont in the first series of these 
letters, without scruple, to the eddies of thought which turned 
the main stream of my discourse into apparently irrelevant, 
and certainly un progressive inlets, I should in this place pro- 
ceed to show how true-love is inconsistent with railways, with 
joint-stock banks, with the landed interest, with parliament- 
ary interest, with grouse shooting, with lawn tennis, with 
monthly magazines, spring fashions, and Christmas cards. 
But I am resolute now to explain myself in one place before 
becoming enigmatic in another, and keep to my one point 
until I have more or less collected what has been said about 
it in former letters. And thus continuing to insist at prcs 
ent only on the worth or price of womanhood itself, and of 
the value of feminine creatures in the economy of a state, 1 
must ask the reader to look back to Fors I. (Letter IV., p, 48), 

* See the decision of Mies lironiihurat in the thirteenth chapter of 
the Abteulee ; ami the murishipb to Harriet Byron, ptaim. The rela- 
tions of France to Cordelia, of Henry V to the Princess Katharine, and 
of the Duke to Olivia, are enough to name among the many instances 
in Shakespeare. 




FOBS CLAVIQEBA. 335 

where I lament my awn poverty in not being able to buy a 
white girl of (in jaweuWs language) good lustre and facet- 
ting ; as in another place I in like manner bewail the present 
order of society in that I cannot make a raid on my neigh- 
bour's house, and carry off three graceful captives at a time ; 
and in one of the quite most important pieces of all the book, 
or of any of my books, the essential nature of real property 
in general is illustrated by that of the two primary articles of 
a man's wealth, Wife, and Home ; and the meaning of the 
word " mine," said to be only known in its depth by any man 
with reference to the Grst. And here, for further, and in its 
sufficiency 1 hope it may be received bs a final, illustration, 
read the last lines (for I suppose the terminal lines can only 
be received as epilogm.*) of the play by which, in all the com- 
pass of literature, the beauty of pure youth has been chiefly 
honoured ; there are points in it deserving notice besides the 
one needful to my purpose : — 

Prinet.  Where be these enemies ? Capulet ! Montague I 
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate. 
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love I 
And I, for winking at your discords too, 
Have lost a brace of kinsmen :— all are puniah'd. 

Oop. " brother Jlontague. give me thy hand : 

This is my daughter's jointure, (or no more 
Can I demand. 

Mont. " Bnt I can give thee more J 

For I will raise her statue in pure gold ; 
That, while Vituiiu In- ib:it nume is known, 
There shall no figure at such rate be set, 
As that of true and faithful Juliet 

Cop. "As rich shall Romeo by bis lady He; 

Poor sacrifices of our enmity." 

I do not know if in the tumultuous renderings and reckless 
abridgments of this play on the modern stage, the audience 
at any theatre is ever led to think of the meaning of the 
Prince's saying, " That heaven finds means to kill your joy* 
with love." Yet in that one line is the key of Christian 
theology and of wise natural philosophy ; the knowledge of 






336 



FORS CLAVIG/CRA. 



the law that binds the yoke of inauspicious stars, and ordains 
the slumber of world-wearied flesh. 

Look back to Friar Laurence's rebuke of the parent's grief 
at Juliet's death,— 



and you will find, in the concluding lines, not only the in- 
terpretation of the I'rincc's meaning, but a clear light tlirowi» 
on a question lately, in some one of our critical magazines,. 
more pertinently asked than intelligently answered — ** Why 
Shakespeare wrote tragedies ?" One of my chief reasons for 
withdrawing from the later editions of Sesame and Lilies the 
closing lecture, on the "Mystery of Life," was the feeling 
that I had not with enough care examined the spirit of faith 
in God, and hope in Futurity, which, though unexpressed, 
were meant by the master of tragedy to be felt by the spec- 
tator, what they were to himself, the solution and consolation 
of all the wonderfulness of sorrow ; — a faith for the most 
part, as I have just said, unexpressed ; but here summed in 
a single line, which explains the instinctive fastening of the 
heart on the great poetic stories of grief, — 

" For Nature 'a ten™ ore Reason's merriment. " 

Returning to the terminal passage of the play, may I now 
ask the reader to meditate on the alchemy of fate, which 
changes the youth and girl into two golden statues ? Admit 
the gain in its completeness ; suppose that the gold had in- 
deed been given down, like Danae's from heaven, in exchange 
for them ; imagine, if you will, the per fee test art-skill of 
Bezaleel or Aholiah lavished on the imperishable treasures. 
Verona is richer, is she, by so much bullion ? Italy, by so 
much art? Old Montagu o and Capulet have their boy's and 
girl's "worth" in gold, have they ? And though for every 
boy and girl whom now you exile from the gold of English 
harvest and the ruby of Scottish heath, there return to you, 
loving friends, their corpses' weight, and more, in Califor- 






FORB GLAYIGERA. 



3S7 



nian sand, — is your bargain with God's bounty wholly to 
your mind 1 or if so, think yon that it is to His, also ? 

Yet 1 will not enter here into any dehate of Iobs by exile, 
and national ostracism of our strongest. I keep to the esti- 
mate only of our loss by helpless, reckless, needless death, 
the enduring torture at the bolted theatre door of the world, 
and on the staircase it has smoothed to Avernus. 

'Loss of life' ! By the ship overwhelmed in the river, 
shattered on the sea; by the mine's blast, the earthquake's 
burial — voti mourn for the multitude slain. You cheer the 
lifeboat's crew : you hear, with praise and joy, of th« rescue 
of one still breathing body more at the pit's mouth : — and all 
the while, for one soul that is saved from the momentary 
passing away {according to your creed, to be with its tiod), 
the lost souls, yet locked in their polluted flesh, haunt, with 
worse than ghosts, the shadows of your churches, and the 
corners of your streets ; and your weary children watch, with 
no memorv of Jerusalem, and no hope of return from their 
captivity, the weltering to the sea of your Waters of Babylon. 
Vol. IV.— 88 



338 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 



LETTER XCIL— (LETTER VIIL, NEW SERIES). 



A8HK8TIKL. 



Abbotspord, September 26tA, 1883. 

I can never hear the whispering and sighing of the Tweed 
among his pebbles, but it brings back to me the song of my 
nurse, as we used to cross by Coldstream Bridge, from the 
south, in our happy days. 

44 For Scotland, my darling, lies full in my view, 
With her barefooted lassies, and mountains ro blue." 

Those two possessions, you perceive, my poor Euryclea felt 
to be the chief wealth of Scotland, and meant the epithet 
* barefooted ' to be one of praise. 

In the two days that have past since I this time crossed 
the Border, I have seen but one barefooted lassie, and she 
not willingly so, — but many high-heeled ones : — who will- 
ingly, if they might, would have been heeled yet higher. 
And perhaps few, even of better minded Scots maidens, re- 
member, with any due admiration, that the greater part of 
Jeanie Deans' walk to London was done barefoot, the days 
of such pilgrimage being now, in the hope of Scotland, for 
ever past ; and she, by help of the high chimneys built be- 
side Holyrood and Melrose, will henceforward obtain the 
beatitude of Antichrist, — Blessed be ye Rich. 

Nevertheless, it is worthy of note that in the village 
where Bruce's heart is buried, I could yesterday find no bet- 
ter map of Scotland than was purchaseable for a penny, — 
no clear sign, to my mind, either of the country's vaster 
wealth, or more refined education. Still less that the spot 
of earth under which the kind's heart lies should be indi- 
cated to the curious observer by a small white ticket, pegged 



FOllS CI.AYt'lKllA. 



339 



into the grass ; which might at first sight seem meant to 
mark the price of that piece of goads ; and indeed, if one 
meditates a little on the matter, verily does so ; this piece 
of pasteboard being nothing less than King Robert Bruce's 
monument and epitaph ; and the devotional offering of 
Scotland in the nineteenth century, at his shrine. Econom- 
ical, even in pasteboard, as compared with the lavish ex- 
penditure of that material by which the ' Scots wha hae,' 
etc., receive on all their paths of pilgrimage the recom- 
mendation of Col man's mustard. 

So much, looking out on the hillside which Scott planted 
in his pride, and the garden he enclosed in the joy of his 
heart, 1 perceive to be the present outcome of his work in 
literature. Two small white tickets — one for the Bruce, the 
other for Michael Scott : manifold acreage of yellow tickets 
— for Colman's mustard. Thus may we measure the thirst 
for knowledge excited by modern Scottish religion, and sat- 
isfied by modern Scottish education. 

Whithorn, October Srrf, 1883. 
As the sum of Sir Walter's work at Melrose, so here the 
sum of St. Minimi's at Candida Casa, may be set down in 
few and sorrowful words. I notic* that the children of the 
race who now for fifteen hundred years have been taught in 
this place the Word of Christ, are divided broadly into two 
, very bright and trim, strongly and sensibly 
ssed, satchel on shoulder, and going to or from 
lroad ; walking away, after being deposited at 
a brisk and independent manner. But 
le earthy broadway between the desolate- 
hich form the main street of Whithorn, as 
i of open ground which borders the great 
weir and rapid of the Nith at Dumfries, I saw wistfully 
errant groups of altogether neglected children, barefoot 
enough, tattered in frock, begrimed in face, their pretty 
long hair wildly tangled or ruggedly matted, and the total 
bodies and spirits of them springing there by the wayside 
like its thistles, — with such care as Heaven gives to th» 



shod and 
school by 

the small 
up and di 
looking he 
also in thi 






FOIiS CLAVIGEBA. 



herbs of the field, — and Het 
the Rock. 

They 
tells me 



s Adversary to the seed t 



■e many of tliem Irish, the Pastor of Whithorn 
■tlip parents too poor to keep a priest, one coming 
over from Wigton sometimes for what ministration may be 
imperative. This the ending of St. Ninian's prayer and fast 
in his dark sandstone cave, filled with the hollow roar o£ 
Sol way, — now that fifteen hundred years of Gospel limes 
have come and gone. 

This the end : but of what is it to be the beginning? of 
what tiew Kingdom of Heaven are that children I 

To what Christ are these to be allowed to c 
Hion, unforbidden? 



Bhantwood, October 10W, 1883. 

The above two entries arc all I could get written of thing* 
felt and seen during ten days in Scott's country, and St, 
Ninian's ; somewhat more I must set down before the im- 
pression fades. Not irrelevantly, for it is my instant object 
in these resumed letters to index and enforce what I have 
said hitherto on early education ; and while, of all countries, 
Scotland is that which presents the main questions relating 
to it in the clearest form, my personal knowledge and feel- 
ings enable me to arrange aught I have yet to say more 
easily with reference to the Scottish character than anv 
other. Its analysis will enable me also to point out some 
specialties in the genius of Sir Walter, Burns, and Carlvle, 
which English readers cannot usually discern for themselves. 
1 went into the Border country, just now, chiefly to see the 
house of Ashes tie! : and this morning have re-read, with 
better insight, the chapter of Lockhart's life which gives ac- 
count of the sheriff's settlement there ; in which chapter 
there is incidental notice of Mungo Park's last days in Scot- 
land, to which I first pray my readers' close attention. 

Mungo had been born in a cottage at Fowlsheils on the 
Yarrow, nearly opposite Newark Castle. He returns after 
his first African journey to bis native cottage, where Scott 
visits him, and finds him on the banks of Yarrow, which in 




FORB CLAVIGEHA. 341 

that place passes over ledges of rock, forming deep pools 
hetween tliein. Mungo is casting stone after stone into the 
pools, measuring their depths by the time the bubbles take 
to rise, and thinking (as he presently tells Scott) of the way 
he used to sound the turbid African rivers. Meditating, his 
friend afterwards perceives, on further travel in the distant 
land. 



With what motive, it is important for us to know. As a 
discoverer — as a missionary — or to escape from ennui ? He is 
at that time practising as a physician among his own people. 
A more sacred calling cannot be ; — by faithful missionary 
Bervice more good could be done among fair Scotch laddies 
in a day, than among black Hamites in a lifetime ; — of 
discovery, precious to all humanity, more might be made 
among the woods and rocks of Ettriclc than in the thousand 
leagues of desert between Atlas and red Edom. Why will 
he again leave his native stream? 

H is clearly not mere baseness of petty vanity that moves 
him. There is no boastfulness in the man. "On one occa- 
Biou," says Scott, " the traveller communicated to him some 
very remarkable adventures which had befallen him in 
Africa, but which he had not recorded in his book." On 
Soott's asking the cause of this silence, Mungo answered 
that " in all cases where he had information to communicate, 
which he thought of importance to the public, he had stated 
the facts boldly, leaving it to his reaili-rs to give such credit 
to his statements as they might appear justly to deserve ; 
but that he would not shock their faith, or render his travels 
more marvellous, by introducing riicumstiiiices which, how- 
ever true, were of little or no moment, as they related solely 
to his own personal adventures and escapes." 

Clearly it is not vanity, of Alpine-club kind, that the Old 
Serpent is tempting this man with. Hut what then '' " His 
thoughts had always continued to be haunted with Africa." 
He told Scott that whenever he awoke suddenly in the night, 
he fancied himself still a prisoner in the tent of Ali ; hut 
when Scott expressed surprise that he should intend again 
to re-visit those scenes, he answered that he would rather 



342 FOItS CLAVIGEIiA. 

brave Africa and all its horrors, iban " wear out his life in 
long and toilsome rides over the hills of Scotland, for which 
the remuneration was hardly enough to keep soul and body 
together.''' 

I have italicized the whole sentence, for it is a terrific one. 
It signifies, if you look, into it, almost total absence of the 
instinct of personal duty, — total absence of belief in the God 
who chose for him his cottage birthplace, and set him his 
life-task beside it ; absolute want of interest in his profes- 
sion, of sense for natural beauty, and of compassion for the 
noblest poor of his native land. And, with these absences, 
there is the clear presence of the fatallest of the vices, 
Avarice, — in the exact form in which it was the ruin 01 
Scott himself, — the love of money for the sake of worldly 

I have purposely placed the instinct for natural beautv, 
and compassion for the poor, in the same breath of the sen- 
tence ; their relation, as I hope hereafter to show, is con- 
stant. And the totid want of compassion, in its primary 
root of sympathy, is shown in its naked fearsomeness in the 
next sentence of the tale. 

"Towards the end of the autumn, Park paid Seott a fare- 
well visit, and slept at Ashestiel. Next morning- his host 
accompanied him homewards over the wild chain of hills be- 
tween the Tweed and the Yarrow. Park talked much of 
his new scheme, and mentioned his determination to tell hi* 
family that he hadsome business for a dug or two in Edin- 
burgh, and send them his blessing from thence without return- 
ing to take leave." He had married not long before a pretty 
and amiable woman ; and when they reached the William- 
hope Kidge, " the autumnal mist floating heavily and slowly 
down the valley of the Yarrow " presented to Scott's imagi- 
nation "a striking emblem of the trouhled and uncertain 
prospect which his undertaking afforded." He remained 
however unshaken, and at length they reached the spot 
where they had agreed to separate. A small ditch divided 
the moor from the road, and in going over it, Park's horse 
stumbled and nearly fell. 




foil. 



tho: 



FOBS CLAVIOERA. 343 

■aid, Mmigo," said the sheriff, "that is a bad 

which he answered, smiling, " FreiU (omens) 

who look to them." With his expression 

k the spurs into his horse, and Scott never saw 



Mu„ s , 

" Freits follow thos 
lutely true, (with the 
those who do not loo 
the consenting reader 

He may perhaps think Mungo 
already passing from the darkness 



who look to them." Words abso- 
converse, that they cease lo follow 
;o them :) 



o the I 

of Thought. A 

Walter,— and wis 

I do not know 



vll-.i 



l.ght 



what : 



h truth 1 will ask 
little while. 

iters it in all wisdom, as 
*s and captivity of supersti- 
secure Science and liberty 
e we to hold Mungo, than 
more, than his forefathers? 
hority Lockhart interprets 
In the Douglas glossary 
; it is the word used by 
t give ' freit ' from beaven 
and I belie 



always 1 



 ' protectio 
Jove, declaring that he will : 
either to Trojan or Rut Lilian 
have the sense of serviceable warning — protective, if watched 
and obeved. 1 am not here concerned with the question how 
far such guidance has been, or is still, given to those who 
look for it ; but I wish the reader to note that the form of 
Celtic intellect which rejected the ancient faith was certainly 
not a higher one than that which received it. And this 
I shall best show by taking the wider ground of enquiry, 
how far Scott's own intellect was capable of such belief, — 
and whether in its strength or weakness. 

In the analysis of his work given in the Nineteenth Century 
in Fiction, Fair <tnd Foul, 1 have accepted twelve novels as 
characteristic and essentially good, — naming them in the 
order of their production. These twelve were all written 
in twelve years, before he had been attacked by any illness ; 
and of these, the first five exhibit the natural progress of his 
judgment and faith, in the prime years of his life, between 
the ages of forty-three and forty-eight. 

In the first of them, Waverley, the supernatural element 
is admitted with absolute frankness and simplicity, the 






344 



FOBS ct.AVIOEitA. 



L 



death of Colonel Gardiner being foretold by the, ai that 
time well attested, faculty of second sight, — ami botfc tka 
captivity and death of Fergus Mac Ivor by the personal phan- 
tom, hostile and fatal to his house. 

In the second, Ovjf Matmtrtmg, (lie supernatural warning 
is not allowed to reached the point of actual vision. It • 
given by the stars, and by the strains in the thread spun at 
the child's birth by his gipsy guardian. 

In the third, The Antiquary, the supernatural iriflucni'..' 
reduces itself merely to a feverish dream, and to the terror of 
the last words of Klspeth of the Craigb urn foot : "I'm com- 
ing, my loddy — the staircase is as mirk as a Yule midnight." 

In the fourth, Old SforKllity, while Scott's utmost force 
is given to exhibit the self-deception of religions pride im- 
agining itself inspired of heaven, the idea of prophetic warn- 
ing is admitted as u vague possibility, with little more of 
purpose than to exalt the fortitude of Claverhouse ; and in 
the two last stories of his great time, Hob Hot/, ami 7'A- 
Jleart o/ Midlothian, all suggestion whatever of the inter- 
ference of any lower power than that of the Deity in tin 
order of this world has been refused and the circumstances 
of the tales are confined within the limits of absolute ami 
known truth. 

I am in the habit of placing The Heart tfJBtBotAtan 
highest of all his works, because in this element of intellect- 
ual truth, it is the strictest and richest ; — because being 
thus rigid in truth, it is also the most exalted in its concep- 
tion of human character ; — and lastly, because it is the clear- 
est acknowledgment of the overruling justice of God, even 
to the uttermost, visiting the sin of the fathers, upon the 
children, and purifying the forgiven spirit without the re- 
mission of its punishment. 

In the recognition of these sacred laws of life it stands 
alone among Scott's works, and may justly be called the 
greatest ; yet the stern advance in moral purpose which it 
indicates is the natural consequence of the discipline of age 
— not the sign of increased mental faculty. The entire 
range of faculty, imaginative and analytic together, is un- 




FOJiS CLAVIGERA. 



345 



questionably the highest when the sense of the supernatural 
is most distinct, — Scott is all himself only in Waverlcy and 
the Lay. 

No line of modern poetry has been oftener quoted with 
thoughtless acceptance than Wordsworth's : 



'■ Heaven lien about u 



t infancy " 



It is wholly untrue in the implied limitation; if life be led 
under heaven's law, tho sense of heaven's nearness only 
deepens with advancing years, and is assured in death. 
But the saying is indeed true thus far, that in the dawn of 
virtuous life every enthusiasm and every perception may bs 
trusted as of divine appointment ; and the maxima reeerentia 
is due not only to the innocence of children, but to their in- 
spiration. 

And it follows that through the ordinary course of mortal 
failure and misfortune, in the career of nations uo less than 
of men, the error of their intellect, and the hardening of 
their hearts, may be accurately measured by their denial of 



spir 



the life of Scott, beyc 
ual force manifested i 



id comparison the greatest In- 
Europe since Shakespeare, the 
lesson is given us with a clearness as sharp as the incision on 
a Greek vase. The very first mental effort for which he ob- 
tained praise was the passionate recitation of the passage in 
the ' Eneid,' in which the ghost of Hector appears to Eneas. 
And the deadliest sign of his own approaching death is in 
the form of incredulity which dictated to his weary hand the 
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. 

Here, for the present, I must leave the subject to your 
own thought,— only desiring you to notice, for general guid- 
ance, the gradations of impression on the feelings of men of 
strong and well-rounded intellect, by which fancy rises 
towards faith. 

The lowest stage is that of wilfully grotesque fancy, which 
is recognized as false, yet dwelt upon with delight and 
finished with accuracy, as the symbol or parable of what is 







840 



pons CLA170ERA. 



Shakespeare's Puck, and the Dwarf Goblin of tbe Lay are 
precisely alike in this first level of the imagination. Shakes- 
peare does not believe in Bottom's translation ; neither does 
Scott that, when the boy Buccleugh passes the drawbridge 
with the dwarf, the sentinel only saw a terrier and lurcher 
passing out. Vet both of them permit the fallacy, because 
they acknowledge the EI6n power in nature, to make things, 
sometimes for good, sometimes for harm, seem what they are 
not. Nearly all the grotesque sculpture of the great ages, 
beginning with the Greek Chimasra, has this nascent form of 
Faith for its impulse. 

II. The ghosts and witches of Shakespeare, and the Bodach 
Was and White Lady of Scott, are expressions of real belief, 
more or leas hesitating and obscure. Scott's worldliness too 
early makes him deny his convictions, and in the end effaces 
them. But Shakespeare remains sincerely honest in his as- 
HL'i'Li'Hi of the uucoinprehended spiritual presence ; with this 
further subtle expression of his knowledge of mankind, that 
he never permits a spirit to show itself but to men of the 
highest intellectual power. To Hamlet, to Brutus, to Mac- 
hoth, to Richard III.; but the royal Dane does not haunt his 
own murderer, — neither does Arthur, King .John ; neither 
Norfolk, King Richard II.; nor Tybalt, ROOM. 

III. The faith of Horace in the spirit of the fountain of 
Brundusiuni, in the Faun of his hillside, ami in the help of 
the greater gods, is constant, vital and practical ; yet in 
some degree still tractalile by his imagination, as also that of 
the great poets and painters of Christian times. In Milton 
the tractabilitv is singular ; he hews his gods out to bis own 
fancy, and then believes in them ; but in Giotto and Dante 
tlm art is always subjected to the true vision. 

IV. The faith of the saints and prophets, rising into 
neienitv of knowledge, " I know that my Redeemer liveth," 
is a slate of mind of which ordinary men cannot reason ; but 
which in the. practical power of it, has always governed the 
world, and must for ever. No dynamite will ever b» in- 
nntad that can rule; — it can but dissolve and destroy. 
Only the Word of Uod and the heart of man can govern. 




FOItS CLA VldKIlA. 



.'147 



I have been led far, but to the saving of future time, by 
the examination of the difference in believing power between 
the mind of Scott and his unhappy friend. I now take up 
my immediate subject of enquiry, the effect upon Scott's own 
mind of the natural scenery of the native laud he loved so 
dearly. His life, let me first point, out to you, was, in all the 
joyful strength of it, spent in the valley of the Tweed. 
Edinburgh was his school, and his office ; but his home was 
always by Tweedside t and more perfectly so, because in 
three several places (luring the three clauses of life. You 
must remember also the cottage at I .iisswa.de for the first 
years of marriage, and Sandy Knowe for his childhood ; but, 
allowing to Sniailhohn Tower and Rosliu Glen whatever col- 
lateral influence they may rightly claim over the babe and 
the bridegroom, the constant influences of home remain di- 
vided strictly into the three reras at Roscbank, Ashestiel, and 
Abbotsford. 

Rosebank, on the lower Tweed, gave him his close knowl- 
edge of the district of Flodden Field : and his store of foot- 
traveller's interest in every glen of Ettrick, Yarrow, and 
Lidd el- water. 

The vast tract of country to which these streams owe their 
power is composed of a finely-grained dark and hard sand- 
stone, whose steep beds are uniformly and simultaneously 
raised into masses of upland, which nowhere present any 
rugged or broken masses of crag, like those of our Cumber- 
land mountains, and are rarely steep enough anywhere to 
break the grass by weathering ; a moderate shaly — or, rather, 
gritty — slope of two or three hundred feet opposite Ashestiel 
itself, being noticeable enough, among the rounded monot- 
ony of general form, to receive the separate name of "the 
Slidders." Towards the bottom of a dingle, here and there, 
a few feet of broken bank may show what the hills consist 
of ; but the great wav 
without a single peak, c 
another, though in tb< 

heaved into heights of 1,500 or ^,000 feet ; and covering 
areas of three or four square leagues for each of the surges. 








se agains 


the h 







eft 


o disting 


ish one 


from 




sale 


of moun 


sin str 


ength 



348 



FOBS CLAYIGERA. 



The dark rock weathers easily into surface soil, which forms 
for the greater part good pasture, witli interspersed patches 
of heath or peat, and Liddesdaleway, rushy and sedgy moor- 
land, good for little to man or beast. 

Much rain falls over the whole district ; but, for a great 
part of its falling time, in the softly-diffused form of Scotch 
mist, absorbed invisibly by the grass soil ; while even the 
heavier rain, having to deal with broad surfaces of serenely 
set rock, and Ending do ravines in which it can concentrate 
force, nor any loose lighter soil to undermine, threads its 
way down to the greater glens in gradual and deliberate 
confluence, nobody can well sec how ; there are no Lodores 
nor Bruar waters, still less .Staubbachs or Giesbachs ; un- 
noticed, by million upon million of feebly glistening stream- 
lets, or stealthy and obscure springs, the cloudy dew de- 
scends towards the river, and the mysterious strength of its 
stately water rises or declines indeed, as the storm impends 
or passes away ; yet flows for ever with a serenity of power 
unknown to the shores of all other mountain lauds. 

And the more wonderful, because the uniformity of tlie 
hill-substance renders the dope of the river as steady aa 
its supply. In all other mountain channels known to me, 
the course of the current is here open, and there narrow- 
sometimes pausing in extents of marsh cord lake, some- 
times furious in rapids, precipitate in cataracts, or lost in 
subterranean caves. But the classic Scottish streams have 
had their beds laid for them, ages and ages ago, in vast 
accumulations of rolled shingle, which, occupying the floor 
of the valleys from side to side in apparent level, yet sub- 
due themselves with a steady fall towards the sea. 

As I drove from Abbotsford to Ashestiet, Tweed and 
Ettrick were both in flood ; not dun nor wrathful, but in 
the clear fulness of their perfect strength ; and from the 
bridge of Ettrick I saw the two streams join, and the Tweed 
for miles down the vale, and the Ettrick for miles up among 
his hills, — each of them, in the multitude of their windless 
waves, a march of infinite light, dazzling, — interminable,- 
intervaled indeed with eddies of shadow, but, for the most 




FOBS CLAVIGBBA. 



3+9 



part, gliding paths oE sunshine, far-swept beside the green 
glow of their level inches, the blessing of them, and the 
guanl : — the stately moving of the many waters, more peace- 
ful than their calm, only mighty, their rippled spaces fixed 
like orient clouds, their pools of pausing current binding 
the silver edges with a gloom of amber and gold ; and all 
along their shore, beyond the sward, and the murmurous 
shingle, processions of dark forest, in strange majesty of 
sweet order, and unwounded grace of glorious age. 

The house of Ashestiel itself is only three or four miles 
above this junction of Tweed and Ettrick.* It has been 
sorrowfully changed since Sir Walter's death, but the essen- 
tial make and set of the former building can still be traced. 
There is more excuse for Scott's flitting to Abbotsford than 
I had guessed, for thin house stands, conscious of the river 
rather than commanding it, on a I>tow of meadowy bank, fall- 
ing so steeply to the water that nothing can be seen of it 
from the windows. Beyond, the pasture-land rises steep 
three or four hundred feet against the northern sky, while 
behind the house, south and east, the moorlands lift them- 
selves in gradual distance to still greater height, so that vir- 
tually neither sunrise nor sunset can be seen from the deep- 
nested dwelling. A trick let of stream wavers to and fro 
down to it from the moor, through a grove of entirely nat- 
ural wood, — oak, birch, and ash, fantastic and bewildering, 
or decayed, and carpeted with anem- 
wild avenue and the house, the old 
used to be, large, gracious, and t run- 
wept round it in a curving line like a 
[j the ground ; the fruit-trees, trained 
vith grey trunks a foot wide, flattened 
lets of crag ; the strong bars of their living 



one. Betw 

gardei 

quil ; its high wall 

war rampart, follo> 



the wall like 



;rellis charged, 
toft bloomed ii 



llfl 



ttbw 

to gold and blue ; and of ora 
nd crowds of ponderous pea: 



>f green -gage, 
ge-pink mag- 






* I owe to the courtesy «f Or. Matthews Duncan the privilege o 
quiet sight both of the house and its surroundings. 




• 






850 FQR3 CLAVIOKRA. 

leaves. Some open space of grass and path, now all rede- 
signed for modern needs, must always have divided the gar- 
den from what was properly the front of ihe house, where 
the main entrance is now, between advanced wings, of which 
only the westward one is of Sir Walter's time : its ground 
floor being the drawing-room, with his own bedroom of equal 
size above, cheerful and luminous both, enfilading the house 
front with their large side windows, which commanded the 
sweep of Tweed down the valley, and some high masses of 
Ettrick Forest beyond, this view being now mostly shut off 
by the opposite wing, added for symmetry ! But Sir Walter 
saw it fair through the morning clouds when he rose, hold- 
ing himself, nevertheless, altogether regardless of it, when 
once at work. At Ashestiel and Abbotsford alike, bis work- 
room is strictly a writing-office, what windows they have 
being designed to admit the needful light, with an ex- 
tremely narrow vista of the external world. Courtyard at 
Abbotsford, and bank of young wood beyond: nothing al 
Ashestiel but the green turf of the opposite fells with the 

sheep. 

The room itself, Scott's true 'memorial' if the Scotch 
people had heart enough to know him, or remember, is  
small parlour on the ground-floor of the north side of the 
house, some twelve feet deep by eleven wide ; the single 
window little more than four feet square, or rather four 
feet cube, above the desk, which is set in the recess of the 
mossy wall, the light thus entering in front of the writer, 
and reflected a little from each side. This window is set to 
the left in the end wall, leaving a breadth of some live feet 
or a little more on the fireplace side, where now, brought 
here from Abbotsford, stands the garden chair of the last 
days. 

Contentedly, hi such space and splendour of domicile, the 
three great poems were -written, Wnverky begun ; and all 
the make and tenure of bis mind confirmed, as it was to re 
main, or revive, through after time of vanity, trouble, and 



FOJiS CLAVIQBRA. 



351 



A small chamber, with a fair world outside : — such are the 
conditions, as far as I know or can gather, of all greatest 
and best mental work. At heart, the monastery eel! always, 
changed sometimes, for special need, into the prison cell. 
But, as I meditate more and more closely what reply I may 
safely make to the now eagerly pressed questioning of my 
faithful scholars, what books I would have them read, I Find 
the first broadly-swept definition may be — Books written in 
the country. None worth spending time on, and few that 
are quite safe to touch, have been written in towns. 

And my next narrowing definition would be, Books that 
have good music in them, — that are rightly-rhythmic : a 
definition which includes the delicacy of perfect prose, such 
as Scott's ; and which excludes at once a great deal of mod- 
ern poetry, in which a dislocated and convulsed versification 
has been imposed on the ear in the attempt to express un- 
even temper, and unprincipled feeling. 

By unprincipled feeling, I mean whatever part of passion 
the writer does not clearly discern for right or wrong, and 
concerning which he betrays the reader's moral judgment 
into false sympathy or compassion. No really great writer 
ever does so : neither Scott, Burns, nor Byron ever waver 
for an instant, any more than Shakespeare himself, in their 
estimate of what is fit and honest, or harmful and base. 
Scott always punishes even error, how much more fault, to 
the uttermost ; nor does Byron, in his most defiant and 
mocking moods, ever utter a syllable that defames virtue, or 
disguises sin. 

In looking back to my former statement in the third vol- 
ume of Mo:li.ri' I'niiiUrn, of the influence of natural scenery 
on these three men, I was unjust both to it and to them, in 
my fear of speaking too favourably of passions with which 
I had myself so strong personal sympathy. Recent Vandal- 
ism has taught me, too cruelly, and too late, the moral value 
of such scenes as those in which I was brought up ; and 
given it me, for my duty to the future to teach the Love of 
the fair Universe around us, as the beginning of Piety, and 
the end of Learning. 







352 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

The reader may be interested in comparing with the de- 
scription in the text, Scott's first fragmentary stanzas relat- 
ing to the sources of the Tweed. Lock hart, vol. i., p. 314. 

" Go sit old Cheviot's crest below. 
And pensive mark the lingering snow 

In all his scaurs abide, 
And slow dissolving from the hill 
In many a sightless soundless rill, 

Feed sparkling Bowmont's tide. 

" Fair shines the stream by bank and lea, 
As wimpling to the eastern sea 

She seeks Tills sullen bed, 
Indenting deep the fatal plain. 
Where Scotland's noblest, brave in vain. 
Around their monarch bled. 

A< And westward hills on hills you see, 
Even as old Ocean's mightiest sea 

Heaves high her waves of foam, 
Dark and snow-ridged from Gutsfeld's wold 
To the proud foot of Cheviot roll'd, 

Earth's mountain billows come." 



FOBS CLAVIOERA. 



LETTER XCIIL— (LETTER IX., NEW SERIES.) 



INVOCATION. 



atis fact ion in 
s first to wisii 



far as tbey 
n, they are 
indulgence 



My Christmas letter, which I have e 
trusting this little lady to present to you, coi 
the St. George's Company, and all honest men, as merry a 
Christmas as they can make up their minds to ; (though, 
under present circumstances, the merriment, it seems to inc, 
should be temperate, and the feasting moderate,) — and in the 
second place, to assure the St. George's Company both of its 
own existence, and its Master's, which, without any extreme 
refinement of metaphysics, the said Company might well 
begin to have some doubt of — seeing that there Las been no 
report made of its business, nor record of its additional 
members, nor catalogue of its additional properties, given 
since the— I don't know what day of— I don't know what 

I am not going to ask pardon any more for these adminis- 
trative defects, or mysterious silences, because, so 
are results of my own carelessness or procrastinatic 
unpardonable ; and so far as they might deserve 
if explained, it could only be justified by the details, other- 
wise useless, of difficulty or disappointment in which more 
than one of our members have had their share — and of 
which their explanations might sometimes take a different 
shape from mine. Several have left us, whose secession 
grieved me ; one or two, with my full consent. Others, on 
the contrary, have been working with their whole hearts and 
minds, while the Master was too ill to take note of their 
labour : and, owing, I believe, chiefly to that unpraised zeal, 
but in a measure also to the wider reading ami better under- 
standing of Fort itself, new members are rapidly joining us, 
Vol, IV. -23 



354 



FOBS CLAYIGERA. 



run], I think, all are at present animated with better and 
more definite hope than heretofore. 

The accounts of the Company, — which, instead of encum- 
bering For*, as they used to do, it seems to mo now well to 
print in a separate form, to be presented to the Companions 
with the recommendation not to read it, but to be freely 
purchasable by the public who may be curious in literature 
of that kind, — do not, in their present aspect, furnish a wide 
basis for the confidence I have just stated to be increasing. 
But, in these days, that we are entirely solvent, and cannot 
be otherwise, since it is our principal law of business never 
to buy anything till we have got the money to pay for it, — 
that whatever we have bought, we keep, and don't try to 
make a bad bargain good by swindling anybody else, — that, 
at all events, a certain quantity of the things purchased on 
such terms are found to be extremely useful and agreeable 
possessions by a daily increasing number of students, read- 
ers, and spectators, at Sheffield and elsewhere, — and that we 
have at this Christmas-time of 1883 £4,000 and some odd 
hundreds of stock, with, besides the lands and tenements 
specified in my last report, conditional promise of a new and 
better site for the St. George's Museum at Sheffield, and of 
£5,000 to begin the building thereof,— these various facts 
and considerations do, I think, sufficiently justify the Com- 
panions of St. George in sitting down peaceful-minded, bo 
far as regards their business matters, to their Christmas 
cheer ; and perhaps also the Master in calling with confi- 
dence on all kind souls whom his words may reach, to aug- 
ment the hitherto narrow fellowship. 

Of whose nature, I must try to sum in this Fore what I 
have had often to repeat in private letters. 

First, that the St. George's Guild is not a merely sentimental 
association of persons who want sympathy in the general 
endeavour to do good. It is a body constituted fora special 
purpose : that of buying land, holding it inviolably, cultivat- 
ing it properly, and bringing up on it as many honest people 
as it will feed. It means, therefore, the continual, however 
slow, accumulation of landed property, and the authorita- 




FOES CLA.VI&ERA. 3f>5 

tive management of the same ; and every new member join- 
ing it shares all rights in that property, and has a vote for 
tho re-election or deposition of its Master. Now, it would 
be entirely unjust to the Members ■who have contributed to 
the purchase of our lands, or of such fundB and objects of 
value as we require for the support and education of the 
persons living on them, if the Master allowed the entranceof 
Members who would have equal control over the Society's 
property, without contributing to it. Nevertheless, I some- 
times receive Companions whose temper and qualities I like, 
though they may be unable to help US with money, (other- 
wise it might be thought people had to pay for entrance,) 
but I can't see why there should not be plenty of people in 
England both able and willing to help us ; whom I once 
more very solemnly call upon to do so, as thereby exercising 
the quite healthiest and straightforwardest power of Charity. 
They can't make the London or Paris landlords emancipate 
their poor, (even if it were according to sound law to make 
such an endeavour). But they can perfectly well become 
landlords themselves, and emancipate their mm, 

And I beg the readers alike, and the despisers of my 
former pleadings in this matter, to observe that all the re- 
cent agitation of the public mind, concerning the dwellings 
of the poor, is merely the sudden and febrile, (Heaven be 
thanked, though, for such fever !) recognition of the things 
which I have been these twenty years trying to get recog- 
nised, and reiterating description »nd lamentation of — even 
to the actual printing of my pages blood-red — to try if I 
could catch the eye at least, when I could not the ear or the 
heart. In my index, under the head of ' Misery,' I know 
not yet what accumulation of witness may he gathered, — 
but let the reader think, now, only what the single sentence 
meant which I quoted from the Evening News in the last 
Fors I wrote before my great illness (vol, iv., p. 264), 
" The mother got impatient, thrust the child into the snow, 
and hurried on — not looking back." There is a Christmas 
card, with a picture of English ' nativity' for you — sud- 
denly awakeued friends ! And again, take this picture of 



356 



FORS CLAVIGEIiA. 
I John Bull guar 



what Mr. Tenniel i 
authentic from the iron-works of Tredegar, 11th February, 
1878 (vol. Iv., p. 273): "For several months the uverag* earn- 
ings have been six shillings a week, and out of that they hwe 
to pay for coal, and house rent and other expenses, (the rent- 
collector never out of his work), leaving very little for food 
or clothing. In my district there are a hundred and thirty 
families in distress ; they have nothing but rags to cover 
them by day, and very little beside that wearing apparel to 
cover them on their beds at night, — they have sold or 
pawned their furniture, and everything for which they could 
obtain the smallest sum of money ; many of them are some 
days every week without anything to eat, — and with noth- 
ing but water to drink " — and that poisoned, probably. 

Was not this, the last message I was able to bring to 
John Bull concerning his Pudding, enough to make him 
think how he might guard it better? But on first recoverv 
of my power of speech, was not the news I brought of the 
state of La Belle France worth her taking to thought also? 
— " In a room two yards and a half broad by four yards and 
three-quarters long, a husband, wife, and four children, of 
whom two were dead two months afterwards,— of those left, 
the eldest daughter ' had still (he strength to smile.' Hun- 
ger had reduced this child, who would have been beautiful, 
nearly to the state of a skeleton."' (J^ors, Letter IV., New 
Series, p. 285, and see the sequel.) 

And the double and treble horror of all this, note you 
well, is that, not only the tennis-playing and railroad-flying 
public trip round the outskirts of it, and whirl over the roofs 
of it, — blind and deaf; but that the persons interested in 
the maintenance of it have now a whole embodied Devil's 
militia of base litterateurs in their bound service ; — the 
worst form of serfs that ever human souls sank into — partly 
conscious of their lying, partly, by dint of dally repetition, 
believing in their own babble, and totally occupied in every 
journal and penny magazine all over the world, in declarini* 
this present state of the poor to he glorious and enviable, as 
compared with the poor that have been. In which continual 







FOBS OLAVIOERA. 357 

pother of parroquet lie, and desperately feigned defence of 
ail tilings damnahle, this nineteenth century stutters and 
shrieks alone in the story of mankind. Whatever men did 
before now, of fearful or fatal, they did openly. Attila does 
not say his horse-hoof is of velvet. Ezzelin deigns no dis- 
guise of his Paduan massacre. Prince Karl of Austria firea 
his red-hot balls in the top of daylight, "at stroke of noon, 
on the shingle roofs of the weavers of Zittau in dry July, 
ten thousand innocent souls shrieking in vain to Heaven and 
Earth, and before sunset Zittau is ashes and red-hot walls, — 
not Zittau, but a cinder-heap,"' — but Prince Karl never 
says it was the best thing that could! have been done for the 
weavers of Zittau, — and that all charitable men hereafter are 
to do the like forall weavers, if feasible. But your nineteenth 
century prince of shams and shambles, sells for his own behoof 
the blood and ashes, preaches, with his steam-throat, the 
gospel of gain from ruin, as the only true and only Divine, 
and fills at the same instant the air with his darkness, the 
earth with bis cruelty, the waters with his filth, and the 
hearts of men with his lies. 

Of which the primary and all-pestilentialest is the one 
formalized now into wide European faith by political econo- 
mists, and bruited about, too, by frantic clergymen t that 
you are not to give alms, (any more than you are to fast, or 
pray), — that you are to benefit the poor entirely by your 
own eating and drinking, and that it is their glory and eter- 
nal praise to fill your pockets and stomach, — and themselves 
die, and be thankful. Concerning which falsehood, observe, 
whether you be Christian or not, thin unquestionable mark it 
has of infinite horror, that the persons who utter it have 
themselves lost their joy in giving — cannot conceive that 
strange form of practical human felicity — it is more ' blessed ' 
(not benedirtnm, but beatum) to give than to receive — and 
that the entire practical life and delight of a ' lady ' is to be 
a ' loaf-^iwr,' as of a lord to be a land-giver. It is a degra- 
dation — forsooth — for your neighbour's child to receive a 
loaf, and you are pained in giving it one ; your own chil- 
* FHfdrie/,, v. 121. 






353 



FOMS CLAVI'lEUA. 



dren are not degraded in receiving tlieir breakfast, are they  
and you still have some satisfaction of a charitable nature 
in seeing them cat it? It is a degradation to a bedridden 
pauper to get a blanket from the Queen ! how, tben, shall 
the next bedded bride of May Fair boast of the carcanet 
from her ¥ 

Now, therefore, my good Companions of the Guild, — all 
that are, and Companions all, that are to be, — understand 
this, now and evermore, that you come forward to be Giv- 
ers, not Receivers, in tliis human world: that you are to 
give your time, your thoughts, your labour, and the reward 
of your labour, so far as you can spare it, for the help of the 
poor and the needy, (they are not the same personages, 
mind : the ' poor ' ure in constant, healthy, and accepted re- 
lations to you, — the needy, in conditions requiring change) ; 
and observe, in the second place, that you are to work, so 
dmit of your doing so, with your own 
on of substantial means of life — food, 
—and that only by such labour can you 
living, or anybody else's. One of our 
joyfully and proudly to 
Tiaking her own living, 1 
to her family, but sup- 
ported herself by teaching. To whom I answered, — and be 
the answer now generally understood by all our Compan- 
ions, —that nobody can live by teaching, any more than by 
learning : that both teaching and learning are proper duties 
of human life, or pleasures of it, but have nothing whatevei 
to do with the support of it. 

Food can only be got out of the ground, or the air, or the 
sea. What you have done in fishing, fowling, digging, sow- 
ing, watering, reaping, milling, shepherding, shearing, spin- 
ning, weaving, building, carpciitcrinc, slating, coal-carrying, 
cooking, costermongering, and the like, — that is St. George's 
work, and means of power. All the rest is St. George's 
play, or his devotion — not his labour. 

And the main message St. George brings to you is that 
you will not be degraded by this work nor saddened by it, — 



hands, in the produ< 

clothes, house, or fii 

either make your 01 

lately admitted Cor 

me the other day that she was 

meaning that she was no burdi 




TORS CLAV1QBRA. 359 

you, who in righteous will and modest resignation, take it 
upon you for your servant-yoke, as true servants, no less 
than children, of your Father in Heaven; but, so far as it 
does mean an acknowledgment that you are not better than 
the poor, and are content to share their lowliness in that 
humility, you enter into the very soul and innermost good 
of sacred monastic life, and have the loveliness and sanctity 
of it, without the sorrow or the danger ; separating your- 
selves from the world and the flesh, only in their sin and in 
their pain. Nor, so far as the praise of men may be good 
and helpful to vou, and, above all, good for them to give 
you, will it ever be wanting. Do you youraelf — even if you 
are one of these who glory in idleness — think less of Floren- 
tine Ida because she is a working girl ? or esteem the feel- 
ing in which " everybody called her ' Signora ' " less honour- 
able than the crowd's stare at my lady in her carriage 1 

But above all, you separate yourself from the world in its 
sorrow. There are no chagrins so venomous as the chagrins 
of the idle ; there are no pangs so sickening as the sa- 
tieties of pleasure. Nay, the bitterest and most enduring 
sorrow may be borne through the burden and beat of day 
bravely to the due time of death, by a true worker. And, 
indeed, it is this very dayspring and fount of peace in the 
bosoms of the labouring poor which has till now rendered 
their oppression possible. Only the idle among them revolt 
against their state ; — the brave workers die passively, young 
and old— and make no sign. It is for you to pity them, for 
vou to stand with then), for you to cherish, and save. 

And be sure there are thousands upon thousands already 
leading auch life — who are joined in no recognised fellow- 
ship, but each in their own place doing happy service to all 
men. Read this piece of a friend's letter, received only a 
day or two since, while 1 was just thinking what plainest 
examples I could give you from real life. 



" I have just 
house of which 
grain, in the s< 



, while his two 




360 F0R8 CLAVTGBRA, 

daughters did, one of them the whole work of the house, 
including attendance on the old mother who was past work, 
and the other the managing of a little shop in the village, — 
work, with all "(father and daughters) "beginning at five 
a.m. I was there for some months, and was perfectly dealt 
with, and never saw a fault. What I wanted to tell you was 
that the daughter, who was an admirable cook, was conver- 
sant with her poets, quoted Wordsworth and Burns, when 1 
led her that way, and knew all about Brantwood, as she 
had carefully treasured an account of it from an old Art 
Journal," 

' Perfectly dealt with.' Think what praise is in those 
three words ! — what straightforward understanding, on both 
sides, of true hospitality ! Think, (for one of the modes of 
life quickest open to you — and serviceablest,) — what road- 
side-inns might be kept by a true Gaius and Gaia 1 You 
have perhaps held it — in far back Fiyra one of my wildest 
sayings, that every village should have, as a iloly Church at 
one end, a Holy Tavern at the other I I will better the say- 
ing now by adding — " they may be side by side, if you will." 
And then you will have entered into another mystery of 
monastic life, as you shall see by the plan given of a Cister- 
cian Monastery in the second forthcoming number of VaiU 
Cruets — where, appointed in its due place with the Church, 
the Scriptorium and the school, is the Hosphium for enter- 
taining strangers unawares. And why not awares also? 
Judge what the delight of travelling would be, for nice 
travellers, (read the word 'nice' in any sense you will) — if 
at every village there were a Blue Boar, or a Green Dragon, 
or Silver Swan * — with Mark Tapley of the Dragon for Ostler 

 " And should I oncfl again, as onoe I may, 
Visit Martigny, I will not forget 
Thy hospitable roof, Marguerite de Tours, 
Thy sign the Silver Swan. Heaven prosper lb.ee." 

(Rorbrb's Ititlj/.) 
In my schools at Oxford I have plaoed, with Mr. Ward's beantifnl 
copy of Turner s vignette of the old Cygne, at Martiyny, my own early 
drawing of the corridor of its neighbour 




1 La Post*,'— onoe itself a 



F0R8 OLAVIGERA. 361 

— and Boots of the Swan for Boots — and Mrs. Lupin or Mrs. 
Lirriper for Hostess — only trained at Girton in all that be- 
comes a Hostess in the nineteenth century ! Gentle girl- 
readers mine, is it any excess of Christianity in you, do you 
think, that makes you shrink from the notion of being such 
an one, instead of the Curate's wife ? 

My time fails me — my thoughts how much more — in trying 
to imagine what this sweet world will be, when the meek 
inherit it indeed, and the lowliness of every faithful hand- 
maiden has been regarded of her Lord. For the day will 
come, the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever. 
Not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit — the meek 
shall He guide in judgment, and the meek shall He teach 
His way. 



362 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 



CHRISTMAS POSTSCRIPT. 

In the following alphabetical list of our present Com- 
panions, I have included only those who, I believe, will not 
blame me for giving their names in full,* and in whose 
future adherence and support I have entire trust ; for, al- 
though some of them have only lately joined us, they have 
done so, I think, with clearer knowledge of the nature and 
working of the Guild than many former Companions who 
for various causes have seen good to withdraw. But some 
names of members may be omitted, owing to the scattered 
registry of them while I was travelling, or perhaps forgotten 
registry during my illnesses. I trust that in the better hope 
and more steady attention which I am now able to bring to 
the duties of the Mastership, tho list may soon be accurately 
completed, and widely onlarged. One Companion, ours no 
more, sends you, I doubt not, Christmas greeting from her 
Home, — Florence Bennett. Of her help to us during her 
pure brief life, and afterwards, by her father's fulfilment of 
her last wishes, you shall hear at another time. 

♦Ada Hartnell. Emilie Sissison. 

Albert Fleming. Emmeline Miller. 

Alice Knight. Ernest Miller. 

♦Annie Somerscales. ♦Fanny Talbot. 

♦Blanche Atkinson. Ferdinand Bladon. 

David Campbell. ♦Frances Colenso. 

♦Dora Lees. ♦George Allen. 

Dora Thomas. George Newlands. 

Edith Hope Scott. Grace Allen. 

Edith Irvine. Helen Ormerod. 

♦Egbert Rydings. *Henrietta Carey. 

♦Elizabeth Barnard. ♦Henry Larkin. 

* 1 only give the first Christian name, for simplicity's Bake, unless 
the second be an indication of family. 



FOBS CLAVIOERA. 



363 



Henry Luxmore. 

Henry Ward. 

James Gill. 
♦John Fowler. 
♦John Morgan. 
♦Julia Firth. 

Kathleen Martin. 

Margaret Cox. 

Maud Batemak 



♦Rebecca Roberts. 
♦Robert Somerville. 
Sarah Thomas. 

♦SlLVANUS WlLKINS. 

♦Susan Beever. 
William Monk. 
♦William Sharman. 
♦William Smithebs. 



The names marked with a star were on the original roll of 
the Guild, when it consisted of only thirty-two Members and 
the Master. 



364 FOBS C LAV 10 ERA. 



LETTER XCIV.— (LETTER X., NEW SERIES.) 



RETROSPECT. 



Brantwood, SUt December, 1883. 

It is a provoking sort of fault in our English language, 
that while one says defect, defection, and defective ; retro- 
spect, retrospection, and retrospective, etc.,— one says pros- 
pect and prospective, but not prospection ; respect and re- 
spective, but not respection ; perspective, but not perspect, 
nor perspection ; prefect, but not praef ection ; and refection, 
but not refect, — with a quite different manner of difference 
in the uses of each admitted, or reasons for refusal of each 
refused, form, in every instance : and therefore I am obliged 
to warn my readers that I don't mean the above title of this 
last Fors of 1883 to be substantive, but participle ; — that is 
to say, I don't mean that this letter will be a retrospect, or 
back-prospect, of all Forses that have been ; but that it 
will be in its own tenor, and to a limited distance, Retro- 
specti t?£ ; only I cut the * ive ' from the end of the word, be- 
cause I want the retrospection to be complete as far as it 
reaches. 

Namely, of the essential contents of the new series of 
Fors up to the date of this letter ; and in connection with 
them, of the First letter, the Seventeenth, and the Fiftieth, 
of the preceding series. 

I will begin with the seventeenth letter ; which bears di- 
rectly on the school plan given in my report for this year. 
It will be seen that I struck out in that plan the three 
R's from among the things promised to be taught, and I 
wrote privately with some indignation to the Companion 
who had ventured to promise them, asking her whether she 
had never read this seventeenth letter ; to which she an- 



FOBS CLAVIOBEA. 36!> 

hivirt.il that 'inspectors of schools 1 how required the three 
R's imperatively, — to which I again answered, with indigna- 
tion at high pressure, that ten millions of inspectors of 
schools collected on Cader Idris should not make me teach 
in mv schools, come to them who liked, a single thing I did 
not choose to. 

And I do not choose to teach (as usually understood) the 
three R's ; first, because, as I do choose to teach the ele- 
ments of music, astronomy, hotany, and zoology, not only 
the mistresses and masters capable of teaching these should 
not waste their time on the three R's ; hut the children 
themselves would have no time to spare, nor should they 
have. If their fathers and mothers can read and count, they 
are the people to teach reading and numbering, to earliest 
intelligent infancy. For orphans, or children whose fathers 
and mothers can't read or count, dame schools in every vil- 
lage (best in the almshouses, where there might be dames 
enow) are all that is wanted. 

Second)}'. I do not care that St. George's children, as a 
rule, should learn either reading or writing, because there 
are very few people in this world who get any good by 
either. Broadly and practically, whatever foolish people 
read does them harm, and whatever they irrite, does other 
people harm : (see my notes on Narrs in general, and my 
own Narr friend in particular, J-urs, vol. ii., page 40H,) and 
nothing can ever prevent this, for a fool attracts folly as de- 
cayed meat attracts Hies, and distils and assimilates it, no 
matter out of what book ; — he can get as much out of the 
Bible as any other, though of course lie or she usually reads 
only newspaper or novel.* 

* Jiint think, for instance, of the flood of human idiotiem that spent 
a couple of years or to of its life in writing, printing, and reading the 
Tich borne trial, — the whole of that vital energy and time being not 
only direct loss, but loso in loathsome thoughts and vulgar inquisitive 
Bess. Had it been spent in pure silence, and prison darkness, ho* 
much better for all those creatures' souls and eyes ! But. if they had 
been unable to read or write, ami made good sailors or woodcutters, 
they might, instead, have prevented two-thirds of th>; shipwrecks on 






306 FOHS OLAVIOERA 

But thirdly. Even with children of good average sense, 
— see, for example, what happened in our own Coniston 
school, only the other day. I went in by chance during the 
hour for arithmetic ; and, inserting myself on the nearest 
bench, learned, with the reat of the class, how much seven- 
and-twenty pounds of bacon would come to at ninepetice 
farthing a pound, with sundry the like marvellous conse- 
quences of the laws of number ; until, feeling mvself a little 
shy in remaining always, though undetected!}-, at the bot- 
tom of the class, I begged the master to let us all rest a lit- 
tle ; and in this breathing interval, taking a sovereign out 



our own coast, or made a pestilential province healthy ou Uangea or 
Amazon, 

Then think farther — though which of us by any thinking call take 
measure ? — of the pestilence of popular literature, as we perceive it 
now accommodating itself to the tastns of nu enlightened people, in chop- 
ping up its formerly loved authors — now too hard for its understand, 
ing, and too pure for its appetite— into crammed sausages, or blood- 
puddings swiftly gorgeable. Think of Hiss Braddou's greasy minoe-pie 
of Scott !— and hay. for subject of awed meditation, 'No. 1, One penny, 
complete tn itaelf ' (published by Henry Vickers, 317, Strand), the Story 
of Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, — rearranged and sublimed into 
Elixir of Dickens, and Otto of Oliver, and bottled in the following se- 
ries of aromatic chapters, bunded that : — 



Chap. I. At the Mercy of the Parish. 

" II. In the Clutches of the Beadle 

" III. Among the Coffins. 

" IV. Among Thieves. 

" V. Fagin the Jew. 

" VI Before the Beak.' 

" VII. Bill Sikes. 

" TO Nancy. 
" IX. Nancy Carries on. 

" X. The Burglary planned. 

" XI. The Burglary. 

" XII. A Mysterious Stranger. 

" XIII. The Murdered Qui. 

" XIV. The Murderers Flight. 

" XV. The Murderer's Death. 

" XVI. The Jew's Last Night Alive. 



FOBS CLAVIQSRA. 367 

of my jHicket, asked the children if they had ever been 
shown the Queen's Amis on it ? 

(Unanimous silence.) 

"At any rate, you know what the Queen's Arms anf* 
(Not a whisper.) 

"What ! a roomful of English boys and girls, and nobody 
know what the Queen's or the King's Arms are — the Arms 
i.l' England?" (Mouths mostly a little open, but with no 
purpose of speech. Eyes also, without any immediate object 
of sight.) 

"Do yon not even remember seeing such a thing as a 
harp on them?" (Fixed attention, — no response.) "Nor 
a lion on bis hind legs ? Nor three little beasts running in 
each corner?" (Attention dissolving into bewilderment.) 

"Well, next time I come, mind, you must be able to tell 
me all about it ;— here's the sovereign to look at, and when 
you've learnt it, you may divide it— if yon can. How many 
of yon are there here to-day?" (Sum in addition, taking- 
more time than usual, owing to the difficulty of getting the 
figures to stand still. It is established Dually that there are 
thirty-five.) 

"And bow many pence in a sovereign?" (Answer in- 
stantaneous and vociferous.) 

" And thirty-fives in two hundred and forty ? " (All of us 
at pause. The master conies to the rescue, and recom- 
mends us to try thirties instead of thirty-fives.) 

"It seems, then, if live of you will stand out, the rest 
can have eight-pence apiece. Which of you will stand 
out ? " 

And I left that question for then] to resolve at their lei- 
sure, seeing that it contained the essence of an examination 
in matters very much higher than arithmetic. 

And now, suppose that there were any squire's sons or 
daughters down here, for Christmas, from Christchurcb or 
Girton, who could and would accurately and explicitly tell 
these children "all about" the Queen's Arms: what the 
Irish Harp meant, and what a Bard was, and ought to be ; 
— what the Scottish Lion meant, and how he got caged by 



368 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

the tressure of Charlemagne,* and who Charlemagne was ; 
— what the English leopards meant, and who the Black 
Prince was, and how he reigned in Aquitaine, — would not 
all this be more useful, in all true senses, to the children, 
than being able, in two seconds quicker than children out- 
side, to say how much twenty-seven pounds of bacon comes 
to at ninepence farthing a pound ? And if then they could 
be shown, on a map, without any railroads on it, — where 
Aquitaine was, and Poitiers, and where Picardy, and Crecy, 
would it not, for children who are likely to pass their lives 
in Coniston, be more entertaining and more profitable than 
to learn where "New Orleans" is, (without any new Joan 
to be named from it), or New Jerusalem, without any new 
life to be lived in it ? 

Fourthly. Not only do the arts of literature and arithme- 
tic continually hinder children in the acquisition of ideas, — 
but they are apt greatly to confuse and encumber the mem- 
ory of them. Read now, with renewed care, Plato's lovely 
parable of Theuth and the King of Egypt (vol. i., p. 227), and 
observe the sentences I translated, though too feebly. " It 
is not medicine (to give the power) of divine memory, but a 
quack's drug for memorandum, leaving the memory idle." 
I myself, for instance, have written down memoranda of 
many skies, but have forgotten the skies themselves. Tur- 
ner wrote nothing, — but remembered all. And this is much 
more true of things that depend for their beauty on sound 
and accent ; for in the present fury of printing, bad verses, 
that could not be heard without disgust, are continually 
printed and read as if there was nothing wrong in them ; 
while all the best powers of minstrel, bard and troubadour 
depended on the memory and voice, as distinct from writ- 
ing, f All which was perfectly known to wise men ages ago, 
and it is continually intimated in the different forms which 
the myth of Hermes takes, from this Ibis Theuth of Egypt 
down to Correggio's most perfect picture of Mercury teach- 

* See Fors, Letter XXV., pp. 347, 348. 

f See lives of Beatrice and Lucia, in the first number of Roadside 
&mgs of Tuscany. 



FOBS CLA VfGERA. 



3fi9 



ing Cupid to read ; — where, if you will look at tlie picture 
wisely, you see that it really ought to be called, Mercury 
trying, and failing, * to teach Cupid to read ! For, indeed, 
from the beginning and to the end of time, Love reads 
without letters, and counts without arithmetic. 

But, lastly and chiefly, the personal conceit and ambition 
developed by reading, in minds of selfish activity, lead to 
the disdain of manual labour, and the desire of all sorts of 
unattainable things, and fill the streets with discontented and 
useless persons, seeking sonic means of living in town society 
by their wits. I need not enlarge on this head ; every read* 
er's experience must avow the extent and increasing plague 
of this fermenting imbecility, striving to make for itself 
what it calls a 'position in life.' 

Id sight, and thought of all these sources of evil in our 
present staples of education, I drew out the scheme of school- 
ing, which incidentally and partiallv defined in various pas- 
sages of Fort (see mainly Letter LXVII., vol. iii., p. 250), 



s folloi 



Every parish school to have garden, playground, and 
cultivable land round it, or belonging to it, spacious enough 
ro employ the scholars in fine weather mostly out of doors. 

Attached to the huilding,a children's library, in which the 
scholars who care to read may learn Unit art as deftly as they 
like, by themselves, helping each other without troubling the 



r ; — a sufficient laboratr 
specimens of all common elements of nit 1 
where simple chemical, optical, and p 
may be shown ; and according to the s 
the school, attached workshops, many 
a carpenter's, and first of those added 

In the school itself, the things If 
geometry, astronomy, botan)', zoology, 
history, to children who have gift for 

* Sir Joshua, with less refinement, gives 
myth, io his picture of Cupid pouting- and 
■o decipher the word, " pinmouay." 
Vol.. 



which shall be 

substances, and 

i^xperiments 

and importance of 

few, — but always 

the better schools, 



ther. And finally, 



370 F0R8 CLAVIGERA. 

to all children of whatever gift, grade, or age, the laws of 
Honour, the habit of Truth, the Virtue of Humility, and the 
Happiness of Love. 

I say, the u virtue of Humility," as including all the habits 
of Obedience and instincts of Reverence which are dwelt on 
throughout Fors y and all my other books * — but the things 
included are of course the primary ones to be taught, and 
the thirteenth Aphorism of that sixty-seventh letter cannot 
be too often repeated, that " Moral education begins in 
making the creature we have to educate, clean, and 
obedient." In after time, this " virtue of humility " is to be 
taught to a child chiefly by gentleness to its failures, show- 
ing it that by reason of its narrow powers, it cannot but fail. 
I have seen my old clerical master, the Rev. Thomas Dale, 
beating his son Tom hard over the head with the edge of a 
grammar, because Tom could not construe a Latin verse, 
when the rev. gentleman ought only with extreme tender- 
ness and pitifulness to have explained to Tom that — he 
wasn't Thomas the Rhymer. 

For the definitely contrary cultivation of the vice of Pride, 
compare the education of Steerforth by Mr. Creakle. (/Mind 
Copperfieltf, chap, vi.) 

But it is to be rememhered that humility can onlv be 
truly, and therefore onlv effectively taught, when the master is 
swift to recognise the special faculties of children, no less than 
their weaknesses, and that it is his quite highest and most 
noble function to discern these, and prevent their discourage- 
ment or effacement in the vulgar press for a common prize. 
See the beautiful story of little George, ]*Triemh in Council. 

* Compare especially Crown of Wild Olire. I repeat emphatically 
the opening sentence — 4 ' Educate, or Govern, — they are one find the 
(«ame word. Education does not mean teaching people to know what 
they do not know — it means teaching them to behave as they do 
not behave. It is not teaching the youth of England the shapes of 
letters and the tricks of numbers, and then leaving them to turn 
their arithmetic to roguery and their literature to lust. It is, on the 
contrary, training them into the perfect exercise and kingly continence 
of their bodies and souls, — by kindness, by watching, by warning, by 
precept, and by praise,— but above all, by example.*' 



FOBS CLAVIGBRA. 371 

Next, as to writing. A certain kind of writing, which 
will take from half an hour to an hour for a line, will indeed 
he taught — as long ago promised, in St. Georgia's schools ; 
examples heing given of the manner of it at p. 218 of Letter 
XVI., and vol. iii., p. 177 ; but, so far from qualifying the 
pupil for im mediately taking a lucrative clerkship in a Gov- 
ernment office, or a county banking-house, or a solicitor's 
ante-room, the entire aim of our training will be to i/Moualify 
him, for ever, from writing with any degree of current speed; 
and especially from producing any such aesehrography, (as 
everybody writes Greek-Kni;]ish BOWftdftJ*, 1 use this term 
in order more clearly to explain myself,) as the entry in my 
own Banker's book facsimiled at p. 104, vol. iii., and the 
'Dec.' for December here facsimiled from a London trades- 



man's bill just sent in, ' *■" *— *-&t or the ornamental H en- 
grossed on my Father's executor's articles of release, engraved 
at p. 215 of Letter XVI. ; but to compel him, on the contrary, 
to write whatever words deserve to be written in the most 
perfect and graceful and legible manner possible to his hand. 

And in this resolution, stated long since, [ am now more 
fixed than ever ; having had much experience lately of hand- 
writing, and finding, first, that the scholar who among my 
friends does the most as well as the best work, writes the 
most deliberately beautiful hand : and that all the hands of 
sensible people agree in being merely a reduction of good 
print to a form producible by the steady motion of a pen, 
and are therefore always round, and extremely upright, 
becoming more or less picturesque accnrding to the humour 
of the writer, but never slurred into any unbecoming speed, 
nor subdued by any merely mechanical habit,* whereas the 

* Sir Walter's hand, from the enormous e^uantity and constancy of 
his labour, becomes almost iticchn.Tiic.il in icn steadiness, on the pages 
of his novels; but is quite free in bis letters Sir Joshua '* hand is 
curiously slovenly ; TinLorvt's, grotcaqTH nd irngular in the extreme ; 
Nelson's, almost a perfect type : is|>'ciiilly in the point of not hurrying, 
see facsimile put before Trafalgar. An VI. William the Conqueror 
and his queen Matilda oould only sign a cross for their uaiues. 




372 F0R8 clavigeha. 

writing of foolish people is almost always mechanically 
monotonous ; and that of begging-letter writers, with rare 
exception, much sloped, and sharp at the turns. 

It will be the law of our schools, therefore, that the children 
who want to write clerk's and begging-letter hands, must 
learn them at home ; and will not be troubled by us to write 
at all. The children who want to write like gentlemen and 
ladies, (like St. Jerome, or Queen Elizabeth, for instance,) 
will learn, as aforesaid, with extreme slowness. And, if you 
will now read carefully the fiftieth letter, above referred to, 
you will find much to meditate upon, respecting home as well 
as school teaching ; more especially the home-teaching of 
the mining districts (p. 347), and the home library of cheap 
printing, with the small value of it to little Agnes (p. 342). 
And as it chances — for I have no more time for retrospect in 
this letter — I will close it with the record of a lesson received 
again in Agnes's cottage, last week. Her mother died three 
years ago ; and Agnes, and her sister Isabel, are at service : 
— another family is in the cottage — and another little girl, 
younger than Agnes, "Jane Anne," who has two elder 
brothers, and one little one. The family have been about 
a year there, beginning farmer's life, after miner's, with much 
ill-fortune, the last stroke of which was the carrying away of 
the entire roof of their grange, at midnight, by the gale of 
11th December, the timbers of it thundering and splintering 
over the roof of the dwelling house. The little girl was so 
terrified that she had a succession of fainting fits next day, 
and was sent for a week to Barrow, for change of scene. 
When 1 went up on Wednesday last to see how things were 
going on, she had come back that morning, and was sitting 
with her child-brother on her lap, in the corner by the fire- 
side. 1 stayed talking to the mother for half an hour, and 
all that time the younger child was so quiet that I thought 
it must be ill ; but, on my asking, — " Not he," the mother 
said, "but he's been jumping about all the morning, and 
making such a fuss about getting his sister back, that now 
he's not able to stir." 

But the dearest child of the cottage was not there. 



FOBS CLAVIOEIiA. 373 

Last Spring they had a little boy, between these two, full 
of intelligent life, and pearl of chief price to them, lie went 
down to the field by the brookside (Heck Leven), one bright 
morning when his elder brother was mowing. The child 
came up behind without speaking ; and the back sweep of 
the scythe caught the leg, and divided a vein. His brother 
carried him up to the house ; and what swift binding could 
do was done — the doctor, three miles away, coming as soon 
as might be, arranged all for the best, and the child lay pale 
and quiet till the evening, speaking sometimes a little to his 
father and mother. But at six in the evening he began to 
■irig. Sang on, clearer and clearer, all through the night,— 
so clear at last, you might have heard him, his mother said, 
" far out on the moor there." Sang on till the full light of 
morning, and so passed away. 

" Did he sing with words ? " I asked. 

" Oh, yes ; just the bits of hymns he had learnt at the 
Sunday-school." 

So much of his education finally available to him, you 
observe. 

Not the multiplication table then, nor catechism then, nor 
commandments then, — these rhymes only remained to him 
for his last happiness. 

" Happiness in delirium only," say you? 

All true love, all true wisdom, and all true knowledge, 
seem so to the world : but, without question, the forms o£ 
weakness of body preceding death, or those during life which 
are like them, are the testing states, often the strongest 
states, of the soul. The " Oh, I could prophesy ! " of Harry 
Percy, is neither dream, nor delirium. 

And the lesson I received from that cottage history, and 
■which I would learn with my readers, is of the power for 
good in what, rightly chosen, has been rightly learned by 
heart at school, whether it show at the time or not. The 
hymn may be forgotten in the playground, or ineffective 
afterwards in restraining contrary habits of feeling and life. 
But all that is good and right retains its unfelt authority; 
and the main change which I would endeavour to effect in 






374 FOBS CLAV1GERA. 

ordinary school discipline is to make the pupils read less, and 
remember more ; exercising them in committing to memory, 
not by painful effort, but by patient repetition, until they 
cannot but remember, (and observing always that the accent- 
uation is right, — for if Uiat be once right, the understand- 
ing will come in due time), helping farther with whatever 
elementary music, both of chant and instrument, may be 
familiarly attainable. To which end, may I modestly recom- 
mend all musical clergymen, and churchwardens, to dispense 
— if funds are limited — with organs in the church, in favour 
of harp, harpsichord, zittern, or peal of bells, in the school- 
room : and to endeavour generally to make the parish enjoy 
jyroj>er music out of the church as well as in it, and on Satur- 
day as well as Sunday. 

I hope to persevere in these summaries through next 
letter ; meantime, this curiously apposite passage in one re- 
ceived this morning, from a much valued Companion, needs 
instant answer (she is the second tutress in a school for 
young girls, which has been lately begun by a German lady, 
who is resolved to allow no 'cramming'): — 

"We have nineteen pupils now, and more are promised. 
The children are all progressing satisfactorily, and seem 
happy, but our path will be up-hill for some time to come. 
Sewing is in a very backward condition ; the children think 
it would be better done in the machine. Hardly any of them 
can write, and we can't get any decent large-hand copy- 
books. And they don't like poetry ! What is to be done 
with such matter-of-fact young persons? On the other hand, 
they are loveable and intelligent children, much interested 
in the garden (they are to have little gardens of their own 
when the spring conies) and the birds. Birds, you observe, 
not merely sparrows ; for though we are only on the edge of 
the Liverpool smoke we have plenty of robins and starlings, 
besides one tomtit, and a visit from a chaffinch the other da v. 
We have not been able to be<rin the cookerv class vet, for wo 
are not actually living at the school ; we hope to take up our 
abode there next term. Mrs. Green, my 4 principal,' — I don't 
see whv I shouldn't say mistress, I like the word much better, 
— oouhl teach spinning if she had a wheel, only then people 
would say we were insane, and take the children away from us. 



FOUS CLAVltlEUA. 



375 



"I am very much obliged for last Fors, and delighted to 
hear that there is a new one nearly ready. But would you 
please be a little bit more explicit on the subject of 'work' 
and ' ladyhood.' Not that what you have said already seems 
obscure to me, but people disagree as to tile interpretation of 
it. The other night I proposed to a few fellow-disciples that 
we should make an effort to put ourselves in serviceable re- 
lationship to some few of our fellow-creatures, and (hey told 
me that ' all that was the landlord's business or the capital- 
ist's.' Rather disheartening, to a person who has no hope 
uf ever becoming a landlord or capitalist." 



Yes, my dear, and very finely the Landlord and Capitalist 
— in the sense these people use the words — of land-taxer and 
labour-taxer, have done that business of theirs hitherto ! 
Land and labour appear to be discovering — and rather fast 
now-a-days — that perhaps they might get along by them- 
selves, if they were to try. Of that, more next letter ; — for 
the answers to your main questions in this, — the sewing is a 
serious one. The 'little wretches' — (this is a well-trained 
young lady's expression, not mine^interjeetionai on my 
reading the passage to her) must be got out of all that as 
soon as you can. For plain work, get Miss Stanley's book, 
which gives you the elements of this work at Whiielands, — 
(I hope, however, to get Miss Greenaway to sketch us a 
pattern frock or two, instead of the trimmed water-butts of 
Miss Stanley's present diagrams) — and for fine work, make 
them every one sew a proper sampler, with plenty of robins 
in it, and your visitors the tomtit and chaffinch, and anv 
motto they like in illuminated letters, finished with gold 
thread,— the ground, silk. Then, for my meaning as to 
women's work, what tilioulil I mean, but scrubbing furniture, 
dusting walls, sweeping floors, making the beds, washing up 
the crockery, ditto the children, and whipping them when 
they want it,— mending their clothes, cooking their dinners, 
— and when there are cooks more than enough, helping with 
the farm work, or the garden, or the dairy ? Is that plain 
speaking enough? Have I not fifty times over, in season 
and out of season, dictated and insisted and asseverated and 






370 



FOJiS CLAY1GERA. 



— what stronger word else there may be — that the essentially 
right life for all woman-kind is that of the Swiss Paysanne, 
— and given Gotthelf's Freueli for the perfect tvpe of it, and 
dedicated to her in J*roserj)ina the fairest pansy in the 
world, keeping only the poor little one of the sand-hills for 
Ophelia ? lint in a rougher way yet — take now the facts of 
such life in old Scotland, seen with Walter Scott's own eyes. 

"I have often heard Scott mention some curious particu- 
lars of his first visit to the remote fastness of one of these 
Highland friends ; but whether he told the storv of Inverna- 
hyle, or of one of bis own relations of the Clan Campbell, I 
do not recollect ; I rather think the latter was the case. On 
reaching the brow of a bieak eminence overhanging the 
primitive tower and its tiny patch of cultivated ground, he 
found his host and three sons, and perhaps half a dozen at- 
tendant (fillies, all stretched half asleep in their tartans upon 
the heath, with guns and dogs, and a profusion of game 
about them ; while in the courtyard, far below, appeared a 
company of women, actively engaged in loading a curt with 
manure. The stranger was not a little astonished when lie 
discovered, on descending from the height, that among these 
industrious females were the laird's own lady, and two or 
three of her daughters ; but they seemed quite unconscious 
of having been detected in an occupation unsuitable to their 
rank — retired presently to their 'bowers,' and when they re- 
appeared in other dresses, retained no traces of their morn- 
ing's work, except complexions glowing with a radiant fresh- 
ness, for one evening of which many a high-bred beauty 
would have bartered half her diamonds, lie found tise 
young ladies not ill informed, and exceedingly agreeable; 
and the song and the dance seemed to form the invariable 
termination uf their busy days." 

You think such barbarism for ever past ? No, my dears ; 
it is only the barbarity of idle gentlemen that must pass. 
Thtij will have to filL the carts— you to drive them ; and 
never anv more evade the burden and heat of the day — they, 
in shooting birds and each other, or you in walking about m 
sun-hats and parasols. 




FORS CLAV1GERA. 



LETTER XCV.— (LETTER XX, NEW SERIES.) 



I do not well know whether it has more distressed, or en- 
couraged me, to find how much is wanting, and how much 
to be corrected, in the hitherto accepted modes of school 
education for our youngest children. Here, for the last year 
or two, I have had the most favc-urable opportunities for 
watching 1 and trying 1 various experiments on the minds of 
country children, most thankfully recognising their native 
power; and most sorrowfully the inefficiency of the means 
at the school- master's disposal, for its occupation and de- 
velopment. For the strengthening of his hands, and that of 
our village teachers and dames in general, I have written 
these following notes at speed, for the brevity and slightness 
of which I must pray the reader's indulgence : he will find 
the substance of them has been long and deeply considered. 

But first let me fulfil the pledge given in last number of 
For* by a few final words about the Land Question — need- 
less, if people would read my preceding letters with any 
care, but useful, as a general heading of them, for those who 
have not time to do so. 

The plan of St. George's Guild is wholly based on the sup- 
posed possession of laud by hereditary proprietors, inalien- 
ably ; or if by societies, under certain laws of responsibility 
to the State. 

In common language, and in vulgar thought, the posses- 
sion of land is confused with "freedom." But no man is so 
free as a beggar ; and no man is more solemnly a servant to 
God, the king, and the laws of his country, than an honest 
land -holder. 

The nonsense thought and talked about 'Nationalization 
of Land,' like other nonsense, must have its day, 1 suppose. 




378 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

— and I hope, soon, its night. All healthy states from the 
beginning of the world, living on land,* are founded on 
hereditary tenure, and perish when either the lords or 
peasants sell their estates, much more when they let them 
out for hire. The single line of the last words of John of 
Gaunt to Richard II., "Landlord of England art thou now, 
not King," expresses the root of the whole matter ; and the 
present weakness of the Peers in their dispute with the 
Commons is because the Upper House is composed now no 
more of Seigneurs, but of Landlords. 

Possession of land implies the duty of living on it, and by 
it, if there is enough to live on ; then, having got one's own 
life from it by one's own labour or wise superintendence of 
labour, if there is more land than is enough for one's self, the 
duty of making it fruitful and beautiful for as many more as 
can live on it. 

The owner of land, necessarily and justly left in a great 
measure by the State to do what he will with his own, is 
nevertheless entirely responsible to the State for the gener- 
ally beneficial management of his territory ; and the sale of 
his land, or of any portion of it, only allowed under special 
conditions, and with solemn public registry of the transfer- 
ence to another owner : above all, the landmarks bv which 
estates are described are never to be moved. 

A certain quantity of public land (some belonging to the 
king and signory, some to the guilds of craftsmen, some to 
the town or village corporations) must be set aside for public 
uses and pleasures, and especially for purposes of education, 
which, rightly comprehended, consists, half of it, in making 
children familiar with natural objects, and the other half in 
teaching the practice of piety towards them (piety meaning 
kindness to living things, and orderly use of the lifeless). 

And throughout the various passages referring to this sub- 
ject in flora, it will be found that I always pre-suppose a cer- 
tain quantity of carefully tended land to be accessible near 
our schools and universities, not for exercise merely, but for 
instruction ; — see last flor*, p. 3f>9. 

* As distinct from those living by trade or piracy. 



FOBS CLA VKiEUA. 



379 



Of course, schools of this kind cannot be in large towns, — 
the town school must he for townspeople ; but I start with 
the general principle that every school is to be filled for the 
children in its neighbourhood who are likely to grow up and 
live in its neighbourhood. The iden of a general education 
which is to fit everybody to be Emperor of Russia, and pro- 
voke a boy, whatever he is, to want to be something better, 
and wherever he was born to think it a disgrace to die, is the 
most entirely and directly diabolic of all the countless stu- 
pidities into which the British nation bus been of late betrayed 
by its avarice and irreligion. There are, indeed, certain ele- 
ments of education which are alike necessary to the inhabit- 
ants of every spot of earth. Cleauli ness, obedience, the first 
laws of music, mechanics, and geometry, the primary factsof 
geography and astronomy, and the outlines of history, should 
evidently be taught alike to poor and rich, to sailor and 
shepherd, to labourer and shopboy. But for the rest, the 
efficiency of any school will be found to increase exactly in 
the ratio of its direct adaptation to the circumstances of the 
children it receives ; and the quantity of knowledge to be 
attained in a given time being equal, its value will depend on 
the possibilities of its instant application. You need not 
teach botany to the sons of fishermen, architecture to sheji- 
herds, or painting to colliers ; still less the elegances of 
grammar to children who throughout the probable course of 
their total lives will have, or ought to have, little to sav, and 
nothing to write.* 

Farther, of schools in all places, and for all ages, tne 
healthy working will depend on the total exclusion of the 
stimulus of competition in any form or disguise. Every child 
should be measured by its own standard, trained to its own 
duty, and rewarded by its just praise. It is the effort that 



* I am at total issue with must prece] 
to any body. In a. recent examination of 
that the thing the ebildre 
thing they did exactly w 
be given that the dissect! 



as to the use of grammar 

Collision m-liixil I ul^ervtil 

ictly bent, was their paining, and the 

r repetition. Could stronger proof 

the under- 



standing of it as the U inflection of a beast to the biography of ii 






380 



FORS CLAVIOERA. 



3 it a question for any 
duller, but 

a gifts he has. 
11 system 
= pl.ce.; 

l.l]i|i.»ll,L,- 



deserves praise, not the success ; 
student whether he is cleverer than others c 
whether he has done the best he could with the 
The madness of the modern cram and exam 
arises principally out of the struggle to get 1l 
but partly also out of the radical blockheadis 
that all men are naturally equal, and can only make their way 
by elbowing : — the facts being that every child is born with 
an accurately defined and absolutely limited capacity ; that 
lie is naturally (if able at all) able for some things and unable 
for others ; that no effort and no teaching can add one par- 
ticle to the granted ounces of his available brains ; that by 
competition be may paralyze or pervert his faculties, but 
cannot stretch tlietn a line ; and that the entire grace, hap- 
piness, and virtue of his life depend on his contentment in 
doing what he can, dutifully, and in staying where bo is, 
peaceably. So far as be regards the less or more capacity of 
others, his superiorities are to be used for tfieir help, not for 
bis own pre-eminence ; and his inferiorities to be no ground 
of mortification, but of pleasure in the admiration of nobler 
powers. It is impossible to express the quantity of delight 
I used to feel in the power of Turner and Tintoret, when mv 



own skill was nascent or 


lj 


.„d .11 go 


sd 


mists will admit 


that there is 


far less pera 




1 P lo..ar. i„ 


do 


n<r a thing beau- 


tifully than 


in seeing it 


beautifully do 




Therefore, over 


the door of 


every schoo 




nd the gate 


of 


every college, I 


would fain 


ee engraved 


in 


their marble the absolute For- 


bidding 













fnjt&v Kara ij>i8(tuv ij jccroSofui 

"Let nothing be done through strife or 



lin glory : 



and I would have fixed for each age of children and students 
a certain standard of pass in examination, so adapted to 
average capacity and power of exertion, that none need fail 
who had attended to their lessons and obeyed their masters ; 
while its variety of trial should yet admit of the natural dis- 
tinctions attaching to progress in especial subjects and skill 
in peculiar arts. Beyond such indication or acknowledgment 




FOBS CLAYIUE11A. 



381 



of merit, there should be neither prizes nor honours ; these 
are meant by Heaven to be the proper rewards of a man's 
consistent and kindly life, not of a youth's temporary and 
selfish exertion. 

Nor, on the other hand, should the natural torpor of whole- 
some dulness be disturbed by provocations, or plagued by 
punishments. The wise proverb ought in every school- 
master's mind to be deeply set — "You cannot make a silk 
purse of a sow's ear ; " expanded with the farther scholium 
that the flap of it will not be the leaMt disguised by giving it 
a diamond earring. If, in a. woman, beauty without discre- 
tion be as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, much more, in 
man, woman, or child, knowledge without discretion — the 
knowledge which a fool receives only to puff up his stomach, 
and sparkle ill his cockscomb. As I said,* that in matters 
moral, most men are not intended to be any better than sheep 
and robins, so, in matters intellectual, most men are not in- 
tended to be any wiser than their cocks and bulls, — duly 
scientific of their yard and pasture, peacefully nescient of all 
beyond. To be proud and strong, each in his place and work, 
is permitted and ordained to the simplest ; but ultra,— tie 
sutor, ne fossor. 

And it is in the wholesome indisposition of the average 
mind for intellectual labour that due provision is made for 
the quantity of dull work which must be done in stubbing 
the Thornaby wastes of the world. Modern Utopianism 
imagines that the world is to be stubbed by steam, and 
human arms and legs to be eternally idle ; not perceiving 
that thus it would reduce man to the level of bis cattle indeed, 
who can only graze and gore, but not dig ! It is indeed cer- 
tain that advancing knowledge will guide us to less painful 
methods of human toil ; but in the true Utopia, man will 
rather harness himself, with his oxen, to his plough, than 
leave the devil to drive it. 

The entire body of teaching throughout the series of Fora 
Claeiijera is one steady assertion of the necessity that edu- 
cated persons should share their thoughts with the uneducated, 
* Notes on tbe life of Santa Ziti (Songs of Tuteany, Part II.). 






382 FORS CLAVIOERA. 

and take also a certain part in their labours. But there is 
not a sentence implying that the education of all should be 
alike, or that there is to be no distinction of master from 
servant, or of scholar from clown. That education should b« 
open to all, is as certain as that the sky should be ; but, as 
certainly, it should be enforced on none, and benevolent 
Nature left to lead her children, whether men or beasts, to 
take or leave at their pleasure. Bring horse and man to the 
water, let them drink if, and when, they will ; — the child 
who desires education will be bettered bv it, the child who 
dislikes it, only disgraced. 

Of course, I am speaking here of intellectual education, not 
moral. The laws of virtue and honour are, indeed, to be 
taught compulsorily to all men ; whereas our present forms 
of education refuse to teach them to any ; and allow the 
teaching, by the persons interested in their promulgation, of 
the laws of cruelty and lying, until we find these Britiah 
islands gradually filling with a breed of men who cheat with- 
out shame, and kill without remorse. 

It is beyond the scope of the most sanguine thought to 
conceive how much miserv and crime would be effaced from 
the world by persistence, even for a few years, of a system of 
education thus directed to raise the fittest into positions of 
influence, to give to every scale of intellect its natural sphere, 
and to every line of action its unquestioned principle. At 
present wise men, for the most part, are silent, and good men 
powerless ; the senseless vociferate, and the heartless govern ; 
while all social law and providence are dissolved by the en 
raged agitation of a multitude, among whom every villain has 
a chance of power, every simpleton of praise, and every 
scoundrel of fortune. 

Passing now to questions of detail in the mode of organ- 
izing school instruction, I would first insist on the necessitv 
of a sound system in elementary music. Musicians, like 
painters, are almost virulently determined in their efforts to 
abolish the laws of sincerity and purity ; and to invent, each 
for his own glory, new modes of dissolute and lascivious 
sound. No greater benefit could be conferred on the upper 



FORS CLA VIGERA. 383 

as well as the lower classes of society than the arrangement 
of a grammar of simple and pure music, of which the code 
should be alike taught in every school in the laud. My at- 
tention has been long turned to this object, but I have never 
till lately had leisure to begin serious work upon it. During 
the last year, however, I have been making experiments with 
a view to the construction of an instrument by which very 
young children could Vie securely taught the relations of sound 
in the octave ; unsuccessful only in that the form of lyre which 
was produced for me, after months of labour, by the British 
manufacturer, was as curious a creation of visible deformity 
■s a Greek lyre was of grace, besides being nearly as expen- 
sive as a piano '. For the present, therefore, not abandoning 
the hope of at last attaining n simple stringed instrument, 1 
have fallen back — and I think, probably, with final good 
reason — on the most sacred of all musical instruments, the 
' Bell.' 

Whether the cattle-bell of the hills, or, from the cathedral 
tower, monitor of men, I believe the sweetness of its pro- 
longed tone the most delightful and wholesome for the ear 
and mind of all instrumental sound. The subject is too wide 
U> be farther dwelt on here ; of experiment or progress 
made, account will be given in my reports to the St. George's 
Guild. 

Next for elocution. The foundational importance of beau- 
tiful speaking has been disgraced by the confusion of it with 
diplomatic oratory, and evaded by the vicious notion that it 
can be taught by a master learned in it as a separate art. 
The management of the lips, tongue, and throat may, and 
perhaps should, be so taught ; but this is properly the lirst 
function of the singing master. Elocution is a moral faculty ; 
and no one is fit to be the head of a childrens' school who is 
not both by nature and attention a beautiful speaker. 

By attention, I say, for fine elocution means first an ex- 
quisitely close attention to, and intelligence of, the mean- 
ing of words, and perfect sympathy with what feeling tbey 
describe ; but indicated always with reserve. In this reserve, 
fine reading and speaking, (virtually one art), differ from "re- 






384 F0R8 CLAVIGEBA. 

citation/ 9 which gives the statement or sentiment with the ex- 
planatory accent and gesture of an actor. In perfectly pure 
elocution, on the contrary, the accent ought, as a rule, to be 
much lighter and gentler than the natural or dramatic one, and 
the force of it wholly independent of gesture or expression of 
feature. A fine reader should read, a great speaker speak, 
as a judge delivers his charge ; and the test of his power 
should be to read or speak unseen. 

At least an hour of the school-day should be spent in lis- 
tening to the master's or some trustworthy visitor's reading, 
but no children should attend unless they were really inter- 
ested ; the rest being allowed to go on with their other les- 
sons or employments ; a large average of children, I suppose, 
are able to sew or draw while they yet attend to reading, 
and so there might be found a fairly large audience, of whom 
however those who were usually busy during the lecture 
should not be called upon for any account of what they had 
heard ; but, on the contrary, blamed, if they had allowed 
their attention to be diverted by the reading from what they 
were about, to the detriment of their work. The real au- 
dience consisting of the few for whom the book had been 
specially chosen, should be required to give perfect and un- 
broken attention to what they heard ; to stop the reader 
always at any word or sentence they did not understand, and 
to be prepared for casual examination on the story next day. 

I say ' on the story? for the reading, whether poetry or 
prose, should always be a story of some sort, whether true 
history, travels, romance or fairy-tale. In poetry, Chaucer, 
Spenser, and Scott, for the upper classes, lighter ballad or 
fable for the lower, contain always some thread of pretty 
adventure. No merely didactic or descriptive books should 
be permitted in the reading room, but so far as they are 
used at all, studied in the same way as grammars ; and 
Shakespeare, accessible always at play time in the li- 
brary in small and large editions to the young and old alike, 
should never be used as a school book, nor even formally or 
continuously read aloud. He is to be known by thinking, 
not mouthing. 



FOJiS CLAVIGERA. 



3S5 



1 have used, not unintentional! y, the separate words 
'reading room' and library. No school should be consid- 
ered as organized at all, without these two rooms, rightly 
furnished ; the reading room, with its convenient pulpit and 
students' desks, in good light, skylight if possible, for draw- 
ing, or taking notes — the library with its broad tables for 
laying out books on, and recesses for niched reading, and 
plenty of lateral light kept carefully short of glare : both of 
them well shut off from the schoolroom or rooms, in which 
there must be always more or less of noise. 

The Bible-reading, and often that of other books in which 
the text is divided into verses or stanzas, should be fre- 
quently conducted by making the children read each its sep- 
arate verse in important passages, afterwards committing 
them to memory, — the pieces chosen for this exercise should 
of course be the same at all schools, — with wider scope given 
within certain limits for ohoice in profane literature ; re- 
quiring for a pass, that the children should know accurately 
out of the passages chosen, a certain number, including not 
less than live hundred lines, of such poetry as would always 
be helpful and strengthening to them ; therefore never mel- 
ancholy, but didactic, or expressive of cheerful and resolute 
feeling. 

No discipline is of more use to a child's character, with 
threefold bearing on intellect, memory, and morals, than the 
being accustomed to relate accurately what it has lately done 
and seen. The story of Eyes and No Eyes in Eoenin;/s at 
Home is intended only to illustrate the difference between 
inattention and vigilance ; but the exercise in narration is a 
subsequent and separate one ; it is in the lucidity, complete' 
ness, and honesty of statement. Children ought to be fre- 
quently required to give account of themselves, though 
always allowed reserve, if] they ask : "I would rather not 
say, mamma," should be accepted at once with serene con- 
fidence on occasion ; but of the daily walk and work the 
child should take pride in giving full account, if questioned ; 
the parent or tutor closely lopping exaggeration, investiga- 
ting elision, guiding into order, and aiding in expression. 
Vol. IT.— 25 






386 F0R8 CLAVIGERA. 

The finest historical style may be illustrated in the course of 
the narration of the events of the day. 

Next, as regards arithmetic : as partly stated already in 
the preceding For$, p. 365, children's time should never be 
wasted, nor their heads troubled with it. The importance at 
present attached to it is a mere filthy folly, coming of the 
notion that every boy is to become first a banker's clerk and 
then a banker, — and that every woman's principal business 
is in checking the cook's accounts. Let children have small 
incomes of pence won by due labour, — they will soon find 
out the difference between a threepenny-piece and a four- 
penny, and how many of each go to a shilling. Then, 
watch the way they spend their money,* and teach them pa- 
tience in saving, and the sanctity of a time-honoured hoard 
(but for use in a day of need, not for lending at interest) ; 
so they will painlessly learn the great truth known to so few 
of us — that two and two make four, not five. Then insist on 
perfect habits of order and putting-by of things ; this in- 
volves continually knowing and counting how many there 
are. The multiplication table may be learned when they 
want it — a longish addition sum will always do instead ; and 
the mere mechanism of multiplication and division and dot- 
ting and carrying can be taught by the monitors ; also of 
fractions, as much as that £ means a half-penny and \ a 
farthing.f 

Next for geography. There is, I suppose, no subject bet- 
ter taught at elementary schools ; but to the pursuit of it, 
whether in advanced studentship or in common life, there is 
now an obstacle set so ludicrously insuperable, that tor ordi- 
nary people it is simply an end to effort. I happen at this mo- 
ment to have the first plate to finish for the Bible of Amiens, 

* Not in Mrs. Pardiggle's fashion : a child ought to have a certain 
sum given it to give away, and a certain sum to spend for itself wisely ; 
and it ought not to be allowed to give away its spending money. Pru 
dence is a much more rare virtue than generosity. 

f I heard an advanced class tormented out of its life the other day at 
our school to explain the difference between a numerator and denomina- 
tor. I wasn't sure myself, for the minute, which was which ; and su- 
premely didn't care. 



FOBS CLAVI6ERA. 



3S7 



giving an abstract of the features of France. I took for 
reduction, as of convenient size, probably containing all I 
wanted to reduce, the map in the Marrow Atlas of Modem 
Gtoijraphy, and found the only clearly visible and the only 
accurately delineated things in it, were the railroads ! To 
begin with, there are two Mont Blancs, of which the free- 
born British boy may take his choice. Written at some dis- 
tance from the biggest of them, in small italics, are the 
words " Grand St. Bernard," which the boy cannot but sup- 
pose to refer to some distant locality ; hut neither of the Mont 
Blancs, each represented as a circular pimple, is engraved 
with anything like the force and sliade of the Argonnc hills 
about Bar le Due ; while the southern chain of the hills of 
Burgundy is similarly represented as greatly more elevated 
than the Jura. Neither the Rhine, Rhone, Loire, nor Seine 
is visible except with a lens ; nor is any boundary of prov- 
ince to be followed by the eye ; patches of feeble yellow and 
pale brown, dirty pink and grey, and uncertain green, melt 
into each other helplessly across wriggliugs of infinitesimal 
dots ; while the railways, not merely black lines, but centi- 
pede i>r myriiipudc caterpillars, bivftk up ;ill France, as if it 
were crackling clay, into senseless and shapeless divisions, 
in which the eye cannot distinguish from the rest even the 
great lines of railway themselves, nor any relative magnitudes 
of towns, nor even their places accurately, — the measure of 
nonsense and misery being filled U|) by a mist, of multitudin- 
ous names of places never heard of, much less spoken of, 
by any human being ten miles out of them. 

For maps of this kind, there can be no question with any 
reasonable human creature that, first, proper physical maps 
should be substituted ; and secondly, proper historical ones ; 
the diagrams of the railways being- left to Bradshaw ; and 
the fungus growths of modern commercial towns to the 
sellers of maps for counting-houses. And the Geological 
Society should, for pure shame, neither write nor speak an- 
other word, till it has produced effectively true models to 
scale of the known countries of the world. These, photo- 
graphed in good side light, would give all that was necessary 





388 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

of the proportion and distribution of mountain ranges ; * and 
these photographs should afterwards be made the basis of 
beautiful engravings, giving the character of every district 
completely, whether arable, wooded, rocky, moor, 6and, or 
snow, with the carefullest and clearest tracing of the sources 
and descent of its rivers ; and, in equally careful distinction 
of magnitude, as stars on the celestial globe, the capitals and 
great provincial towns ; but absolutely without names or in- 
scriptions of any kind. The boy who cannot, except by the 
help of inscription, know York from Lancaster, or Rheims 
from Dijon, or Rome from Venice, need not be troubled to 
pursue his geographical studies. The keys to every map, 
with the names, should form part of the elementary school 
geography, which should be the same over the whole Brit- 
ish Empire, and should be extremely simple and brief ; con- 
cerning itself in no wise with manners and customs, number 
of inhabitants, or species of beasts, but strictly with geo- 
graphical fact, completed by so much intelligible geology, as 
should explain whether hills were of chalk, slate, or granite, 
and remain mercifully silent as to whether they were Palseo- 
or Kaino-zoic, Permian or Silurian. The age, or ages of the 
world, are not of the smallest consequence either to ants or 
mvrmidons, — either to moths or men. But the ant and man 
must know where the world, now existent, is soft or flinty, 
cultivable or quarriable. 

Of course, once a system of drawing rightly made uni- 
versal, the hand-colouring of these maps would be one of the 
drawing exercises, absolutely costless, and entirely instruc- 
tive. The historical maps should also, as a matter of course, 
be of every country in successive centuries ; — the state of 
things in the nineteenth century being finally simplified into 
a general brown fog, intensified to blackness over the manu- 
facturing centres. 

* Of the cheap barbarisms and abortions of modern cram, the frightful 
method of representing mountain chains by black bars is about the most 
ludicrous and abominable. All mountain chains are in groups, not bars, 
aud their watersheds are often entirely removed from their points of 
greatest elevation. 



FOBS CLAVIflERA. 



339 



Next, tn astronomy, the beginning of all is to teach the 
child the places and names of the stars when it can see them, 
and to accustom it to watch for the nightly change of those 
visible. The register of the visible stars of first magnitude and 
planets should be printed largely and intelligibly for every 
day of the year, and set by the schoolmaster every day ; and 
the arc described by the sun, with its following and preced- 
ing stars, from point to point of the horizon visible at the 
place, should be drawn, at least weekly, as the first of the 
drawing exercises. 

These, connected on one side with geometry, on the other 
with writing, should be carried at least as far, and occupy as 
long a time, as the exercises in music ; and the relations of 
the two arts, and meaning of the words ' composition,' ' sym- 
metry,' 'grace,' and 'harmony' in both, should be very early 
insisted upon and illustrated. For all these purposes, every 
school should be furnished with progressive examples, in fac- 
simile, of beautiful illuminated writing : for nothing could 
be more conducive to the progress o f general scholarship and 
taste than that the first natural instincts of clever children for 
the imitation or, often, the invention of picture writing, 
should be guided and stimulated by perfect models in t.huir 
own kind. 

The woodcut prelixed to this number shows very curiously 
what complete harmony there is between a clover child's way 
of teaching itself to draw and write — (and no teaching is so 
good for it as its own, if that can be had) — and the earliest 
types of beautiful national writing. The indifference as to 
the places of the letters, or the direction in which they 
are- to be read, and the insertion of any that are to spare 
for the filling of corners or otherwise blank spaces in the 
picture, are exactly the modes of early writing which after- 
wards give rise to its most beautiful decorative arrangements 
— a certain delight in the dignity of enigma being always at 
the base of this method of ornamentation. The drawing is 
by the same little girl whose anxiety that her doll's dress 
might not hurt its feelings has been already described in my 
second lecture at Oxford, on the Art of England. This 





390 



FORS CLAVIOERA. 



fresco, executed nearly at tlie same time, when she was sin 
or seven years old, may be compared by antiquarians, not 
without interest, with early Lombardic MSS. It needs, ] 
think, no farther elucidation than some notice of the diffi- 
culty caused by the substitution of T f° r J m the title of 
'The Jug,' and the reversal of the letter Z « that of 'The 
Zebra,' and warning not to mistake tho hnal E oC <The 
Cake ' fur the handle of a spotted tea-cup. The most beau- 
tifully Lombardic involution is that of "The Fan," written — 

T N H 



Next, for zoology, I am taking the initiative in what is re- 
quired myself, by direct iug some part of the funds of the St. 
George's Guild to I lie provision of strongly ringed frames, large 
enough to contain the beautiful illustrations given by Gould, 
Audubon, and other such naturalists ; and I am cutting my 
best books to pieces for tiie filling of these frames, which can 
be easily passed from school to school ; and 1 hope to pre- 
pare with speed a general text for them, totally incognisaot 
of all quarrel or inquiry concerning species, and the origin 
thereof ; but simply calling a hawk a hawk, and an owl 
an owl ; and trusting to the scholars' sagacity to see the dif- 
ference ; but giving him all attainable information concern- 
ing the habits and talents of every bird and beast. 

Similarly in hot any, for which there are quite unlimited 
means of illustration, in the exquisite original drawings and 
sketches of great botanists, now uselessly lying in inacces- 
sible cupboards of the British Museum and other scientific 
institutions. But the most pressing need is for a simple 
handbook of the wild flowers of every country — French 
flowers for French children, Teuton for Teuton, Saxon for 
Saxon, Highland for Scot — severely accurate in outline, 
and exquisitely coloureel by hand (again the best possible 
practice in our drawing schools); with a text regardless 
utterly of any but the most popular names, and of all mi- 
croscopic observation ; but teaching children the beauty of 



FORS OLA VIGEIlA. 



3!>1 



plants as they grow, and tiieii 
and that, except for such uses 

And lastly of needlework. 
Fors, thrown together long s 
lowing sketch of what the 






culinary uses when gathered, 
they should he left growing. 
I find among the materials of 
nee, but never used, the fol- 
i of the Sheffield Museum, set 
apart for its illustration, was meant to contain. 

" All the acicular art of nations, savage and civilized— from 
Lapland boot, letting in no snow water, to Turkey cushion 
bossed with pearl, — to valance of Venice gold in needlework, 
— to the counterpanes and samplers of our own lovely ances- 
tresses — iniitable, perhaps, once more, with good help from 
Whitelands College and Girton. It was but yesterday my 
own womankind were in much wholesome and sweet excite- 
ment, delightful to behold, in the practice of some new de- 
vice of remedy for Rents (to think how much of evil there 
is in the two senses of that four-lettered word ! in the two 
methods of intonation of its synonym, Tear !), whereby it 
might be daintily effaced, and with a newness which would 
never make it worse. The process began — beautiful even to 
mv uninformed eyes— in the likeness 
crimson on white, but it seemed to 
tliini; should yet be discoverable in n 
so utilitarian character. 

"All that is reasonable, I say, of i 
first Museum room ; all that Athena 
prove. Nothing that vanity has 
folly loved for costliness. 

" Illustrating the true nature of a thread and a needle, the 
structure first of wool and cotton, of fur and hair and down, 
hemp, flax, and silk, microscope permissible, here, if anything 
can be shown of why wool is soft, and fur fine, and cotton 
downy, and down downier ; and how a flax fibre differs from 
a dandelion stalk, and how the substance of a mulberry leaf 
can become velvet for Queen Victoria's crown, and clothing 
of purple for the housewife of Solomon. 

"Then the phase of its dyeing- What azures and eme- 
ralds and Tyrian scarlets can be got into fibres of thread ! 

the phase of its spinning. The mystery of that 



ot herringbone masonry, 
ne marvellous that any- 
:edlo process, and that of 

luch work is to be in our 
and Penelope would ap- 
nvented for change, or 



393 FORS CLAVIGBRA. 

divine spiral, from finest to firmest, which renders lace pos- 
sible at Valenciennes ; — anchorage possible, after Trafalgar, 
(if Hardy hail done as be was bid). 

"Then the mystery of weaving. The eternal harmony of 
warp and woof ; of all manner of knotting, knitting, and 
reticulation ; the art which makes garments possible woven 
from the top throughout ; draughts of fishes possible, mirac- 
ulous enough, always, when a pilchard or herring shoal gath- 
ers itself into companionable catcbableness ; — which makes, 
in fine, so many nations possible, and Saxon and Norman 
beyond the rest. 

"And, finally, the accomplished phase of needlework — the 
'Acu Tetigisti' of all Lime, which does indeed practically 
exhibit — what mediaeval theologists vainly disputed — how 
many angels can stand on a needle point, directing the ser- 
viceable stitch, to draw the separate into the insepar- 
able." 

Very thankfully I can now say that this vision of thread 
and needlework, though written when my fancy had too 
much possession of me, is now being in all its brand m - t» 
alized by two greatly valued friends, — the spinning on the 
old spinning-wheel, with most happy and increasingly ac- 
knowledged results, systematized here among our Westmore- 
land hills by Mr. Albert Fleming ; the useful sewing, by 
Miss Stanley of Whitelands College, whose book on that 
subject seems to me in the text of it all that can be desired, 
but the diagrams of dress may perhaps receive further con- 
sideration. For indeed the schools of all young womankind 
are in great need of such instruction in dressmaking as shall 
comply with womankind's natural instinct for self-decoration 
in all worthy and graceful ways, repressing in the rich their 
ostentation, and encouraging in the poor their wholesome 
pride. On which matters, vital to the comfort and happi- 
ness of every household, I may have a word or two yet u> 
say in next Fors ; being content that this one should close 
with the subjoined extract from a letter I received lately 
from Franeesca's mother, who, if any one, has right to be 
heard on the subject of education ; and the rather that it 




FOBS CLA.Y1GEBA. 



393 



is, in main purport, contrary to much that I have both be- 
lieved and taught, but, falling in more genially with the tem- 
per of recent tutors and governors, may by them be grate- 
fully acted upon, and serve also for correction of what I may 
have myself too servilely thought respecting the need of 
compulsion. 

" If I have the least faculty for anything in this world, it 
is for teaching children, and making' them good and perfi r.tlij 
/"'/•J','/ going along. My whole principle is that no govern- 
ment is of the least use except self-government, and the 
worst children will do right, if told which is right and wrong, 
and that they must act for themselves. Then I have a 
fashion, told me by a friend when Francesca was a baby ; 
which is this, — never see evil, but praum yowl ; for instance, 
if children are untidy, do not find fault, or appear to notice 
it, but the first time possible, praise them for being neat and 



fresh, and thev will i 



account for this 



i become i 



I dat 



dare say you can 
mot ; nut 1 nave tried it many times, 
ana nave never Known it fail. I have other ideas, but you 
might not approve of them, — the religious instruction I 
limited to paying my little friends for learning Dr. Watts' 
"Though I'm now in younger days,' but I suppose that, like 
my system generally, is hopelesslv old fashioned. Very young 
children can learn this verse from it : — 

" 'I'll not willingly offend. 
Nor be easily offended; 
What's amiss I'll strive to mend. 
And endure wbat can't be meuded.' 



There was an old Am 

many times round the world c 



captain who said he had been 
nfortably by the help of this 



The following letters necessitate the return to my old form 
of notes and correspondence ; but as I intend now the close 
of libra altogether, that I may have leisure for some brief 
autobiography instead, the old book may be permitted to 
retain its colloquial character to the end. 




FOIiS CLAVIGEliA, 



" Voodburn, Selkirk, N. B., Mtk Deem<ber, 1883. 

"Dkak Sir, — The Ashestiel number of Fw* reaches me 
as I complete certain notes on the relationship of Scott to 
Mango Park, which will form part of a History of Ettrick 
Forest, which 1 hope to publish in 1884. This much id ex- 
planation of my presumption in writing you at all. 

" Having now had all the use of them I mean to take, 1 
send you copies of three letters taken by myself from the 
originals — and never published until last year, in an obscure 
local print : — 

"1. Letter from Mungo Park to his sister. 2. Letter from 
Scott to Mrs. Laidlaw, of Peel (close to Asliestiel), written 
after the bankruptcy of a lawyer brother of the African 
traveller had involved his entire family circle in ruin. The 
'merry friend' is Archibald Park, brother of Mungo {see 
Lockhart, ch. xiii.). It is he Sir Walter refers to in his 
story about the hot bounds entering Loch Katrine (see 
Introd. Lady of Luke). 3. Letter to young Mungo Park- 
on the death of his father, the above Archibald. 

"I send you these because I know the perusal of letter 
No. 2 will give you deep pleasure, and I owe you much- 
Nothing in Sir Walter's career ever touched me more. 

"May I venture a word for Mungo Park? He brought 
my wife's aunt into this world in the course of his profes- 
sional practice at Peebles ; and I have heard about bis work 
there. He was one of the most devoted, unselfish men that 
stood for Scott's hero — Gideon Gray. Apropos of which, 
a story. Park, lost on the moors one wild night in winter, 
directed his horse to a distant light, which turned out to 
be the candle of a hill-shepherd's cottage. It so happened 
that the doctor arrived there in the nick of time, for the 
shepherd's wife was on the point of confinement. He watted 
till all was well over, and next morning the shepherd escorted 
him to where he could see the distant road. Park, noticing 
the shepherd lag behind, asked him the reason, on which 
the simple man replied — ' Deed, sir, my wife said she was 
sure you must be an angel, and I think sa tae ; so I'm just 
keeping ahint, to be sure I'll see you flee up.' This I have 
from the nephew of Park's wife, himself a worthy old doctor 
and ex-provost of Selkirk. The first motive of Park's sec- 
ond journey may have been fame ; I am disposed to think 
it was. But I am sure if auri fame» had anything to do 
with it, it was for his wife and children that be wanted it. 




FOItS CLAVIGEIiA. 



395 



Head his letters home, as I have doi 

to the ill-fated man a character higher thai 

"If you place any value on these letters, may J venture 
to ask you to discharge the debt by a copy of last F. C. 
with your autograph '! I am not ashamed to say I ask it in 
a spirit of blind worship. 

"I shall not vex you by writing for your own eyes how 
much I honour and respect you ; but shall content myself 
with professing mvself your obedient servant, 

"T. Craio-Bbown." 

8th Ma?, 1881. 
Copt of letters lent to me by Mr. Blaikie, Holydean, and 
taken by him from boxes belonging to late Miss Jane Park, 
niece of Mungo Park. 

1. Original letter from Mungo Park to his sister, Miss Bell 
Park, Hartwoodmires, near Selkirk. " Dear Sister, — I have 
not heard from Scotland since I left it, but I hope you are 
all in good health, and I attribute your silence to the hurry 
of harvest. However, let me hear from you soon, and write 
how Sandy's marriage comes on, and how Jeany is, for I have 
heard nothing from her neither. 1 hare nothing new to tell 
you. I am very busy preparing- my book for the press, and 
all friends here are in good health. Mr. Dickson is running 
about, sometimes in the shop and sometimes out of it. 
Peggy is in very good health, and dressed as I think in a 
cotton gown of a bluish pattern ; a rouml-eared much, (sic, 
— properly mutch,) or what they call here a cap, with a white 
ribbon ; a Napkin of lawn or muslin, or some such thing ; 
a white striped dimity petticoat. Euphy and bill (Bell or 
Bill ?) are both in very good health, but they are gone out to 
play, therefore I must defer a description of them till my 
next letter. — I remain, vour loving brother, Moxuo Park. 
—London, Sept. 21st, 1795. P.S.— Both Peggy and Ur. 
Dickson have been, very inquisitive about you and beg their 
compliments to you." 

2. (Copy.) Letter from (Sir) Walter Scott to Mrs. Laidlaw. 
of Peel. (See Lockhart's Life, chap, xvii., p. 1C4.) "My 
dear Mtf. Laidlaw, — Any remembrance from you is at all 
times most welcome to me. I have, in fact, been thinking a 
good deal about Mr. Park, especially about my good n 
friend Archie, upon whom such calamity has fallei 
write to a friend in London likely i>j know about such mat' 



rs, 




tera to see if possible to procure him the situation of an 
overseer of extensive farms in improvements, for which lie is 
so well qualified. But success in this is douhtful, ami I am 
aware that their distress must be pressing. Now, Waterloo 
has paid, or is likely to pay me a great deal more inonev 
than I think proper to subscribe for the fund for families 
suffering, and I eliiefly consider the surplus as dedicated to 
assist distress or affliction. I shall receive my letter in a few 
days from the booksellers, and 1 will send Mr. I.aidlaw care 
for £50 and three mouths, the contents to be applied to the 
service of Mr. Park's family. It is no great sum, but may 
serve to alleviate any immediate distress ; and you can apply 
it as coming from yourself, which will relieve Park's delicacy 
upon the subject. 1 really think I will be able to hear o'f 
something for him ; at least it shall not be for want of ask- 
ing about, for I will lug him in as a postscript to every letter 
I write. Will you tel! Mr. Laidlaw with my best compli- 
ments — not that I have bought Kaeside, for this James will 
have told him already, but that I have every reason to think 
I have got it £000 cheaper than I would at a public nlel 
Mrs. Scott and the young people join in best compliments, 
and I ever am, dear Sirs. Laidlaw, very truly yours, Waltlk 
Scott.— Edinburgh, 20th Nov. (1815)." 

3. Letter (original) from Sir Walter Scott to Mr. Mnngo 
Park, Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Oban. "Sir, — I was favoured 
with your very attentive letter conveying to me the melan- 
choly intelligence that you have lost my old acquaintance 
and friend, your worthy father. I was using some interest 
to get him placed on the Superannuated Establishment of 
the Customs, but God lins been pleased to render this unne- 
cessary. A great ehargo devolves on you, sir, for so young a 
person, both for the comfort and support of his family. If 
you let me know your plans of life when settled, it is pos- 
sible I may be of use to you in some shape or other, which 1 
should desire in the circumstances, though my powers are 
very limited unless in the way of recommendation. I beg 
my sincere condolence miy be communicated to your sister, 
who I understand to be a very affectionate daughter and 
estimable young person. I remain very much your obedient 
servant, Walter Scott.— Edinl>urgh,"l7th May, 1820." 

I am greatly ohliged to Mr. Brown for his own letter, and 
for those which I have printed above ; but have only to an- 
swer that no " word for Mungo Park " was the least necessary 



FOBS CLAVIQERA. 397 

in reply to what I said of him, nor could any word in reply 
lessen its force, as far as it goes. I spoke of him as the 
much regretted friend of Sir Walter Scott, and as a man 
most useful in his appointed place of a country physician. 
How useful, and honoured, and blessed that function was, 
nothing could prove more clearly than the beautiful fact of 
the shepherd's following him as an angel ; and nothing en- 
force more strongly my blame of his quitting that angel's 
work by Tweedside to trace the lonely brinks of useless 
rivers. The letter to his sister merely lowers my estimate 
of his general culture ; a common servant's letter home is 
usually more interesting, and not worse spelt. A 'sacred' 
one to his wife, published lately by a rabid Scot in reply to 
the serene sentences of mine, which he imagines ' explosive ' 
like his own, need not be profaned by Fors* print. I write 
letters with more feeling in them to most of my good girl- 
friends, any day of the year, and don't run away from them 
to Africa afterwards. 

A letter from Miss Russell to the Scotsman^ written soon 
after last Fors was published, to inform Scotland that Ashes- 
tiel was not a farm house, — (it would all, with the latest addi- 
tions, go inside a Bernese farmer's granary) — that nobody it 
belonged to had ever done any farming, or anything else that 
was useful, — that Scott had been greatly honoured in being 
allowed a lease of it, that his study had been turned into a 
passage in the recent improvements, and that in the dining- 
room of it, Mrs. Siddons had called for beer, may also be left 
to the reverential reading of the subscribers to the Scots- 
man ; — with this only question, from me, to the citizens of 
Dun Edin, What good is their pinnacle in Prince's Street, 
when tney have forgotten where the room was, and corridor 
is, in which Scott wrote Marmionf 



898 FOBS CLAVIOEBA. 



LETTER XCVL— (LETTER XIL, NEW SERIES.) 



"tea, the work op oue hands, establish thou it." 



EOSY VALE. 

" St. David, having built a monastery near Meneira, 
which is from him since called St. David's, in a place called 
the Rosy Valley, (Vallis Rosin a,) gave this strict rule of 
monastical profession, — ' That every monk should labour 
daily with his hands for the common good of the Monastery, 
according to the Apostle's saying, He that doth not labour, 
let him not eat. For those who spend their time in idleness 
debase their minds, which become unstable, and bring forth 
impure thoughts, which restlessly disquiet them/ The monks 
there refused all gifts or possessions offered by unjust men ; 
they detested riches ; they had no care to ease their labour 
by the use of oxen or other cattle, for every one was instead of 
riches and oxen to himself and his brethren. Thev never con- 
versed together by talking but when necessity required, but 
each one performed the labour enjoined him, joining thereto 
prayer, or holy meditations on Divine things : and having fin- 
ished their country work, they returned to their monastery, 
where they spent the remainder of the day, till the evening, 
in reading or writing. In the evening, at the sounding of 
a bell, they all left their work and immediately repaired to 
the church, where they remained till the stars appeared, and 
then went all together to their refection, eating sparingly 
and not to satiety, for any excess in eating, though it 
be only of bread, occasions luxury. Their food was bread 
with roots or herbs, seasoned with salt, and their thirst 
they quenched with a mixture of water and milk. Supper 
being ended, they continued about three hours in watching, 



F0R8 CLAVIQERA. 399 

prayers, and genuflexions. After this they went to rest, and 
at cock-crowing they arose again, and continued at prayer till 
day appeared. All their inward temptations and thoughts 
they discovered to their superior. Their clothing was of 
the skins of beasts. Whosoever desired to be admitted into 
their holy convocation was obliged to remain ten days at 
the door of the monastery as an offcast, unworthy to be ad- 
mitted into their society, and there he was exposed to be 
scorned ; but if, during that time, he patiently endured that 
mortification, he was received by the religious senior who 
had charge of the gate, whom he served, and was by him in- 
structed. 

"In that condition he continued a long time, exercised in 
painful labours, and grievous mortifications, and at last was 
admitted to the fellowship of the brethren. 

" This monastery appears to have been founded by St. 
David, some time after the famous British synod assembled 
in the year 519, for crushing of the Pelagian heresy, which 
began again to spread after it had been once before extin- 
guished by St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, and St. Lupus, 
Bishop of Troyes. This monastery is not taken notice of in 
the Mbnasticon, any more than the other two above, and for 
the same reason, as not coming within any of the orders 
afterwards known in England, and having had but a short 
continuance ; for what became of it, or when it finished, is 
not known.*' 

I chanced on this passage in the second volume of Dug- 
dale's Monasticon, as I was choosing editions of it at Mr. 
Quaritch's, on one of the curious days which I suppose most 
people recognise as ' white ' among the many-coloured ones 
of their lives ; that is to say, the days when everything goes 
well, by no management of their own. About the same 
time I received the following letter from a very old and 
dear friend : — 

" In an old Fors you ask for information about Nanterre. 
If you have not had it already, here is some. As you know, 
it is in the plain between Paris, Sevres, and Versailles — a 



400 FOJiS CLAVIOERA. 

station on the Versailles line ; a little station, at which few 
persons ' descend,' and fewer still ascend ; the ladies of the 
still somewhat primitive and rather ugly little village being 
chiefly laundresses, and preferring, as I should in their place, 
to go to Paris in their own carts with the clean linen. Nan- 
terre has, however, two notable transactions in its commu- 
nitv. It makes cakes, sold in Paris as 'Gateaux de Nan- 
terre,' and dear to childhood's soul. And — now prick up 
your ears — it yearly elects a Rosiere. Not a high- falu tin' aes- 
thetic, self-conscious product, forced, and in an unsuitable 
sphere ; but a real Rosiere — a peasant girl, not chosen for 
beauty, or reading or writing, neither of which she may pos- 
sibly possess ; but one who has in some signal, but simple, 
unself -conscious way done her duty in the state of life unto 
which it has pleased God to call her, — done it in the open, 
fresh air, and under the bright sun, in the 'fierce white 
light ' of village public opinion ; who is known to young and 
old, and has been known all her life. 

" She is crowned with roses in May, and has a portion of 
rather more than 1,000 francs. She is expected soon to 
marry, and carry on into the higher functions of wife and 
mother the promise of her maidenhood." 

And with this letter came another, from Francesca, giving 
me this following account of her servant Edwige's * native 
village. 

**I have been asking her about l Le Rose :' she says it is 
such a pretty place, and the road has a hedge of beautiful 
roses on each side, and there are roses about all the houses. 
. . . . But now I can hardly finish my letter, for since 
she has begun she cannot stop running on about her birth- 
place, and I am writing in the midst of a long discourse 
about the chestnut-trees, and the high wooded hill, with the 
chapel of the Madonna at its summit, and the stream of clear 
water where she used to- wash clothes, and I know not what 
else ! She has a verv affectionate recollection of her child- 
hood, poor as it was ; and I do think that the beautiful 
country in which she grew up gave a sort of brightness to 
her life. I am very thankful that her story is going to be 
orinted, for it has been a help to me, and will be, I think, to 

Ken. 

* See Roadside Songs of Tuscany, No. II., p. 80. 



FOItS CLAVTQERA. 

Yes, a help, and better than that, : 
thai follows, being an account just sen 
a Rosy Vale in Italy, rejoicing round il 



light, — as also this 
me by Fraucesca, of 
Living Rose. 



The Motheh of the Orphans. 

"In the beautiful city of Bassano, on the llrents, between 
the mountains and the plain, Signora JIaria Zanchetta has 
passed the eighty-five years of her busy, happy, and useful 
life, bringing a blessing to all who have come near her, first 
iu her own family, and afterwards, for the last forty-five 
years, to one generation after another of poor orphan 
n she lias been more than a mother. She 
a childhood, as she herself told me, a wish to 
; life, and her vocation seems to have been 
3 than for the contemplative side of such 
■able family of Bassano, and 
love and reverence for her 
leave as long as they lived, 
led to live with an invalid sister. 



girls, I 
always had, frc 

rather for the i 
a life. She 
appears to have had s 
parents, whom she «'■ 
After their death she 



Paola, whom she remembers always witii great tenderness, 
and who is spoken of still, by those who knew her, as some- 
thing very near a saint. 

"I have often wondered how much of Signora Maria's 
sweet and beautiful Christian spirit, which has brought 
comfort into hundreds of lives, may be owing to the in- 
fluence of the saintly elder sister, whose helpless condition 
must have made her seem, to herself and others, compara- 
tively useless in the world, but who lived always so very 
near to heaven ! After Paola div-d, Maria, being no longer 
needed at home, resolved to give herself entirely to some 
charitable work, and her mind turned to the Girls' Orphan 
Asylum, close to her own house. Her brother and other re- 
lations would have preferred that she should have become a 
nun in one of those convents where girls of noble families are 
sent for education, considering that such a life was more 
honourable,* and better suited to her condition. She told me 
this part of her story herself, and added, 'In the convent I 
should have been paid for my work, but I wanted to servo 
the Lord without recompense in this world, and so I cams 

• Let me enrntstly pray the dtsrandants of old Catholic: familieH to 
think how i-uij«iain]v tlmir pride, rht primary mortal sill, hna been the 
ruin of all they had most oonfidtatly founded it on. and nil they strove 
to build on such foundation. 
Vol. IT.— 20 



402 FOBS CLAVIOERA. 

here to the orphans.' There she has lived ever since, wear* 
ing the same dress as the poor girls,* living their life, entering 
into all their pleasures, and troubles ; overseeing the washing, 
giving a hand to the mending, leading a humble, laborious 
life, full, one would think, of wearisome cares and burdens. 
A mother's burdens, without a mother's instinct to support 
them ; but still, if one may judge by her face, she has lived 
in perpetual sunshine. And how young she looks still ! 
She must have been a delicate blonde beauty in her youth, 
and she still retains a complexion like a sweet-briar rose, and 
her kind blue eyes are as clear and peaceful as an infant's. 
Her hair, still abundant as in youth, is quite white, and yet 
not like snow, unless it be snow with the evening sunshine 
upon it ; one sees in a moment that it has once been golden, 
and it is finer than anything that I ever saw, excepting 
thistledown. Her dress is of the poorest and plainest, and 
yet I cannot feel that she would be more beautiful in any 
other. A blue cotton dress, and cap of the same, with a 
handkerchief and apron, such as are worn by the contadine, 
nothing else ; but all arranged with scrupulous neatness. 
There is nothing monastic in the dress, nor in the life. 
Signora Maria is free to stay or go as she will ; she is bound 
by no vow, belongs to no order ; there has been nothing but 
the love of God, and of the poor children, to hold her to her 
place all these long years. She has some property, but she 
leaves the use of it to her family, taking for herself only just 
what is sufficient for her own maintenance in the asylum, 
that she may not take anything from the orphans. I had 
long wished to know this good Signora Maria, and finally, 
last May, 1 had the great pleasure of seeing her. I had sent 
to ask at what hour she could see me, to which she replied, 
' Any time after six in the morning,' which I thought was 
pretty well for eighty-five ! 

" When, the next morning, I went with Edvvige to the 
orphan asylum, and we entered the very modest little bottega, 
as they call it, with its low ceiling and counter, where they 
sell artificial flowers, and certain simple medicines of their 

* The good Superioras example, comparing what we are told of the 
dress of the girls themselves at page 409, may well take the place of 
all I had to say in this last Fcrs % about dress, summed in the simple 
advice to all women of rank and wealth, — Till you can dress your poor 
beautifully, dresH yowrselct* plainly ; till you can feed all your poor 
healthily, live yourselves like the monks of Vullis Rosiua, and the mes- 
sage of Font is ended. 



FOBS CLA17GERA. 



403 



own preparing, iu which the Bassano people have great faith; 
and where also they receive orders for ornamental laundry- 
work, and for embroidery of a religious description,* — when, 
as I was saying, we entered this room, half-a-dozen elderly 
women were standing talking together, ail in the same old- 
fashioned blue dresses. 1 asked if I could see the superiors, 
at which this very pretty and young-looking lady came 
forward ; and I, not dreaming that she could be the aged 
saint for whom I was looking, repeated my question. 'A 
servirla ! ' she replied. I was obliged to explain the astonish- 
ment, which I could not conceal, by saying, that I had ex- 
pected to see a much older lady. * 1 ant old, 1 she answered, 
'but I have good health, thank the Lord ! ' And then she 
led us through the room where a number of girls were doing 
the peculiar laundry-work of which I have spoken, — one 
cannot call it ironing, for w.i iroJ> is us<:<J about it ; ■f but 
with theirfingers, and a fine slick kept for the purpose, they 
work the starched linen into all kinds of delicate patterns. 



They all rose and bowed politely a 
old lady preceded us up the sti 
mounted so rapidly that she left i 
and conducted us to a pleasant up] 
sat down together. On this day, 



i life, I 



a bye 



when I v 
of her o% 



impossible to 

they were in all seve 
Everv girl taken into t 
init for life, if she will 
or if they do leave it 
married, or gone to se 
Once, many years ago, 
temporarily under her 
bought them in Africa, 
ness in herremembrano 
'The 
call 



e passed, and then the 

staircase (which she 

iome way behind her), 

chamber, where we all 

i those following 



e as I can 
them in a 
enty-five, 
the instituti 



betw 






rcho 



i horn* 



 In 1. 



.the! 



;all ine Superiora, 
i Mamma Maria. 1 And he 

than its usual gentleness as she sa 



but others have 
ie, or to live with their relations. 
 had seven little slave girls, put 
e by a good missionary who had 
he seems to have a peculiar teoder- 
of the poor little uribaptized savages. 



,1 It;, 



id, ' but thty used to 
softened to more 



• I should 1* inclined considerably to modify these directions of in- 
dustry, in the org-ituiiation o( similar institution* here. 

f 1 italirii* bate and t.licre a sentence thai might otherwise escape 
notice. I uii[rui itnlii i.'v tin. vvhulc tviL if 1 could so express my sym- 
pathy with all it relates. 



404 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

" And now I must leave the dear old lady for a moment, 
to repeat what Silvia told me once about those same little 
slave girls. It was a warm summer's evening, and Silvia and 
I were sitting, as we often do, on the broad stone steps 
of the Rezzonico Palace, between the two immense old stone 
lions that guard the door ; and watching the sunset behind 
the mountains. And Silvia was telling me how, when sh« 
was a very small child, those little African girls were brought 
to the house, and what wild black faces they had, and what 
brilliant eyes. As they were running about the wide lawn 
behind Palazzo Rezzonico (which stands in a retired country 
place about a mile from the city), they caught sight of those 
stone lions by the door, and immediately pressed about 
them, and fell to embracing them, as if they had been dear 
friends, and covered them with tears and kisses ; * and Sil- 
via thought that they were thinking of their own country, 
and perhaps of lions which they had seen in their African 
deserts. I asked Signora Maria if she knew what had be- 
come of those poor girls. She said that she had heard that 
two of them afterwards entered a convent ; but she had lost 
sight of them all for many years ; and, indeed, they had 
only remained in Bassano for five months. 

" While 1 was drawing the old lady's portrait, a tall, 
strong, very pleasant-looking woman of fifty or so came in 
and stood beside me. She wore the same dress as the 
Superiora, excepting that she had no cap, nor other cover- 
ing for her wavy black hair, which was elaborately braided, 
and knotted up behind, in the fashion commonly followed 
by the contadine in this part of the country. She had very 
bright eyes, in which a smile seemed to have taken up its 
permanent abode, even when the rest of her face was serious. 
Her voice was soft, — there seems to be something in the 
atmosphere of that orphanage which makes everybody's 
voice soft ! — but her movements were rapid and energetic 
and she evidently had a supply of vigour and spirit sufficient 
for half-a-dozen, at least, of average women. She was ex- 
tremely interested in the progress of the picture, (which she 
said was as much like the Superiora as anything could be that 
was sitting still), but it was rather a grievance to her that 
the old lady would be taken in her homely dress. ' Come 

* This is to me the most lovely ami the most instructive fact I ever 
heard, in its witness to the relations that exist between man and the 
iuferior intelligences of creation. 



FORS CLA VlflERA. 



4115 



 strong arm very 
ixingly bs if to a 

i pretty cap, that 



now, you might wear that olhei 
over the little fair Superiors, putting hei 
softly around her neck, and spealci 
baby ; then looking at me : 'She has 

I made up for her myself, and she will not wear it : ' • 
wear it when I go out,' said Signora Maria, ' but I would 
rather have my likeness in the dress that I always wear at 
home.' I, too, said that I would rather draw her just as sho 
was. ' I suppose you are right,' said the younger woman, 
regretfully, ' but she is so much prettier in that cap!' 1 
thought her quite pretty enough in the old blue cap, anil 
kept on with my work. Meanwhile I asked some ques- 
tions about the institution. Signora Maria said that it 
was founded in the last century by a good priest, D. 
Giorgio Pirani, and afterwards farther endowed by D. Marco 
Cremona, whom she had herself known in his old are. How 
old this I). Marco was she could not remember; a cast of 
his face, which she afterwards showed me, and which sho 
told me was taken after his i 



benevole 
imagine (judging 






■elal 



D. Giorgio, 
having no rel 
three or four 
had given it all for poor orph; 
" The place accommodates 
and is always full. Thirty ce 
the maintenance of each girl 
in D. Giorgio's time, but tin 
However, they do various k 



. jking man, of about seventy, but I 
om the rest of the conversation') that he 
sh older. She told roe that the founder, 
j inherited considerable property, and 
that needed it, had bought the land and 
which he had thrown into one ; and 
girls of Bassano. 
I'enty-five girls and women, 
lines a day are allowed for 
,nd were probably sufficient 
i have changed since then. 
s of work, principally of a 
iligious or ecclesiastical nature, making priests' dresses, or 
artificial Howers for the altar, or wafers to be used at the 
communion ; besides sewing, knitting, and embroidery of all 
kinds ; and the women work for the children, and the whole 
seventy-five live together in one affectionate and united 
family. The old lady seemed very fond of her 'tose,' as sho 
calls the girls, and said that they also loved her, — which I 
should think they would, for a more entirely loveable woman 
it would be hard to find. 

"She has the delightful manners of an old-fashioned 
Venetian, full of grace, sweetness, and vivacity, and would 
think that she failed in one of the first Christian duties if 
she did not observe all the laws nf politeness. She never 



406 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

once failed, during our rather frequent visits at the institu- 
tion, to come down stairs to meet us, receiving me always at 
the outside door with a kiss on both cheeks ; and when we 
came away she would accompany us into the cortile, and 
stand there, taking leave, with the sun on her white hair. 
When, however, she found this last attention made me 
rather uncomfortable, she desisted ; for her politeness being 
rather of the heart than of etiquette, she never fails in 
comprehending and considering the feelings of those about 
her. 

" But to return to our conversation. The woman with 
the black, wavy hair, whose name was, as I found out, 
Annetta, remarked, with regard to the good Don Giorgio 
Pirani, that * he died so young, poor man ! ' As it seemed he 
had accomplished a good deal in his life, I was rather sur- 
prised, and asked, ' How young ? ' To which she replied, in 
a tone of deep compassion, * Only seventy-five, poor man ! 
But then he had worn himself out with the care of the insti- 
tution, and he had a great deal of trouble.' Annetta calcu- 
lated age in the Bassano fashion ; in this healthy air, and 
with the usually simple habits of life of the people, longevity 
is the rule, and not the exception. The portrait of Don 
Giorgio's mother hangs beside his in the refectory, with an 
inscription stating that it was painted ' in the year of her age 
eighty-nine'; also that her name was Daciana Pirani, and 
that she assisted her two sons, Giorgio and Santi, in their 
charitable work for the orphans. The picture itself bears 
the date 1774, and represents a fresh-coloured, erect, very 
pleasant-looking lady, with bright, black eyes, very plainly 
dressed in a long-waisted brown gown and blue apron, with 
a little dark-coloured cap, which time has rendered so indis- 
tinct that 1 cannot quite make out the fashion of it. A plain 
handkerchief, apparently of fine white linen, is fplded over 
her bosom, and her arms are bare to the elbows, with a fine 
Venetian gold chain wound several times around one of them, 
— her only ornament, excepting her little round earrings. 
She is standing by a table, on which are her crucifix, prayer- 
book and rosary. The Superiora told me that when Don 
Giorgio was engaged in building and fitting up his asylum, 
sometimes at the table his mother would observe that he was 
absent and low-spirited, and had little appetite, at which she 
would ask him anxiously, ' What ails you, my son ? ' and he 
would reply, 'I have no more money for my workmen.' At 
this she alwavs said, ' Oh, if that is all, do not be troubled ! 



FOJIS OLA VIGEIIA. 



407 



e to it ! ' And, rising froi 
m, to return in & few i 



the table, 



rith I 



tfould leave 
handful of 

money, sufficient for the immediate expenses. Don Giorgio 
himself must have had, if his portrait tells the truth, a singu- 
larly kind, sensible, and cheerful face, with more regular 
beauty than Don Marco Cremona, hut less imposing, with 
dark eyes and white curling hair. Of Santi Piram I could 
learn nothing, excepting that he was a priest, an excellent 
man, and his brother's helper. 

"But to return to what I was saying about the Bassano 
fashion of reckoning age. It is not loujj since a Bassano 
gentleman, himself quite a w 
health, was complaining to m 
was not what it used to be. 
air of one bringing forward an 
assertion, ' at this present time, : 
1 know only one man past a ' 
era! ; but now thev all s 



Diiderful picture of vigorous 
i that the health of the city 
'Indeed,' he said, with the 
ii unanswerable proof of his 

>ng all my acquaintances, 
odredl My father knew sev- 

n off between eighty and 



ninety.' And he shook his head sadlv. I asked some ques- 
tions about his centenarian friend, and was told that he was 
a poor man, and lived on charity. ' We all give to him,' he 
said ; ' he always worked as long as he could, and at his age 
we do not think it ought to be expected of him.' 

"As nearly as I can understand, people here begin to 
he considered elderly when they are about eighty, but those 
who die before ninety are thought to have died untimely. 
Signora Maria's family had an old servant, by name Bartolo 
Mosca, who lived with them for seventy-two years. He 
entered their service at fourteen, and left it (for a better 
world, I hope) at eighty-six. He was quite feeble for some 
time before he died, and his master kept a servant expressly 
to wait upon him. A woman servant, Maria Cometa, died in 
their house of nearly the same age, having passed all her 
life in their service. 

"I was much interested in observing Annettfl's behaviour 
to her Superiora ; it was half reverential, half caressing. I 
could hardly tell whether she considered the old lady as a 
patron saint or a pet child. Anxious to know what was the 
lie between them, I asked Annetta how long she had been 
in the place. She did a little cyphering on her fingers, and 
then said, 'Forty years.' In answer to other questions, she 
told mo that her father and mother had both died within ft 
few weeks of each other, when she was a small child, the 
youngest of seven ; and her uncle, finding himself left with 



408 FOBS CLAVIGERA. 

the burden of so large a family on his shoulders, had thought 
well to relieve himself in part by putting the smallest and 
most helpless ' with the orphans.' ' She has been my mother 
ever since,' she said, dropping her voice, and laying her 
hand on the little old lady's shoulder. She added that some 
of her brothers had come on in the world, and had wished to 
take her home, and that she had gone at various times and 
stayed in their families, but that she had always come back 
to her place in the institution, because she could never be 
happy, for any length of time, anywhere else. I asked if the 
girls whom they took in were generally good, and repaid 
their kindness as they should do, to which the old lady 
replied, * Many of them do, and are a great comfort ; but 
others give us much trouble. What can we do ? We must 
have patience ; we are here on purpose.' ' Besides,' said 
Annetta, cheerfully, ' it would never do for us to have all 
our reward in this world ; if we did, we could not expect 
any on the other side.' 

" The Superiora told me many interesting stories about 
the institution, and of the bequests that had been left to 
it by various Bassano families, of which the most valuable 
appeared to be some land in tfie country with one or two 
contadine houses, where the girls are sent occasionally to 
pass a day in the open air and enjoy themselves. Many 
families had bequeathed furniture and pictures to the institu- 
tion, so that one sees everywhere massive nutwood chairs and 
tables, carved and inlaid, all of old republican* times. One 
picture, of which I do not recollect the date, but it is about 
two hundred years old, I should think, represents a young 
lady with fair curls, magnificently dressed in brocade and 
jewels, by name Maddalena Bernardi, who looks always as if 
wondering at the simple unworldliness of the life about 
her ; and beside her hangs the last of her race (her son, 
I suppose, for he is much like her in feature ; but no one 
knows now), a poor Franciscan frate, * Who did a great deal 
for the orphans,' Signora Maria says. Next to the frate, be- 
tween him and good Don Giorgio, she showed me a Venetian 
senator, all robe and wig, with a face like nobody in par- 
ticular, scarlet drapery tossed about in confusion, and a back- 
ground of very black thunder-clouds. ' This picture,' shf: 
said, 'was left us by the Doge Erizzo, and represents one of 

41 Old stately times, Francesca means, when Bassano and Costel- 
franco, Padua and Verona, were all as the sisters of Venice. 



FOBS CLAVIOBRA. 409 

his family. He left us also a hundred and twenty staia of 
Indian corn and two barrels of wine yearly, and we still con- 
tinue to receive them.' She showed me also a room where 
the floor was quite covered with heaps of corn, saying, 'I 
send it to be ground as we need it ; but it will not last long, 
there are so many mouths ! ' 

" During the many days that I visited Signora Maria, I 
noticed several things which seemed to me different from 
other orphan asylums which I have seen. To be sure I have 
not seen a great many ; but from what little I have been 
able to observe, I have taken an impression that orphan girls 
usually have their hair cut close to their heads, and wear the 
very ugliest clothes that can possibly be obtained, and that 
their clothes are made so as to fit no one in particular. Also 
I think that they are apt to look dull and dispirited, with a 
general effect of being educated by machinery, which is not 
pleasant. Signora Maria's little girls, on the contrary, are 
made to look as pretty as is possible in the poor clothes, 
which are the best that can be afforded for them. Their cot- 
ton handkerchiefs are of the gayest patterns, their hair is 
arranged becomingly, so as to make the most of the light 
curls of one, or the heavy braids of another, and most of 
them wear little gold earrings. And if one speaks to them, 
they answer with a pleasant smile, and do not seem fright- 
ened. I do not think that the dear old lady keeps them 
under an iron rule, by any means. Another thing which I 
noticed was that while many of the younger children, who 
had been but a little while in the place, looked rather sickly, 
and showed still the marks of poverty and neglect, the 
older girls, who had been there for several years, had, almost 
without exception, an appearance of vigorous health. It 
was my good fortune to be there once on washing-day, when 
a number of girls, apparently from fifteen to twenty years 
old, bare-armed (and some of them bare-footed), were hang- 
ing out clothes to dry in the cortile ; and such a picture of 
health and beauty I have seldom seen, nor such light, 
strong, rapid movements, nor such evident enjoyment of 
their work. 

" Next to the room where I did most of my work was a 
long narrow room where many of the women and elder girls 
used to work together. An inscription in large black let- 
ters hung on the wall, 'Silentium.' I suppose it must have 
been put there with an idea of giving an orderly convent- 
ual air to the place ; perhaps it may have served that pur* 



410 FOES CLAVIGERA. 

pose, it certainly did no other ! The door was open between 
us, and the lively talking that went on in that room was 
incessant. Once the old lady by my side called to them, 
' Tose ! ' and I thought that she was calling them to order, 
hut it proved that she only wanted to have a share in the 
conversation. When not sitting for her portrait she used 
to sew or knit, as she sat beside me. She could do beautiful 
mending, and never wore spectacles. She told me that she 
had worn them until a few years before, when her sight had 
cot lie back quite strong as in youth. 

" But I must allow, in speaking of my friends of the or- 

f)han asylum, that some of their religious observances are a 
ittle . . . peculiar. In the large garden, on the side where 
Signora Maria has her flower border ('We cannot afford 
much room for flowers,' Annetta says, 'but they are the de- 
light of the Superiora ! ') is a long walk under a canopy of 
grape-vines, leading to a niche where stands, under the thick 
shade, a large wooden Madonna of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion. She is very ugly, and but a poor piece of carving; a 
stout, heavy woman in impossible drapery, and with no ex- 
pression whatsoever. The seven stars (somewhat rusty and 
blackened by the weather) are arranged on a rather too con- 
spicuous piece of wire about the head. The last time I saw 
her, however, she had much improved, if not in beauty or 
sanctity, at least in cleanliness of appearance, which An- 
netta accounted for by saying complacently : ' I gave her a 
coat of white paint myself, oil paint ; so now she will look 
well for a long time to come, and the rain will not hurt her.' 
1 observed that some one had placed a rose in the clumsv 
wooden hand, and that her ears were ornamented with little 
garnet earrings. Annetta said, 'The girls put together a 
few soldi and bought those earrings for the Madonna. They 
are very cheap ones, and I bored the holes in her ears myself 
with a gimlet. ' Before this Madonna the girls go on sum- 
mer afternoons to sing the litanies, and apparently find their 
devotion in no way disturbed by the idea of Annetta's tin- 
kering. She seems to do pretty much all the carpentering 
and repairing that are wanted about the establishment, and 
is just as well pleased to 'restore' the Madonna as anything 
else. I was verv sorry, at last, when the time came to sav 
good-bye to the peaceful old house and its inmates. The 
Superiora, on the occasion of her last sitting, presented me 
with a very pretty specimen of the girls' work — a small pin- 
cushion, surrounded with artificial flowers, and surmounted 



FOES CLAVIGERA. 411 

by a dove, with spread wings, in white linen, its shape, and 
even feathers, quite wonderfully represented by means of 
the peculiar starching process which I have tried to de- 
scribe. I can only hope that the dear old lady may be spared 
to the utmost limit of life in Bassano, which would give her 
many years yet, for it is sad to think of the change that must 
come over the little community when she is taken away. 
She is still the life of the house ; her influence is every- 
where. She reminds me always of the beautiful promise, 
'They shall yet bear fruit in old age.' Once I was express- 
ing to her my admiration for the institution, and she said, 
4 It is a happy institution.' And so it is, but it is she who 
has made it so." 

This lovely history, of a life spent in the garden of God, 
sums, as it illumines, all that I have tried to teach in the se- 
ries of letters which I now feel that it is time to close. 

The " Go and do thou likewise," which every kindly intel- 
ligent spirit cannot but hear spoken to it, in each sentence 
of the quiet narrative, is of more searching and all-embracing 
urgency than any appeal I have dared to make in my own 
writings. Looking back upon my efforts for the last twenty 
years, I believe that their failure has been in very great part 
owing to my compromise with the infidelity of this outer 
world, and my endeavour to base my pleading upon motives 
of ordinary prudejice and kindness, instead of on the pri- 
mary duty of loving God, — foundation other than which can 
no man lay. I thought myself speaking to a crowd which 
could only be influenced by visible utility ; nor was I the 
least aware how many entirely good and holy persons were 
living in the faith and love of God as vividly and practically 
now as ever in the early enthusiasm of Christendom, until, 
chiefly in consequence of the great illnesses which, for some 
time after 1878, forbade my accustomed literary labour, I 
was brought into closer personal relations with the friends 
in America, Scotland, Ireland, and Italy, to whom, if I am 
spared to write any record of my life, it will be seen that I 
owe the best hopes and highest thoughts which have sup- 
ported and guided the force of my matured mind. These 
have shown me, with lovely initiation, in how many secret 



412 FOBS CLAVIQERA. 

places the prayer was made which I had foolishly listened 
for at the corners of the streets ; and on how many hills 
which I had thought left desolate, the hosts of heaven still 
moved in chariots of fire. 

But surely the time is come when all these faithful armies 
should lift up the standard of their Lord, — not by might, nor 
by power, but by His spirit, bringing forth judgment unto 
victory. That they should no more be hidden, nor overcome 
of evil, but overcome evil with good. If the enemy cometh 
in like a flood, how much more may the rivers of Paradise ? 
Are there not fountains of the great deep that open to bless, 
not destroy ? 

And the beginning of blessing, if you will think of it, is 
in that promise, "Great shall be the peace of thy children" 
All the world is but as one orphanage, so long as its children 
know not God their Father ; and all wisdom and knowledge 
is only more bewildered darkness, so long as you have not 
taught them the fear of the Lord. 

Not to be taken out of the world in monastic sorrow, but 
to be kept from its evil in shepherded peace ; — ought not 
this to be done for all the children held at the fonts beside 
which we vow, in their name, to renounce the world ? Re- 
nounce ! nay, ought we not, at last, to redeem ? 

The story of Rosy Yale is not ended ^ — surely out of its 
silence the mountains and the hills shall break forth into 
singing, and round it the desert rejoice, and blossom as the 
rose ! 



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