{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12641/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12641","id":"gutenberg_12641","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12641","summary":null,"tags":["Art, Greek","Athena (Greek deity)","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Mythology, Greek"],"text":"THE QUEEN OF THE AIR\n\nBeing a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm\n\nBY\n\nJOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nI.  ATHENA CHALINITIS.\n      (Athena in the Heavens.)\nLecture on the Greek myths of Storm, given (partly) in University\nCollege, London, March 9, 1869.\n\nII.  ATHENA KERAMITIS.\n      (Athena in the Earth.)\nStudy, supplementary to the preceding lecture, of the supposed and actual\nrelations of Athena to the vital force in material organism.\n\nIII.  ATHENA ERGANE.\n      (Athena in the Heart.)\nVarious notes relating to the Conception of Athena as the Directress of\nthe Imagination and Will.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nMy days and strength have lately been much broken; and I never more felt\nthe insufficiency of both than in preparing for the press the following\ndesultory memoranda on a most noble subject.  But I leave them now as\nthey stand, for no time nor labor would be enough to complete them to my\ncontentment; and I believe that they contain suggestions which may be\nfollowed with safety, by persons who are beginning to take interest in\nthe aspects of mythology, which only recent investigation has removed\nfrom the region of conjecture into that of rational inquiry.  I have\nsome advantage, also, from my field work, in the interpretation of myths\nrelating to natural phenomena; and I have had always near me, since we\nwere at college together, a sure, and unweariedly kind, guide, in my\nfriend Charles Newton, to whom we owe the finding of more treasure in\nmines of marble than, were it rightly estimated, all California could\nbuy.  I must not, however, permit the chance of his name being in any\nwise associated with my errors.  Much of my work as been done obstinately\nin my own way; and he is never responsible for me, though he has often\nkept me right, or at least enabled me to advance in a new direction.\nAbsolutely right no one can be in such matters; nor does a day pass\nwithout convincing every honest student of antiquity of some partial\nerror, and showing him better how to think, and where to look.  But I\nknew that there was no hope of my being able to enter with advantage on\nthe fields of history opened by the splendid investigation of recent\nphilologists, though I could qualify myself, by attention and sympathy,\nto understand, here and there, a verse of Homer's or Hesiod's, as the\nsimple people did for whom they sang.\n\nEven while I correct these sheets for press, a lecture by Professor\nTyndall has been put into my hands, which I ought to have heard last 16th\nJanuary, but was hindered by mischance; and which, I now find, completes,\nin two important particulars, the evidence of an instinctive truth in\nancient symbolism; showing, first, that the Greek conception of an\n\u00e6therial element pervading space is justified by the closest reasoning of\nmodern physicists; and, secondly, that the blue of the sky, hitherto\nthought to be caused by watery vapour, is, indeed, reflected from the\ndivided air itself; so that the bright blue of the eyes of Athena, and\nthe deep blue of her \u00e6gis, prove to be accurate mythic expressions of\nnatural phenomena which it is an uttermost triumph of recent science to\nhave revealed.\n\nIndeed, it would be difficult to imagine triumph more complete.  To form,\n\"within an experimental tube, a bit of more perfect sky than the sky\nitself!\" here is magic of the finest sort! singularly reversed from that\nof old time, which only asserted its competency to enclose in bottles\nelemental forces that were--not of the sky.\n\nLet me, in thanking Professor Tyndall for the true wonder of this piece\nof work, ask his pardon, and that of all masters in physical science, for\nany words of mine, either in the following pages or elsewhere, that may\never seem to fail in the respect due to their great powers of thought, or\nin the admiration due to the far scope of their discovery.  But I will be\njudged by themselves, if I have not bitter reason to ask them to teach us\nmore than yet they have taught.\n\nThis first day of May, 1869, I am writing where my work was begun\nthirty-five years ago, within sight of the snows of the higher Alps.  In\nthat half of the permitted life of man, I have seen strange evil brought\nupon every scene that I best loved, or tried to make beloved by others.\nThe light which once flushed those pale summits with its rose at dawn,\nand purple at sunset, is now umbered and faint; the air which once inlaid\nthe clefts of all their golden crags with azure is now defiled with\nlanguid coils of smoke, belched from worse than volcanic fires; their\nvery glacier waves are ebbing, and their snows fading, as if hell had\nbreathed on them; the waters that once sank at their feet into\ncrystalline rest are now dimmed and foul, from deep to deep, and shore to\nshore.  These are no careless words--they are accurately, horribly, true.\nI know what the Swiss lakes were; no pool of Alpine fountain at its\nsource was clearer.  This morning, on the Lake of Geneva, at half a mile\nfrom the beach, I could scarcely see my oar-blade a fathom deep.\n\nThe light, the air, the waters, all defiled!  How of the earth itself?\nTake this one fact for type of honour done by the modern Swiss to the\nearth of his native land.  There used to be a little rock at the end of\nthe avenue by the port of Neuch\u00e2tel; there, the last marble of the foot\nof Jura, sloping to the blue water, and (at this time of year) covered\nwith bright pink tufts of Saponaria.  I went, three days since, to gather\na blossom at the place.  The goodly native rock and its flowers were\ncovered with the dust and refuse of the town; but, in the middle of the\navenue, was a newly-constructed artificial rockery, with a fountain\ntwisted through a spinning spout, and an inscription on one of its\nloose-tumbled stones,--\n\n      \"Aux Botanistes,\n      Le club Jurassique,\"\n\nAh, masters of modern science, give me back my Athena out of your vials,\nand seal, if it may be, once more, Asmodeus therein.  You have divided\nthe elements, and united them; enslaved them upon the earth, and\ndiscerned them in the stars.  Teach us now, but this of them, which is\nall that man need know,--that the Air is given to him for his life; and\nthe Rain to his thirst, and for his baptism; and the Fire for warmth; and\nthe Sun for sight; and the Earth for his Meat--and his Rest.\n\nVEVAY, May 1, 1869.\n\n\n\n\nTHE QUEEN OF THE AIR.\n\n\n\nI.\n\nATHENA CHALINITIS.*\n(Athena in the Heavens.)\n\n\n* \"Athena the Restrainer.\"  The name is given to her as having helped\nBellerophon to bridle Pegasus, the flying cloud.\n\n\nLECTURE ON THE GREEK MYTHS OF STORM, GIVEN (PARTLY) IN UNIVERSITY\n      COLLEGE, LONDON, MARCH 9, 1869.\n\n\n1. I will not ask your pardon for endeavoring to interest you in the\nsubject of Greek Mythology; but I must ask your permission to approach\nit in a temper differing from that in which it is frequently treated.\nWe cannot justly interpret the religion of any people, unless we are\nprepared to admit that we ourselves, as well as they, are liable to\nerror in matters of faith; and that the convictions of others, however\nsingular, may in some points have been well founded, while our own,\nhowever reasonable, may be in some particulars mistaken.  You must\nforgive me, therefore, for not always distinctively calling the creeds\nof the past \"superstition,\" and the creeds of the present day \"religion;\"\nas well as for assuming that a faith now confessed may sometimes be\nsuperficial, and that a faith long forgotten may once have been sincere.\nIt is the task of the Divine to condemn the errors of antiquity, and of\nthe philologists to account for them; I will only pray you to read, with\npatience, and human sympathy, the thoughts of men who lived without blame\nin a darkness they could not dispel; and to remember that, whatever\ncharge of folly may justly attach to the saying, \"There is no God,\" the\nfolly is prouder, deeper, and less pardonable, in saying, \"There is no\nGod but for me.\"\n\n2. A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a meaning attached\nto it other than it seems to have at first; and the fact that it has such\na meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being\nextraordinary, or, in the common use of the word, unnatural.  Thus if I\ntell you that Hercules killed a water-serpent in the lake of Lerna, and\nif I mean, and you understand, nothing more than that fact, the story,\nwhether true or false, is not a myth.  But if by telling you this, I mean\nthat Hercules purified the stagnation of many streams from deadly\nmiasmata, my story, however simple, is a true myth; only, as, if I leftit\nin that simplicity, you would probably look for nothing beyond, it will\nbe wise in me to surprise your attention by adding some singular\ncircumstance; for instance, that the water-snake had several heads, which\nrevived as fast as they were killed, and which poisoned even the foot\nthat trod upon them as they slept.  And in proportion to the fulness of\nintended meaning I shall probably multiply and refine upon these\nimprobabilities; as, suppose, if, instead of desiring only to tell you\nthat Hercules purified a marsh, I wished you to understand that he\ncontended with the venom and vapor of envy and evil ambition, whether in\nother men's souls or in his own, and choked that malaria only by supreme\ntoil,--I might tell you that this serpent was formed by the goddess whose\npride was in the trial of Hercules; and that its place of abode as by a\npalm-tree; and that for every head of it that was cut off, two rose up\nwith renewed life; and that the hero found at last that he could not kill\nthe creature at all by cutting its heads off or crushing them, but only\nby burning them down; and that the midmost of them could not be killed\neven that way, but had to be buried alive.  Only in proportion as I mean\nmore,  I shall certainly appear more absurd in my statement; and at last\nwhen I get unendurably significant, all practical persons will agree that\nI was talking mere nonsense from the beginning, and never meant anything\nat all.\n\n3.  It is just possible, however, also, that the story-teller may all\nalong have meant nothing but what he said; and that, incredible as the\nevents may appear, he himself literally believed--and expected you also\nto believe--all this about Hercules, without any latent moral or history\nwhatever.  And it is very necessary, in reading traditions of this kind,\nto determine, first of all, whether you are listening to a simple person,\nwho is relating what, at all events, he believes to be true, (and may,\ntherefore, possibly have been so to some extent), or to a reserved\nphilosopher, who is veiling a theory of the universe under the grotesque\nof a fairy tale.  It is, in general, more likely that the first\nsupposition should be the right one: simple and credulous persons are,\nperhaps fortunately, more common than philosophers; and it is of the\nhighest importance that you should take their innocent testimony as it\nwas meant, and not efface, under the graceful explanation which your\ncultivated ingenuity may suggest, either the evidence their story may\ncontain (such as it is worth) of an extraordinary event having really\ntaken place, or the unquestionable light which it will cast upon the\ncharacter of the person by whom it was frankly believed.  And to deal\nwith Greek religion honestly, you must at once understand that this\nliteral belief was, in the mind of the general people, as deeply rooted\nas ours in the legends of our own sacred book; and that a basis of\nunmiraculous event was as little suspected, and an explanatory symbolism\nas rarely traced, by them, as by us.\n\nYou must, therefore, observe that I deeply degrade the position which\nsuch a myth as that just referred to occupied in the Greek mind, by\ncomparing it (for fear of offending you) to our story of St. George and\nthe Dragon.  Still, the analogy is perfect in minor respects; and though\nit fails to give you any notion of the Greek faith, it will exactly\nillustrate the manner in which faith laid hold of its objects.\n\n4.  This story of Hercules and the Hydra, then, was to the general Greek\nmind, in its best days, a tale about a real hero and a real monster.  Not\none in a thousand knew anything of the way in which the story had arisen,\nany more than the English peasant generally is aware of the plebeian\noriginal of St. George; or supposes that there were once alive in the\nworld, with sharp teeth and claws, real, and very ugly, flying dragons.\nOn the other hand, few persons traced any moral or symbolical meaning in\nthe story, and the average Greek was as far from imagining any\ninterpretation like that I have just given you, as an average Englishman\nis from seeing is St. George the Red Cross Knight of Spenser, or in the\nDragon the Spirit of Infidelity.  But, for all that, there was a certain\nundercurrent of consciousness in all minds that the figures meant more\nthan they at first showed; and, according to each man's own faculties of\nsentiment, he judged and read them; just as a Knight of the Garter reads\nmore in the jewel on his collar than the George and Dragon of a\npublic-house expresses to the host or to his customers.  Thus, to the\nmean person the myth always meant little; to the noble person, much; and\nthe greater their familiarity with it, the more contemptible it became to\none, and the more sacred to the other; until vulgar commentators\nexplained it entirely away, while Virgil made the crowning glory of his\nchoral hymn to Hercules.\n\n      \"Around thee, powerless to infect thy soul,\n      Rose, in his crested crowd, the Lerna worm.\"\n\n                          \"Non te rationis egentem\n      Lern\u00e6us turb\u00e2 capitum circumstetit anguis.\"\n\nAnd although, in any special toil of the hero's life, the moral\ninterpretation was rarely with definiteness attached to the event, yet\nin the whole course of the life, not only for a symbolical meaning, but\nthe warrant for the existence of a real spiritual power, was apprehended\nof all men.  Hercules was no dead hero, to be remembered only as a victor\nover monsters of the past--harmless now as slain.  He was the perpetual\ntype and mirror of heroism, and its present and living aid against every\nravenous form of human trial and pain.\n\n5.  But, if we seek to know more than this and to ascertain the manner in\nwhich the story first crystallized into its shape, we shall find\nourselves led back generally to one or other of two sources--either to\nactual historical events, represented by the fancy under figures\npersonifying them; or else to natural phenomena similarly endowed with\nlife by the imaginative power usually more or less under the influence of\nterror.  The historical myths we must leave the masters of history to\nfollow; they, and the events they record, being yet involved in great,\nthough attractive and penetrable, mystery.  But the stars, and hills, and\nstorms are with us now, as they were with others of old; and it only\nneeds that we look at them with the earnestness of those childish eyes to\nunderstand the first words spoken of them by the children of men, and\nthen, in all the most beautiful and enduring myths, we shall find, not\nonly a literal story of a real person, not only a parallel imagery of\nmoral principle, but an underlying worship of natural phenomena, out of\nwhich both have sprung, and in which both forever remain rooted.  Thus,\nfrom the real sun, rising and setting,--from the real atmosphere, calm in\nits dominion of unfading blue, and fierce in its descent of tempest,--the\nGreek forms first the idea of two entirely personal and corporal gods,\nwhose limbs are clothes in divine flesh, and whose brows are crowned with\ndivine beauty; yet so real that the quiver rattles at their shoulder, and\nthe chariot bends beneath their weight.  And, on the other hand,\ncollaterally with these corporeal images, and never for one instant\nseparated from them, he conceives also two omnipresent spiritual\ninfluences, as the sun, with a constant fire, whatever in humanity is\nskilful and wise; and the other, like the living air, breathes the calm\nof heavenly fortitude, and strength of righteous anger, into every human\nbreast that is pure and brave.\n\n6.  Now, therefore, in nearly every myth of importance, and certainly in\nevery one of those which I shall speak to-night, you have to discern\nthese three structural parts,--the root and the two branches: the root,\nin physical existence, sun, or sky, or cloud, or sea; then the personal\nincarnation of that, becoming a trusted and companionable deity, with\nwhom you may walk hand in hand, as a child with its brother or its\nsister; and, lastly, the moral significance of the image, which is in all\nthe great myths eternally and beneficently true.\n\n7.  The great myths; that is to say, myths made by great people.  For the\nfirst plain fact about myth-making is one which has been most strangely\nlost sight of,--that you cannot make a myth unless you have something to\nmake it of.  You cannot tell a secret which you don't know.  If the myth\nis about the sky, it must have been made by somebody who has looked at\nthe sky.  If the myth is about justice and fortitude, it must have been\nmade by someone who knew what it was to be just or patient.  According to\nthe quantity of understanding in the person will be the quantity of\nsignificance in his fable; and the myth of a simple and ignorant race\nmust necessarily mean little, because a simple and ignorant race have\nlittle to mean.  So the great question in reading a story is always, not\nwhat wild hunter dreamed, or what childish race first dreaded it; but\nwhat wise man first perfectly told, and what strong people first\nperfectly lived by it.  And the real meaning of any myth is that which it\nhas at the noblest age of the nation among whom it is current.  The\nfarther back you pierce, the less significance you will find, until you\ncome to the first narrow thought, which, indeed, contains the germ of the\naccomplished tradition; but only as the seed contains the flower.  As the\nintelligence and passion of the race develop, they cling to and nourish\ntheir beloved and sacred legend; leaf by leaf it expands under the touch\nof more pure affections, and more delicate imagination, until at last the\nperfect fable burgeons out into symmetry of milky stem and honied bell.\n\n8.  But through whatever changes it may pass, remember that our right\nreading of it is wholly dependent on the materials we have in our own\nminds for an intelligent answering sympathy.  If it first arose among a\npeople who dwelt under stainless skies, and measures their journeys by\nascending and declining stars, we certainly cannot read their story, if\nwe have never seen anything above us in the day but smoke, nor anything\naround us in the night but candles.  If the tale goes on to change clouds\nor planets into living creatures,--to invest them with fair forms and\ninflame them with mighty passions,--we can only understand the story of\nthe human-hearted things, in so far as we ourselves take pleasure in the\nperfectness of visible form, or can sympathize, by an effort of\nimagination, with the strange people who had other loves than those of\nwealth, and other interests than those of commerce.  And, lastly, if the\nmyth complete itself to the fulfilled thoughts of the nation, by\nattributing to the gods, whom they have carved out of their fantasy,\ncontinual presence with their own souls; and their every effort for good\nis finally guided by the sense of the companionship, the praise, and the\npure will of immortals, we shall be able to follow them into this last\ncircle of their faith only in the degree in which the better parts of our\nown beings have been also stirred by the aspects of nature, or\nstrengthened by her laws.  It may be easy to prove that the ascent of\nApollo in his chariot signifies nothing but the rising of the sun.  But\nwhat does the sunrise itself signify to us?  If only languid return to\nfrivolous amusement, or fruitless labor, it will, indeed, not be easy for\nus to conceive the power, over a Greek, of the name of Apollo.  But if,\nfir us also, as for the Greek, the sunrise means daily restoration to the\nsense of passionate gladness and of perfect life--if it means the\nthrilling of new strength through every nerve,--the shedding over us of a\nbetter peace than the peace of night, in the power of the dawn,--and the\npurging of evil vision and fear by the baptism of its dew;--if the sun\nitself is an influence, to us also, of spiritual good--and becomes thus\nin reality, not in imagination, to us also, a spiritual power,--we may\nthen soon over-pass the narrow limit of conception which kept that power\nimpersonal, and rise with the Greek to the thought of an angel who\nrejoiced as a strong man to run his course, whose voice calling to life\nand to labor rang round the earth, and whose going forth was to the ends\nof heaven.\n\n9.  The time, then, at which I shall take up for you, as well as I can\ndecipher it, the traditions of the gods of Greece, shall be near the\nbeginning of its central and formed faith,--about 500 B.C.,--a faith of\nwhich the character is perfectly represented by Pindar and \u00c6schylus, who\nare both of them outspokenly religious, and entirely sincere men; while\nwe may always look back to find the less developed thought of the\npreceding epoch given by Homer, in a more occult, subtle,\nhalf-instinctive, and involuntary way.\n\n10.  Now, at that culminating period of the Greek religion, we find,\nunder one governing Lord of all things, four subordinate elemental\nforces, and four spiritual powers living in them and commanding them.\nThe elements are of course the well-known four of the ancient world,--\nthe earth, the waters, the fire, and the air; and the living powers of\nthem are Demeter, the Latin Ceres; Poseidon, the Latin Neptune; Apollo,\nwho has retained always his Greek name; and Athena, the Latin Minerva.\nEach of these are descended from, or changed from, more ancient, and\ntherefore more mystic, deities of the earth and heaven, and of a finer\nelement of \u00e6ther supposed to be beyond the heavens;* but at this time\nwe find the four quite definite, both in their kingdoms and in their\npersonalities.  They are the rulers of the earth that we tread upon, and\nthe air that we breathe; and are with us closely, in their vivid\nhumanity, as the dust that they animate, and the winds that they bridle.\nI shall briefly define for you the range of their separate dominions, and\nthen follow, as far as we have time, the most interesting of the legends\nwhich relate to the queen of the air.\n\n\n* And by modern science now also asserted, and with probability argued,\nto exist.\n\n\n11.  The rule of the first spirit, Demeter, the earth mother, is over the\nearth, first, as the origin of all life,--the dust from whence we were\ntaken; secondly, as the receiver of all things back at last into silence\n--\"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.\"  And, therefore, as\nthe most tender image of this appearing and fading life, in the birth and\nfall of flowers, her daughter Proserpine plays in the fields of Sicily,\nand thence is torn away into darkness, and becomes the Queen of Fate--not\nmerely of death, but of the gloom which closes over and ends, not beauty\nonly, but sin, and chiefly of sins the sin against the life she gave; so\nthat she is, in her highest power, Persephone, the avenger and purifier\nof blood--\"The voice of thy brother's blood cries to me out of the\nground.\"  Then, side by side with this queen of the earth, we find a\ndemigod of agriculture by the plough--the lord of grain, or of the thing\nground by the mill.  And it is a singular proof of the simplicity of\nGreek character at this noble time, that of all representations left to\nus of their deities by their art, few are so frequent, and none perhaps\nso beautiful, as the symbol of this spirit of agriculture.\n\n12.  Then the dominant spirit of the element water is Neptune, but\nsubordinate to him are myriads of other water spirits, of whom Nereus is\nthe chief, with Pal\u00e6mon, and Leucothea, the \"white lady\" of the sea; and\nThetis, and nymphs innumerable who, like her, could \"suffer a sea\nchange,\" while the river deities had each independent power, according\nto the preciousness of their streams to the cities fed by them,--the\n\"fountain Arethuse, and thou, honoured flood, smooth sliding Mincius,\ncrowned with vocal reeds.\"  And, spiritually, this king of the waters is\nlord of the strength and daily flow of human life--he gives it material\nforce and victory; which as the meaning of the dedication of the hair, as\nthe sign of the strength of life, to the river or the native land.\n\n13.  Demeter, then, over the earth, and its giving and receiving of life.\nNeptune over the waters, and the flow and force of life,--always among\nthe Greeks typified by the horse, which was to them as a crested\nsea-wave, animated and bridled.  Then the third element, fire, has set\nover it two powers: over earthly fire, the assistant of human labor, is\nset Heph\u00e6stus, lord of all labor in which is the flush and the sweat of\nthe brow; and over heavenly fire, the source of day, is set Apollo, the\nspirit of all kindling, purifying, and illuminating intellectual wisdom,\neach of these gods having also their subordinate or associated powers,--\nservant, or sister, or companion muse.\n\n14.  Then, lastly, we come to the myth which is to be our subject of\ncloser inquiry,--the story of Athena and of the deities subordinate to\nher.  This great goddess, the Neith of the Egyptians, the Athena or\nAthenaia of the Greeks, and, with broken power, half usurped by Mars,\nthe Minerva of the Latins, is, physically, the queen of the air; having\nsupreme power both over its blessing of calm, and wrath of storm; and,\nspiritually, she is the queen of the breath of man, first of the bodily\nbreathing which is life to his blood, and strength to his arm in battle;\nand then of the mental breathing, or inspiration, which is his moral\nhealth and habitual wisdom; wisdom of conduct and of the heart, as\nopposed to the wisdom of imagination and the brain; moral, as distinct\nfrom intellectual; inspired, as distinct from illuminated.\n\n15.  By a singular and fortunate, though I believe wholly accidental,\ncoincidence, the heart-virtue, of which she is the spirit, was separated\nby the ancients into four divisions, which have since obtained acceptance\nfrom all men as rightly discerned, and have received, as if from the\nquarters of the four winds of which Athena is the natural queen, the name\nof \"Cardinal\" virtues: namely, Prudence (the right seeing, and\nforeseeing, of events through darkness); Justice (the righteous bestowal\nof favor and of indignation); Fortitude (patience under trial by pain);\nand Temperance (patience under trial by pleasure).  With respect to these\nfour virtues, the attributes of Athena are all distinct.  In her\nprudence, or sight in darkness, she is \"Glaukopis,\" \"owl-eyed.\"*  In her\njustice, which is the dominant virtue, she wears two robes, one of light,\nand one of darkness; the robe of light, saffron color, or the color of\nthe daybreak, falls to her feet, covering her wholly with favor and\nlove,--the calm of the sky in blessing; it is embroidered along its edge\nwith her victory over the giants (the troublous powers of the earth), and\nthe likeness of it was woven yearly by the Athenian maidens and carried\nto the temple of their own Athena, not to the Parthenon, that was the\ntemple of all the world's Athena,--but this they carried to the temple of\ntheir own only one who loved them, and stayed with them always.  Then her\nrobe of indignation is worn on her breast and left arm only, fringed with\nfatal serpents, and fastened with Gorgonian cold, turning men to stone;\nphysically, the lightning and hail of chastisement by storm.  Then in her\nfortitude she wears the crested and unstooping hemlet;** and lastly, in\nher temperance, she is the queen of maidenhood--stainless as the air of\nheaven.\n\n\n* There are many other meanings in the epithet; see farther on, \u00a791, pp.\n133, 134.\n** I am compelled, for clearness' sake, to mark only one meaning at a\ntime.  Athena's helmet is sometimes a mask, sometimes a sign of anger,\nsometimes of the highest light of \u00e6ther; but I cannot speak of all this\nat once.\n\n\n16.  But all these virtues mass themselves in the Greek mind into the two\nmain ones,--of Justice, or noble passion, and Fortitude, or noble\npatience; and of these, the chief powers of Athena, the Greeks have\ndivinely written for them, and for all men after them, two mighty songs,\n--one, of the Menis,* Mens, passion, or zeal, of Athena, breathed into a\nmortal whose name is \"Ache of heart,\" and whose short life is only the\nincarnate brooding and burst of storm; and the other is of the foresight\nand fortitude of Athena, maintained by her in the heart of a mortal whose\nname is given to him from a longer grief, Odysseus, the full of sorrow,\nthe much enduring, and the long-suffering.\n\n\n* This first word of the Iliad, Menis, afterwards passes into the Latin\nMens; is the root of the Latin name for Athena, \"Minerva,\" and so the\nroot of the English \"mind.\"\n\n\n17.  The minor expressions by the Greeks in word, in symbol, and in\nreligious service, of this faith, are so many and so beautiful, that I\nhope some day to gather at least a few of them into a separate body of\nevidence respecting the power of Athena, and of its relations to the\nethical conception of the Homeric poems, or, rather, to their ethical\nnature; for they are not conceived didactically, but are didactic in\ntheir essence, as all good art is.  There is an increasing insensibility\nto this character, and even an open denial of it, among us now which is\none of the most curious errors of modernism,--the peculiar and judicial\nblindness of an age which, having long practised art and poetry for the\nsake of pleasure only, has become incapable of reading their language\nwhen they were both didactic; and also, having been itself accustomed to\na professedly didactic teaching, which yet, for private interests,\nstudiously avoids collision with every prevalent vice of its day (and\nespecially with avarice), has become equally dead to the intensely\nethical conceptions of a race which habitually divided all men into two\nbroad classes of worthy or worthless,--good, and good for nothing.  And\neven the celebrated passage of Horace about the Iliad is now misread or\ndisbelieved, as if it were impossible that the Iliad could be instructive\nbecause it is not like a sermon.  Horce does not say that it is like a\nsermon, and would have been still less likely to say so if he ever had\nhad the advantage of hearing a sermon.  \"I have been reading that story\nof Troy again\" (thus he writes to a noble youth of Rome whom he cared\nfor), \"quietly at Pr\u00e6neste, while you have been busy at Rome; and truly\nI think that what is base and what is noble, and what useful and useless,\nmay be better learned from that, than from all Chrysippus' and Crantor's\ntalk put together.\"*  Which is profoundly true, not of the Iliad only,\nbut of all other great art whatsoever; for all pieces of such art are\ndidactic in the purest way, indirectly and occultly, so that, first, you\nshall only be bettered by them if you are already hard at work in\nbettering yourself; and when you are bettered by them, it shall be partly\nwith a general acceptance of their influence, so constant and subtile\nthat you shall be no more conscious of it than of the healthy digestion\nof food; and partly by a gift of unexpected truth, which you shall only\nfind by slow mining for it,--which is withheld on purpose, and\nclose-locked, that you may not get it till you have forged the key of it\nin a furnace of your own heating.  And this withholding of their meaning\nis continual, and confessed, in the great poets.  Thus Pindar says of\nhimself: \"There is many an arrow in my quiver, full of speech to the\nwise, but, for the many, they need interpreters.\"  And neither Pindar,\nnor \u00c6schylus, nor Hesiod, nor Homer, nor any of the greater poets or\nteachers of any nation or time, ever spoke but with intentional\nreservation; nay, beyond this, there is often a meaning which they\nthemselves cannot interpert [sic],--which it may be for ages long after\nthem to intrepert [sic],--in what they said, so far as it recorded true\nimaginative vision.  For all the greatest myths have been seen by the men\nwho tell them, involuntarily and passively,--seen by them with as great\ndistinctness (and in some respects, though not in all, under conditions\nas far beyond the control of their will) as a dream sent to any of us by\nnight when we dream clearest; and it is this veracity of vision that\ncould not be refused, and of moral that could not be foreseen, which in\nmodern historical inquiry has been left wholly out of account; being\nindeed the thing which no merely historical investigator can understand,\nor even believe; for it belongs exclusively to the creative or artistic\ngroup of men, and can only be interpreted by those of their race, who\nthemselves in some measure also see visions and dream dreams.\n\n\n* Note, once for all, that unless when there is question about some\nparticular expression, I never translate literally, but give the real\nforce of what is said, as I best can, freely.\n\n\nSo that you may obtain a more truthful idea of the nature of Greek\nreligion and legend from the poems of Keats, and the nearly as beautiful,\nand, in general grasp of subject, far more powerful, recent work of\nMorris, than from frigid scholarship, however extensive.  Not that the\npoet's impressions or renderings of things are wholly true, but their\ntruth is vital, not formal.  They are like sketches from the life by\nReynolds or Gainsborough, which may be demonstrably inaccurate or\nimaginary in many traits, and indistinct in others, yet will be in the\ndeepest sense like, and true; while the work of historical analysis is\ntoo often weak with loss, through the very labor of its miniature\ntouches, or useless in clumsy and vapid veracity of externals, and\ncomplacent security of having done all that is required for the portrait,\nwhen it has measured the breadth of the forehead and the length of the\nnose.\n\n18.  The first of requirements, then, for the right reading of myths, is\nthe understanding of the nature of all true vision by noble persons;\nnamely, that it is founded on constant laws common to all human nature;\nthat it perceives, however darkly, things which are for all ages true;\nthat we can only understand it so far as we have some perception of the\nsame truth; and that its fulness is developed and manifested more and\nmore by the reverberation of it from minds of the same mirror-temper, in\nsucceeding ages.  You will understand Homer better by seeing his\nreflection in Dante, as you may trace new forms and softer colors in a\nhillside, redoubled by a lake.\n\nI shall be able partly to show you, even to-night, how much, in the\nHomeric vision of Athena, has been made clearer by the advance of time,\nbeing thus essentially and eternally true; but I must in the outset\nindicate the relation to that central thought of the imagery of the\ninferior deities of storm.\n\n19.  And first I will take the myth of \u00c6olus (the \"sage Hippotades\" of\nMilton), as it is delivered pure by Homer from the early times.\n\nWhy do you suppose Milton calls him \"sage\"?  One does not usually think\nof the winds as very thoughtful or deliberate powers.  But hear Homer:\n\"Then we came to the \u00c6olian island, and there dwelt \u00c6olus Hippotades,\ndear to the deathless gods; there he dwelt in a floating island, and\nround it was a wall of brass that could not be broken; and the smooth\nrock of it ran up sheer.  To whom twelve children were born in the sacred\nchambers,--six daughters and six strong sons; and they dwell foreer with\ntheir beloved father and their mother, strict in duty; and with them are\nlaid up a thousand benefits; and the misty house around them rings with\nfluting all the day long.\"  Now, you are to note first, in this\ndescription, the wall of brass and the sheer rock.  You will find,\nthroughout the fables of the tempest-group, that the brazen wall and the\nprecipice (occurring in another myth as the brazen tower of Dana\u00eb) are\nalways connected with the idea of the towering cloud lighted by the sun,\nhere truly described as a floating island.  Secondly, you hear that all\ntreasures were laid up in them; therefore, you know this \u00c6olus is lord of\nthe beneficent winds (\"he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries\"); and\npresently afterwards Homer calls him the \"steward\" of the winds, the\nmaster of the store-house of them.  And this idea of gifts and\npreciousness in the winds of heaven is carried out in the well-known\nsequel of the fable: \u00c6olus gives them to Ulysses, all but one, bound in\nleathern bags, with a glittering cord of silver; and so like bags of\ntreasure that the sailors think they are so, and open them to see.  And\nwhen Ulysses is thus driven back to \u00c6olus, and prays him again to help\nhim, note the deliberate words of the king's refusal,--\"Did I not,\" says\nhe, \"send thee on thy way heartily, that thou mightest reach thy country,\nthy home, and whatever is dear to thee?  It is not lawful for me again\nto send forth favorably on his journey a man hated by the happy gods.\"\nThis idea of the beneficence of \u00c6olus remains to the latest times, though\nVirgil, by adopting the vulgar change of the cloud island into Lipari,\nhas lost it a little; but even when it is finally explained away by\nDiodorus, \u00c6olus is still a kind-hearted monarch, who lived on the coast\nof Sorrento, invented the use of sails, and established a system of storm\nsignals.\n\n20.  Another beneficent storm-power, Boreas, occupies an important place\nin early legend, and a singularly principal one in art; and I wish I\ncould read to you a passage of Plato about the legend of Boreas and\nOreithyia,* and the breeze and shade of the Ilissus--notwithstannding its\nsevere reflection upon persons who waste their time on mythological\nstudies; but I must go on at once to the fable with which you are all\ngenerally familiar, that of the Harpies.\n\n\n* Translated by Max M\u00fcller in the opening of his essay on \"Comparative\nMythology.\"--Chips from a German Workshop, vol. ii.\n\n\nThis is always connected with that of Boreas or the north wind, because\nthe two sons of Boreas are enemies of the Harpies, and drive them away\ninto frantic flight.  The myth in its first literal form means only the\nbattle between the fair north wind and the foul south one: the two\nHarpies, \"Stormswift\" and \"Swiftfoot,\" are the sisters of the rainbow;\nthat is to say, they are the broken drifts of the showery south wind, and\nthe clear north wind drives them back; but they quickly take a deeper and\nmore malignant significance.  You know the short, violent, spiral gusts\nthat lift the dust before coming rain: the Harpies get identified first\nwith these, and then with more violent whirlwinds, and so they are called\n\"Harpies,\" \"the Snatchers,\" and are thought of as entirely destructive;\ntheir manner of destroying being twofold,--by snatching away, and by\ndefiling and polluting.  This is a month in which you may really see a\nsmall Harpy at her work almost whenever you choose.  The first time that\nthere is threatening of rain after two or three days of fine weather,\nleave your window well open to the street, and some books or papers on\nthe table; and if you do not, in a little while, know what the Harpies\nmean, and how they snatch, and how they defile, I'll give up my Greek\nmyths.\n\n21.  That is the physical meaning.  It is now easy to find the mental\none.  You must all have felt the expression of ignoble anger in those\nfitful gusts of storm.  There is a sense of provocation in their thin\nand senseless fury, wholly different from the nobler anger of the greater\ntempests.  Also, they seem useless and unnatural, and the Greek thinks of\nthem always as vile in malice, and opposed, therefore, to the Sons of\nBoreas, who are kindly winds, that fill sails, and wave harvests,--full\nof bracing health and happy impulses.  From this lower and merely greater\nterror, always associated with their whirling motion, which is indeed\nindicative of the most destructive winds; and they are thus related to\nthe nobler tempests, as Charybdis to the sea; they are devouring and\ndesolating, making all things disappear that come in their grasp; and so,\nspiritually, they are the gusts of vexatious, fretful, lawless passion,\nvain and overshadowing, discontented and lamenting, meager and insane,--\nspirits of wasted energy, and wandering disease, and unappeased famine,\nand unsatisfied hope.  So you have, on the one side, the winds of\nprosperity and health, on the other, of ruin and sickness.  Understand\nthat, once, deeply,--any who have ever known the weariness of vain\ndesires, the pitiful, unconquerable, coiling and recoiling famine and\nthirst of heart,--and you will know what was in the sound of the Harpy\nCel\u00e6no's shriek from her rock; and why, in the seventh circle of the\n\"Inferno,\" the Harpies make their nests in the warped branches of the\ntrees that are the souls of suicides.\n\n22.  Now you must always be prepared to read Greek legends as you trace\nthreads through figures on a silken damask: the same thread runs through\nthe web, but it makes part of different figures.  Joined with other\ncolors you hardly recognize it, and in different lights it is dark or\nlight.  Thus the Greek fables blend and cross curiously in different\ndirections, till they knit themselves into an arabesque where sometimes\nyou cannot tell black from purple, nor blue from emerald--they being all\nthe truer for this, because the truths of emotion they represent are\ninterwoven in the same way, but all the more difficult to read, and to\nexplain in any order.  Thus the Harpies, as they represent vain desire,\nare connected with the Sirens, who are the spirits of constant desire; so\nthat it is difficult sometimes in early art to know which are meant, both\nbeing represented alike as birds with women's heads; only the Sirens are\nthe great constant desires--the infinite sicknesses of heart--which,\nrightly placed, give life, and wrongly placed, waste it away; so that\nthere are two groups of Sirens, one noble and saving, as the other is\nfatal.  But there are no animating or saving Harpies; their nature is\nalways vexing and full of weariness, and thus they are curiously\nconnected with the whole group of legends about Tantalus.\n\n33.*  We all know what it is to be tantalized; but we do not often think\nof asking what Tantalus was tantalized for--what he had done, to be\nforever kept hungry in sight of food.  Well; he had not been condemned to\nthis merely for being a glutton.  By Dante the same punishment is\nassigned to simple gluttony, to purge it away; but the sins of Tantalus\nwere of a much wider and more mysterious kind.  There are four great sins\nattributed to him: one, stealing the food of the gods to give it to men;\nanother, sacrificing his son to feed the gods themselves (it may remind\nyou for a moment of what I was telling you of the earthly character of\nDemeter, that, while the other gods all refuse, she, dreaming about her\nlost daughter, eats part of the shoulder of Pelops before she knows what\nshe is doing); another sin is, telling the secrets of the gods; and only\nthe fourth--stealing the golden dog of Pandareos--is connected with\ngluttony.  The special sense of this myth is marked by Pandareos\nreceiving the happy privilege of never being troubled with indigestion;\nthe dog, in general, however mythically represents all utter senseless\nand carnal desires; mainly that of gluttony; and in the mythic sense of\nHades--that is to say, so far as it represents spiritual ruin in this\nlife, and not a literal hell--the dog Cerberus as its gatekeeper--with\nthis special marking of his character of sensual passion, that he fawns\non all those who descend, but rages against all who would return (the\nVirgilian \"facilis descendus\" being a later recognition of this mythic\ncharacter of Hades); the last labor of Hercules is the dragging him up\nto the light; and in some sort he represents the voracity or devouring\nof Hades itself; and the medi\u00e6val representation of the mouth of hell\nperpetuates the same thought.  Then, also, the power of evil passion\nis partly associated with the red and scorching light of Sirius, as\nopposed to the pure light of the sun: he is the dog-star of ruin; and\nhence the continual Homeric dwelling upon him, and comparison of the\nflame of anger to his swarthy light; only, in his scorching, it is\nthirst, not hunger, over which he rules physically; so that the fable\nof Icarius, his first master, corresponds, among the Greeks, to the\nlegend of the drunkenness of Noah.\n\n\n* Printer's error: should be 23.\n\n\nThe story of Act\u00e6on, the raging death of Hecuba, and the tradition of\nthe white dog which ate part of Hercules' first sacrifice, and so gave\nname to the Cynosarges, are all various phases of the same thought,--the\nGreek notion of the dog being throughout confused between its serviceable\nfidelity, its watchfulness, its foul voracity, shamelessness, and deadly\nmadness, while with the curious reversal or recoil of the meaning which\nattaches itself to nearly every great myth,--and which we shall presently\nsee notably exemplified in the relations of the serpent to Athena,--the\ndog becomes in philosophy a type of severity and abstinence.\n\n24.  It would carry us too far aside were I to tell you the story of\nPandareos' dog--or rather of Jupiter's dog, for Pandareos was its\nguardian only; all that bears on our present purpose is that the guardian\nof this golden dog had three daughters, one of whom was subject to the\npower of the Sirens, and is turned into a nightingale; and the other two\nwere subject to the power of the Harpies, and this was what happened to\nthem: They were very beautiful, and they were beloved by the gods in\ntheir youth, and all the great goddesses were anxious to bring them up\nrightly.  Of all types of young ladies' education, there is nothing so\nsplendid as that of the younger daughters of Pandareos.  They have\nliterally the four greatest goddesses for their governesses.  Athena\nteaches them domestic accomplishments, how to weave, and sew, and the\nlike; Artemis teaches them to hold themselves up straight; Hera, how to\nbehave proudly and oppressively to company; and Aphrodite, delightful\ngoverness, feeds them with cakes and honey all day long.  All goes well,\nuntil just the time when they are going to be brought out; then there is\na great dispute whom they are to marry, and in the midst of it they are\ncarried off by the Harpies, given by them to be slaves to the Furies, and\nnever seen more.  But of course there is nothing in Greek myths; and one\nnever heard of such things as vain desires, and empty hopes, and clouded\npassions, defiling and snatching away the souls of maidens, in a London\nseason.\n\nI have no time to trace for you any more harpy legends, though they are\nfull of the most curious interest; but I may confirm for you my\ninterpretation of this one, and prove its importance in the Greek mind,\nby noting that Polygnotus painted these maidens, in his great religious\nseries of paintings at Delphi, crowned with flowers, and playing at dice;\nand that Penelope remembers them in her last fit of despair, just before\nthe return of Ulysses, and prays bitterly that she may be snatched away\nat once into nothingness by the Harpies, like Pandareos' daughters,\nrather than be tormented longer by her deferred hope, and anguish of\ndisappointed love.\n\n25.  I have hitherto spoken only of deities of the winds.  We pass now to\na far more important group, the deities of cloud.  Both of these are\nsubordinate to the ruling power of the air, as the demigods of the\nfountains and minor seas are to the great deep; but, as the\ncloud-firmament detaches itself more from the air, and has a wider range\nof ministry than the minor streams and seas, the highest cloud deity,\nHermes, has a rank more equal with Athena than Nereus or Proteus with\nNeptune; and there is greater difficulty in tracing his character,\nbecause his physical dominion over the clouds can, of course, be asserted\nonly where clouds are; and, therefore, scarcely at all in Egypt;* so that\nthe changes which Hermes undergoes in becoming a Greek from an Egyptian\nand Ph\u0153nician god, are greater than in any other case of adopted\ntradition  In Egypt Hermes is a deity of historical record, and a\nconductor of the dead to judgment; the Greeks take away much of this\nhistorical function, assigning it to the Muses; but, in investing him\nwith the physical power over clouds, they give him that which the Muses\ndisdain,--the power of concealment and of theft.  The snatching away by\nthe Harpies is with brute force; but the snatching away by the clouds\nis connected with the thought of hiding, and of making things seem to\nbe what they are not; so that Hermes is the god of lying, as he is of\nmist; and yet with this ignoble function of making things vanish and\ndisappear is connected the remnant of his grand Egyptian authority of\nleading away souls in the cloud of death (the actual dimness of sight\ncaused by mortal wounds physically suggesting the darkness and descent\nof clouds, and continually being so described in the Iliad); while the\nsense of the need of guidance on the untrodden road follows necessarily.\nYou cannot but remember how this thought of cloud guidance, and cloud\nreceiving souls at death, has been elsewhere ratified.\n\n\n* I believe that the conclusions of recent scholarship are generally\nopposed to the Herodotean ideas of any direct acceptance by the Greeks\nof Egyptian myths: and very certainly, Greek art is developed by giving\nthe veracity and simplicity of real life to Eastern savage grotesque; and\nnot by softening the severity of pure Egyptian design.  But it is of no\nconsequence whether one conception was, or was not, in this case, derived\nfrom the other; my object is only to mark the essential difference\nbetween them.\n\n\n26.  Without following that higher clue, I will pass to the lovely group\nof myths connected with the birth of Hermes on the Greek mountains.  You\nknow that the valley of Sparta is one of the noblest mountain ravines in\nthe world, and that the western flank of it is formed by an unbroken\nchain of crags, forty miles long, rising, opposite Sparta, to a height of\n8,000 feet, and known as the chain of Taygetus.  Now, the nymph from whom\nthat mountain ridge is named was the mother of Laced\u00e6mon; therefore the\nmythic ancestress of the Spartan race.  She is the nymph Taygeta, and one\nof the seven stars of spring; one of those Pleiades of whom is the\nquestion to Job,--\"Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or\nloose the bands of Orion?\"  \"The sweet influences of Pleiades,\" of the\nstars of spring,--nowhere sweeter than among the pine-clad slopes of the\nhills of Sparta and Arcadia, when he snows of their higher summits,\nbeneath the sunshine of April, fell into fountains, and rose into clouds;\nand in every ravine was a newly awakened voice of waters,--soft increase\nof whisper among its sacred stones; and on every crag its forming and\nfading veil of radiant cloud; temple above temple, of the divine marble\nthat no tool can pollute, nor ruin undermine.  And, therefore, beyond\nthis central valley, this great Greek vase of Arcadia, on the \"hollow\"\nmountain, Cyllene, or \"pregnant\" mountain, called also \"cold,\" because\nthere the vapors rest,* and born of the eldest of those stars of spring,\nthat Maia, from whom your own month of May has its name, bringing to you,\nin the green of her garlands, and the white of her hawthorn, the\nunrecognized symbols of the pastures and the wreathed snows of Arcadia,\nwhere long ago she was queen of stars: there, first cradled and wrapt in\nswaddling-clothes; then raised, in a moment of surprise, into his\nwandering power,--is born the shepherd of the clouds, winged-footed and\ndeceiving,--blinding the eyes of Argus,--escaping from the grasp of\nApollo--restless messenger between the highest sky and topmost earth--\n\"the herald Mercury, new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.\"\n\n\n* On the altar of Hermes on its summit, as on that of the Lacinian Hera,\nno wind ever stirred the ashes.  By those altars, the Gods of Heaven were\nappeased, and all their storms at rest.\n\n\n27.  Now, it will be wholly impossible, at present, to trace for you any\nof the minor Greek expressions of this thought, except only that Mercury,\nas the cloud shepherd, is especially called Eriophoros, the wool-bearer.\nYou will recollect the name from the common woolly rush \"eriophorum\"\nwhich has a cloud of silky seed; and note also that he wears\ndistinctively the flap cap, petasos, named from a word meaning \"to\nexpand;\" which shaded from the sun, and is worn on journeys.  You have\nthe epithet of mountains \"cloud-capped\" as an established form with every\npoet, and the Mont Pilate of Lucerne is named from a Latin word\nsignifying specially a woollen cap; but Mercury has, besides, a general\nHomeric epithet, curiously and intensely concentrated in meaning, \"the\nprofitable or serviceable by wool,\"* that is to say, by shepherd wealth;\nhence, \"pecuniarily,\" rich or serviceable, and so he passes at last into\na general mercantile deity; while yet the cloud sense of the wool is\nretained by Homer always, so that he gives him this epithet when it would\notherwise have been quite meaningless (in Iliad, xxiv. 440), when he\ndrives Priam's chariot, and breathes force into his horses, precisely as\nwe shall find Athena drive Diomed; and yet the serviceable and profitable\nsense--and something also of gentle and soothing character in the mere\nwool-softness, as used for dress, and religious rites--is retained also\nin the epithet, and thus the gentle and serviceable Hermes is opposed to\nthe deceitful one.\n\n\n* I am convinced that the 'eri' in 'eriounios' is not intensitive, but\nretained from 'erion'; but even if I am wrong in thinking this, the\nmistake is of no consequence with respect to the general force of the\nterm as meaning the profitableness of Hermes.  Athena's epithet of\n'ageleia' has a parallel significance. [Transcriber's note: words inside\nsingle apostrophes are Greek, and use the Greek alphabet.]\n\n\n28.  In connection with this driving of Priam's chariot, remember that\nas Autolycus is the son of Hermes the Deceiver, Myrtilus (the Auriga\nof the  Stars) is the son of Hermes the Guide.  The name Hermes itself\nmeans impulse; and he is especially the shepherd of the flocks of the\nsky, in driving, or guiding, or stealing them; and yet his great\nname, Argeiphontes, not only--as in different passages of the olden\npoets--means \"Shining White,\" which is said of him as being himself the\nsilver cloud lighted by the sun; but \"Argus-killer,\" the killer of\nrightness, which is said of him as he veils the sky, and especially the\nstars, which are the eyes of Argus; or, literally, eyes of brightness,\nwhich Juno, who is, with Jupiter, part of the type of highest heaven,\nkeeps in her peacock's train.  We know that this interpretation is\nright, from a passage in which Euripides describes the shield of\nHippomedon, which bore for his sign, \"Argus the all-seeing, covered\nwith eyes; open towards the rising of the stars and closed towards\ntheir setting.\"\n\nAnd thus Hermes becomes the spirit of the movement of the sky or\nfirmament; not merely the fast flying of the transitory cloud, but the\ngreat motion of the heavens and stars themselves.  Thus, in his highest\npower, he corresponds to the \"primo mobile\" of the later Italian\nphilosophy, and, in his simplest, is the guide of all mysterious and\ncloudy movement, and of all successful subtleties.  Perhaps the prettiest\nminor recognition of his character is when, on the night foray of Ulysses\nand Diomed, Ulysses wear the helmet stolen by Autolycus, the son of\nHermes.\n\n29.  The position in the Greek mind of Hermes as the lord of cloud is,\nhowever, more mystic and ideal than that of any other deity, just on\naccount of the constant and real presence of the cloud itself under\ndifferent forms, giving rise to all kinds of minor fables.  The play of\nthe Greek imagination in this direction is so wide and complex, that I\ncannot give you an outline of its range in my present limits.  There is\nfirst a great series of storm-legends connected with the family of the\nhistoric \u00c6olus centralized by the story of Athamas, with his two wives,\n\"the Cloud,\" and the \"White Goddess,\" ending in that of Phrixus and\nHelle, and of the golden fleece (which is only the cloud-burden of Hermes\nEriophoros).  With this, there is the fate of Salmoneus, and the\ndestruction of the Glaucus by his own horses; all these minor myths of\nstorm concentrating themselves darkly into the legend of Bellerophon and\nthe Chim\u00e6ra, in which there is an under story about the vain subduing of\npassion and treachery, and the end of life in fading melancholy,--which,\nI hope, not many of you could understand even were I to show it you (the\nmerely physical meaning of the Chim\u00e6ra is the cloud of volcanic lightning\nconnected wholly with earth-fire, but resembling the heavenly cloud in\nits height and its thunder).  Finally, in the \u00c6olic group, there is the\nlegend of Sisypus, which I mean to work out thoroughly by itself; its\nroot is in the position of Corinth as ruling the isthmus and the two seas\n--the Corinthean Acropolis, two thousand feet high, being the centre of\nthe crossing currents of the winds, and of the commerce of Greece.\nTherefore, Athena, and the fountain-cloud Pegasus, are more closely\nconnected with Corinth than even with Athens in their material, though\nnot in their moral, power; and Sisyphus founds the Isthmian games in\nconnection with a melancholy story about the sea gods; but he himself is\n'kerdotos andron', the most \"gaining\" and subtle of men; who having the\nkey of the Isthmus, becomes the type of transit, transfer, or trade, as\nsuch; and of the apparent gain from it, which is not gain; and this is\nthe real meaning of his punishment in hell--eternal toil and recoil (the\nmodern idol of capital being, indeed, the stone of Sisyphus with a\nvengeance, crushing in its recoil).  But, throughout, the old ideas of\nthe cloud power and cloud feebleness,--the deceit of its hiding,--and the\nemptiness of its banishing,--the Autolycus enchantment of making black\nseem white,--and the disappointed fury of Ixion (taking shadow for\npower), mingle in the moral meaning of this and its collateral legends;\nand give an aspect, at last, not only of foolish cunning, but of impiety\nor literal \"idolatry,\" \"imagination worship,\" to the dreams of avarice\nand injustice, until this notion of atheism and insolent blindness\nbecomes principal; and the \"Clouds\" of Aristophanes, with the personified\n\"just\" and \"unjust\" sayings in the latter part of the play, foreshadow,\nalmost feature by feature, in all that they were written to mock and to\nchastise, the worst elements of the impious \"'dinos'\" and tumult in men's\nthoughts, which have followed on their avarice in the present day, making\nthem alike forsake the laws of their ancient gods, and misapprehended or\nreject the true words of their existing teachers.\n\n30.  All this we have from the legends of the historic \u00c6olus only; but,\nbesides these, there is the beautiful story of Semele, the mother of\nBacchus.  She is the cloud with the strength of the vine in its bosom,\nconsumed by the light which matures the fruit; the melting away of the\ncloud into the clean air at the fringe of its edges being exquisitely\nrendered by Pindar's epithet for her, Semele, \"with the stretched-out\nhair\" ('tauuetheira'.)  Then there is the entire tradition of the\nDanaides, and of the tower of Dana\u00eb and golden shower; the birth of\nPerseus connecting this legend with that of the Gorgons and Grai\u00e6, who\nare the true clouds of thunderous ruin and tempest.  I must, in passing,\nmark for you that the form of the sword or sickle of Perseus, with which\nhe kills Medusa, is another image of the whirling harpy vortex, and\nbelongs especially to the sword of destruction or annihilation; whence it\nis given to the two angels who gather for destruction the evil harvest\nand evil vintage of the earth (Rev. xiv. 15).  I will collect afterwards\nand complete what I have already written respecting the Pegasean and\nGorgonian legends, noting here only what is necessary to explain the\ncentral myth of Athena herself, who represents the ambient air, which\nincluded all cloud, and rain, and dew, and darkness, and peace, and wrath\nof heaven.  Let me now try to give you, however briefly, some distinct\nidea of the several agencies of this great goddess.\n\n31.  I.  She is the air giving life and health to all animals.\n     II.  She is the air giving vegetative power to the earth.\n     III.  She is the air giving motion to the sea, and rendering\n           navigation possible.\n     IV.  She is the air nourishing artificial light, torch or lamplight;\n          as opposed to that of the sun, on one hand, and of consuming*\n          fire on the other.\n     V.  She is the air conveying vibration of sound.\n\n\n* Not a scientific, but a very practical and expressive distinction.\n\n\nI will give you instances of her agency in all these functions.\n\n32.  First, and chiefly, she is air as the spirit of life, giving\nvitality to the blood.  Her psychic relation to the vital force in matter\nlies deeper, and we will examine it afterwards; but a great number of the\nmost interesting passages in Homer regard her as flying over the earth in\nlocal and transitory strength, simply and merely the goddess of fresh\nair.\n\nIt is curious that the British city which has somewhat saucily styled\nitself the Modern Athens is indeed more under her especial tutelage and\nfavor in this respect than perhaps any other town in the island.  Athena\nis first simply what in the Modern Athens you practically find her, the\nbreeze of the mountain and the sea; and wherever she comes, there is\npurification, and health, and power.  The sea-beach round this isle of\nours is the frieze of our Parthenon; every wave that breaks on it\nthunders with Athena's voice; nay, wherever you throw your window wide\nopen in the morning, you let in Athena, as wisdom and fresh air at the\nsame instant; and whenever you draw a pure, long, full breath of right\nheaven, you take Athena into your heart, through your blood; and, with\nthe blood, into the thoughts of your brain.\n\nNow, this giving of strength by the air, observe, is mechanical as well\nas chemical.  You cannot strike a good blow but with your chest full;\nand, in hand to hand fighting, it is not the muscle that fails first, it\nis the breath; the longest-breathed will, on the average, be the victor,\n--not the strongest.  Note how Shakespeare always leans on this.  Of\nMortimer, in \"changing hardiment with great Glendower\":\n\n\"Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,\nUpon agreement, of swift Severn's flood.\"\n\nAnd again, Hotspur, sending challenge to Prince Harry:\n\n      \"That none might draw short breath to-day\n      But I and Harry Monmouth.\"\n\nAgain, of Hamlet, before he receives his wound:\n\n      \"He's fat, and scant of breath.\"\n\nAgain, Orlando in the wrestling:\n\n      \"Yes; I beseech your grace\n      I am not yet well breathed.\"\n\nNow, of all the people that ever lived, the Greeks knew best what breath\nmeant, both in exercise and in battle, and therefore the queen of the air\nbecomes to them at once the queen of bodily strength in war; not mere\nbrutal muscular strength,--that belongs to Ares,--but the strength of\nyoung lives passed in pure air and swift exercise,--Camilla's virginal\nforce, that \"flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.\"\n\n33.  Now I will rapidly give you two or three instances of her direct\nagency in this function.  First, when she wants to make Penelope bright\nand beautiful; and to do away with the signs of her waiting and her\ngrief.  \"Then Athena thought of another thing; she laid her into a deep\nsleep, and loosed all her limbs, and made her taller, and made her\nsmoother, and fatter, and whiter than sawn ivory; and breathed ambrosial\nbrightness over her face; and so she left her and went up to heaven.\"\nFresh air and sound sleep at night, young ladies!  You see you may have\nAthena for lady's maid whenever you choose.  Next, hark how she gives\nstrength to Achilles when he is broken with fasting and grief.  Jupiter\npities him and says to her, \"'Daughter mine, are you forsaking your own\nsoldier, and don't you care for Achilles any more?  See how hungry and\nweak he is,--go and feed him with ambrosia.'  So he urged the eager\nAthena; and she leaped down out of heaven like a harpy falcon,\nshrill-voiced; and she poured nectar and ambrosia, full of delight, into\nthe breast of Achilles, that his limbs might not fail with famine; then\nshe returned to the solid dome of her strong father.\"  And then comes the\ngreat passage about Achilles arming--for which we have no time.  But here\nis again Athena giving strength to the whole Greek army.  She came as a\nfalcon to Achilles, straight at him, a sudden drift of breeze; but to the\narmy she must come widely, she sweeps around them all.  \"As when Jupiter\nspreads the purple rainbow over heaven, portending battle or cold storm,\nso Athena, wrapping herself round with a purple cloud, stooped to the\nGreek soldiers, and raised up each of them.\"  Note that purple, in\nHomer's use of it, nearly always means \"fiery,\" \"full of light.\"  It is\nthe light of the rainbow, not the color of it, which Homer means you to\nthink of.\n\n34.  But the most curious passage of all, and fullest of meaning, is when\nshe gives strength to Menelaus, that he may stand unwearied against\nHector.  He prays to her: \"And blue-eyed Athena was glad that he prayed\nto her, first; and she gave him strength in his shoulders, and in his\nlimbs, an she gave him the courage\"--of what animal, do you suppose?  Had\nit been Neptune or Mars, they would have given him the courage of a bull,\nor a lion; but Athena gives him the courage of the most fearless in\nattack of all creatures, small or great, and very small it is, but wholly\nincapable of terror,--she gives him the courage of a fly.\n\n35.  Now this simile of Homer's is one of the best instances I can give\nyou of the way in which great writers seize truths unconsciously which\nare for all time.  It is only recent science which has completely shown\nthe perfectness of this minute symbol of the power of Athena; proving\nthat the insect's flight and breath are co-ordinated; that its wings are\nactually forcing-pumps, of which the stroke compels the thoracic\nrespiration; and that it thus breathes and flies simultaneously by the\naction of the same muscles, so that respiration is carried on most\nvigorously during flight, \"while the air-vessels, supplied by many pairs\nof lungs instead of one, traverse the organs of flight in far greater\nnumbers than the capillary blood-vessels of our own system, and give\nenormous and untiring muscular power, a rapidity of action measured by\nthousands of strokes in the minute, and an endurance, by miles and hours\nof flight.\"*\n\n\n* Ormerod: \"Natural History of Wasps.\"\n\n\nHomer could not have known this; neither that the buzzing of the fly\nwas produced, as in a wind instrument, by a constant current of air\nthrough the trachea.  But he had seen, and, doubtless, meant us to\nremember, the marvellous strength and swiftness of the insect's flight\n(the glance of the swallow itself is clumsy and slow compared to the\ndarting of common house-flies at play); he probably attributed its\nmurmur to the wings, but in this also there was a type of what we shall\npresently find recognized in the name of Pallas,--the vibratory power\nof the air to convey sound, while, as a purifying creature, the fly holds\nits place beside the old symbol of Athena in Egypt, the vulture; and as\na venomous and tormenting creature has more than the strength of the\nserpent in proportion to its size, being thus entirely representative\nof the influence of the air both in purification and pestilence; and its\ncourage is so notable that, strangely enough, forgetting Homer's simile,\nI happened to take the fly for an expression of the audacity of freedom\nin speaking of quite another subject.*  Whether it should be called\ncourage, or mere mechanical instinct, may be questioned, but assuredly\nno other animal, exposed to continual danger, is so absolutely without\nsign of fear.\n\n\n* See farther on, \u00a7148, pp. 154-156.\n\n\n36.  You will, perhaps, have still patience to hear two instances, not of\nthe communication as strength, but of the personal agency of Athena as\nthe air.  When she comes down to help Diomed against Ares, she does not\ncome to fight instead of him, but she takes his charioteer's place.\n\n\"She snatched the reins, she lashed with all her force,\nAnd full on Mars impelled the foaming horse.\"\n\nAres is the first to cast his spear; then--note this--Pope says:\n\n      \"Pallas opposed her hand, and caused to glance,\n      Far from the car, the strong immortal lance.\"\n\nShe does not oppose her hand in the Greek--the wind could not meet the\nlance straight--she catches it in her hand, and throws it off.  There is\nno instance in which a lance is so parried by a mortal hand in all the\nIliad, and it is exactly the way the wind would parry it, catching it,\nand turning it aside.  If there are any good rifleshots here, they know\nsomething about Athena's parrying; and in old times the English masters\nof feathered artillery knew more yet.  Compare also the turning of\nHector's lance from Achilles: Iliad, xx. 439.\n\n37.  The last instance I will give you is as lovely as it is subtile.\nThroughout the Iliad, Athena is herself the will or Menis of Achilles.\nIf he is to be calmed, it is she who calms him; if angered, it is she\nwho inflames him.  In the first quarrel with Atreides, when he stands at\npause, with the great sword half drawn, \"Athena came from heaven, and\nstood behind him and caught him by the yellow hair.\"  Another god would\nhave stayed his hand upon the hilt, but Athena only lifts his hair.  \"And\nhe turned and knew her, and her dreadful eyes shone upon him.\"  There is\nan exquisite tenderness in this laying her hand upon his hair, for it is\nthe talisman of his life, vowed to his own Thessalian river if he ever\nreturned to its shore, and cast upon Patroclus' pile, so ordaining that\nthere should be no return.\n\n38.  Secondly, Athena is the air giving vegetative impulse to the earth.\nShe is the wind and the rain, and yet more the pure air itself, getting\nat the earth fresh turned by spade or plough, and, above all, feeding the\nfresh leaves; for though the Greeks knew nothing about carbonic acid,\nthey did know that trees fed on the air.\n\nNow, note first in this, the myth of the air getting at ploughed land.\nYou know I told you the Lord of all labor by which man lived was\nHeph\u00e6stus; therefore Athena adopts a child of his, and of the Earth,--\nErichthonius,--literally, \"the tearer up of the ground,\" who is the head\n(though not in direct line) of the kings of Attica; and, having adopted\nhim, she gives him to be brought up by the three nymphs of the dew.  Of\nthese, Aglauros, the dweller in the fields, is the envy or malice of the\nearth; she answers nearly to the envy of Cain, the tiller of the ground,\nagainst his shepherd brother, in her own envy against her two sisters,\nHerse, the cloud dew, who is the beloved of the shepherd Mercury; and\nPandrosos, the diffused dew, or dew of heaven.  Literally, you have in\nthis myth the words of the blessing of Esau: \"Thy dwelling shall be of\nthe fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above.\"  Aglauros\nis for her envy turned into a black stone; and hers is one of the voices\n--the other being that of Cain--which haunts the circle of envy in the\nPurgatory:\n\n      \"Io sono Aglauro, chi divenne sasso.\"\n\nBut to her two sisters, with Erichthonius (or the hero Erectheus), is\nbuilt the most sacred temple of Athena in Athens; the temple to their own\ndearest Athena--to her, and to the dew together; so that it was divided\ninto two parts: one, the temple of Athena of the city, and the other that\nof the dew.  And this expression of her power, as the air bringing the\ndew to the hill pastures, in the central temple of the central city of\nthe heathen, dominant over the future intellectual world, is, of all the\nfacts connected with her worship as the spirit of life, perhaps the most\nimportant.  I have no time now to trace for you the hundredth part of the\ndifferent ways in which it bears both upon natural beauty, and on the\nbest order and happiness of men's lives.  I hope to follow out some of\nthese trains of thought in gathering together what I have to say about\nfield herbage; but I must say briefly here that the great sign, to the\nGreeks, of the coming of spring in the pastures, was not, as with us, in\nthe primrose, but in the various flowers of the asphodel tribe (of which\nI will give you some separate account presently); therefore it is that\nthe earth answers with crocus flame to the cloud on Ida; and the power\nof Athena in eternal life is written by the light of the asphodel on the\nElysian fields.\n\nBut further, Athena is the air, not only to the lilies of the field, but\nto the leaves of the forest.  We saw before the reason why Hermes is said\nto be the son of Maia, the eldest of the sister stars of spring.  Those\nstars are called not only Pleiades, but Vergili\u00e6, from a word mingling\nthe ideas of the turning or returning of springtime with the outpouring\nof rain.  The mother of Vergil bearing the name of Maia, Vergil himself\nreceived his name from the seven stars; and he, forming first the mind of\nDante, and through him that of Chaucer (besides whatever special minor\ninfluence came from the Pastorals and Georgics) became the fountainhead\nof all the best literary power connected with the love of vegetative\nnature among civilized races of men.  Take the fact for what it is worth;\nstill it is a strange seal of coincidence, in word and in reality, upon\nthe Greek dream of the power over human life, and its purest thoughts, in\nthe stars of spring.  But the first syllable of the name of Vergil has\nrelation also to another group of words, of which the English ones,\nvirtue and virgin, bring down the force to modern days.  It is a group\ncontaining mainly the idea of \"spring,\" or increase of life in\nvegetation--the rising of the new branch of the tree out of the bud, and\nof the new leaf out of the ground.  It involves, secondarily, the idea\nof greenness and of strength, but, primarily, that of living increase of\na new rod from a stock, stem, or root (\"There shall come forth a rod out\nof the stem of Jesse\"); and chiefly the stem of certain plants--either of\nthe rose tribe, as in the budding of the almond rod of Aaron; or of the\nolive tribe, which has triple significance in this symbolism, from the\nuse of its oil for sacred anointing, for strength in the gymnasium, and\nfor light.  Hence, in numberless divided and reflected ways, it is\nconnected with the power of Hercules and Athena: Hercules plants the wild\nolive, for its shade, on the course of Olympia, and it thenceforward\ngives the Olympic crown of consummate honor and rest; while the prize at\nthe Panathenaic games is a vase of its oil (meaning encouragement to\ncontinuance of effort); and from the paintings on these Panathenaic vases\nwe get the most precious clue to the entire character of Athena.  Then to\nexpress its propagation by slips, the trees from which the oil was to be\ntaken were called \"Moriai,\" trees of division (being all descendents of\nthe sacred one in the Erechtheum).  And thus, in one direction, we get to\nthe \"children like olive plants round about thy table\" and the olive\ngrafting of St. Paul; while the use of the oil for anointing gives chief\nname to the rod itself of the stem of Jesse, and to all those who were by\nthat name signed for his disciples first in Antioch.  Remember, further,\nsince that name was first given the influence of the symbol, both in\nextreme unction and in consecration of priests and kings to their \"divine\nright;\" and thing, if you can reach with any grasp of thought, what the\ninfluence on the earth has been, of those twisted branches whose leaves\ngive gray bloom to the hillsides under every breeze that blows from the\nmidland sea.  But, above and beyond all, think how strange it is that the\nchief Agonia of humanity, and the chief giving of strength from heaven\nfor its fulfilment, should have been under its night shadow in Palestine.\n\n39.  Thirdly, Athena is the air in its power over the sea.\n\nOn the earliest Panathenaic vase known--the \"Burgon\" vase in the British\nmuseum--Athena has a dolphin on her shield.  The dolphin has two\nprincipal meanings in Greek symbolism.  It means, first, the sea;\nsecondarily, the ascending and descending course of any of the heavenly\nbodies from one sea horizon to another--the dolphins' arching rise and\nreplunge (in a summer evening, out of calm sea, their black backs roll\nround with exactly the slow motion of a water-wheel; but I do not know\nhow far Aristotle's exaggerated account of their leaping or their\nswiftness has any foundation) being taken as a type of the emergence\nof the sun or stars from the sea in the east, and plunging beneath in the\nwest.  Hence, Apollo, when in his personal power he crosses the sea,\nleading his Cretan colonists to Pytho, takes the form of a dolphin,\nbecomes Apollo Delphinius, and names the founded colony \"Delphi.\"  The\nlovely drawing of the Delphic Apollo on the hydria of the Vatican (Le\nNormand and De Witte, vol. ii. p. 6) gives the entire conception of this\nmyth.  Again, the beautiful coins of Tarentum represent Taras coming to\nfound the city, riding on a dolphin, whose leaps and plunges have partly\nthe rage of the sea in them, and partly the spring of the horse, because\nthe splendid riding of the Tarentines had made their name proverbial in\nMagna Gr\u00e6ca.  The story of Arion is a collateral fragment of the same\nthought; and, again, the plunge, before their transformation, of the\nships of \u00c6neas.  Then, this idea of career upon, or conquest of, or by\ndolphin-like ships (compare the Merlin prophecy,\n\n            \"They shall ride\n            Over ocean wide\n      With hempen bridle, ad horse of tree,\")\n\nconnects itself with the thought of undulation, and of the wave-power in\nthe sea itself, which is always expressed by the serpentine bodies either\nof the sea-gods or of the sea-horse; and when Athena carries, as she does\noften in later work, a serpent for her shield-sign, it is not so much the\nrepetition of her own \u00e6gis-snakes as the further expression of her power\nover the sea-wave; which, finally, Vergil gives in its perfect unity with\nher own anger, in the approach of the serpents against Laoco\u00f6n from the\nsea; and then, finally, when her own storm-power is fully put forth on\nthe ocean also, and the madness of the \u00e6gis-snake is give to the\nwave-snake, the sea-wave becomes the devouring hound at the waist of\nScylla, and Athena takes Scylla for her helmet-crest; while yet her\nbeneficent and essential power on the ocean, in making navigation\npossible, is commemorated in the Panathenaic festival by her peplus being\ncarried to the Erechtheum suspended from the mast of a ship.\n\nIn Plate cxv. of vol. ii, Le Normand, are given two sides of a vase,\nwhich, in rude and childish ways, assembles most of the principal\nthoughts regarding Athena in this relation.  In the first, the sunrise is\nrepresented by the ascending chariot of Apollo, foreshortened; the light\nis supposed to blind the eyes, and no face of the god is seen (Turner, in\nthe Ulysses and Polyphemus sunrise, loses the form of the god in light,\ngiving the chariot-horses only; rendering in his own manner, after 2,200\nyears of various fall and revival of the arts, precisely the same thought\nas the old Greek potter).  He ascends out of the sea; but the sea itself\nhas not yet caught the light.  In the second design, Athena as the\nmorning breeze, and Hermes as the morning cloud, fly over the sea before\nthe sun.  Hermes turns back his head; his face is unseen in the cloud, as\nApollo's in the light; the grotesque appearance of an animal's face is\nonly the cloud-phantasm modifying a frequent form of the hair of Hermes\nbeneath the back of his cap.  Under the morning breeze, the dolphins leap\nfrom the rippled sea, and their sides catch the light.\n\nThe coins of the Lucanian Heracleia give a fair representation of the\nhelmed Athena, as imagined in later Greek art, with the embossed Scylla.\n\n40.  Fourthly, Athena is the air nourishing artificial light--unconsuming\nfire.  Therefore, a lamp was always kept burning in the Erechtheum; and\nthe torch-race belongs chiefly to her festival, of which the meaning is\nto show the danger of the perishing of the light even by excess of the\nair that nourishes it; and so that the race is not to the swift, but to\nthe wise.  The household use of her constant light is symbolized in the\nlovely passage in the Odyssey, where Ulysses and his son move the armor\nwhile the servants are shut in their chambers, and there is no one to\nhold the torches for them; but Athena herself, \"having a golden lamp,\"\nfills all the rooms with light.  Her presence in war-strength with her\nfavorite heroes is always shown by the \"unwearied\" fire hovering on their\nhelmets and shields; and the image gradually becomes constant and\naccepted, both for the maintenance of household watchfulness, as in the\nparable of the ten virgins, or as the symbol of direct inspiration, in\nthe rushing wind and divided flames of Pentecost; but together with this\nthought of unconsuming and constant fire, there is always mingled in the\nGreek mind the sense of the consuming by excess, as of the flame by the\nair, so also of the inspired creature by its own fire (thus, again, \"the\nzeal of thine house hath eaten me up\"--\"my zeal hath consumed me, because\nof thine enemies,\" and the like); and especially Athena has this aspect\ntowards the truly sensual and bodily strength; so that to Ares, who is\nhimself insane and consuming, the opposite wisdom seems to be insane and\nconsuming: \"All we the other gods have thee against us, O Jove! when we\nwould give grace to men; for thou hast begotten the maid without a mind--\nthe mischievous creature, the doer of unseemly evil.  All we obey thee,\nand are ruled by thee.  Her only thou wilt not resist in anything she\nsays or does, because thou didst bear her--consuming child as she is.\"\n\n41.  Lastly, Athena is the air conveying vibration of sound.\n\nIn all the loveliest representations in central Greek art of the birth\nof Athena, Apollo stands close to the sitting Jupiter, singing, with a\ndeep, quiet joyfulness, to his lyre.  The sun is always thought of as the\nmaster of time and rhythm, and as the origin of the composing and\ninventive discovery of melody; but the air, as the actual element and\nsubstance of the voice, the prolonging and sustaining power of it, and\nthe symbol of its moral passion.  Whatever in music is measured and\ndesigned belongs therefore to Apollo and the Muses; whatever is impulsive\nand passionate, to Athena; hence her constant strength a voice or cry (as\nwhen she aids the shout of Achilles) curiously opposed to the dumbness of\nDemeter.  The Apolline lyre, therefore, is not so much the instrument\nproducing sound, as its measurer and divider by length or tension of\nstring into given notes; and I believe it is, in a double connection with\nits office as a measurer of time or motion and its relation to the\ntransit of the sun in the sky, that Hermes forms it from the\ntortoise-shell, which is the image of the dappled concave of the cloudy\nsky.  Thenceforward all the limiting or restraining modes of music belong\nto the Muses; but the more passionate music is wind music, as in the\nDoric flute.  Then, when this inspired music becomes degraded in its\npassion, it sinks into the pipe of Pan, and the double pipe of Marsyas,\nand is then rejected by Athena.  The myth which represents her doing so\nis that she invented the double pipe from hearing the hiss of the\nGorgonian serpents; but when she played upon it, chancing to see her face\nreflected in water, she saw that it was distorted, whereupon she threw\ndown the flute which Marsyas found.  Then, the strife of Apollo and\nMarsyas represents the enduring contest between music in which the words\nand thought lead, and the lyre measures or melodizes them (which Pindar\nmeans when he calls his hymns \"kings over the lyre\"), and music in which\nthe words are lost and the wind or impulse leads,--generally, therefore,\nbetween intellectual, and brutal, or meaningless, music.  Therefore, when\nApollo prevails, he flays Marsyas, taking the limit and external bond of\nhis shape from him, which is death, without touching the mere muscular\nstrength, yet shameful and dreadful in dissolution.\n\n42.  And the opposition of these two kinds of sound is continually dwelt\nupon by the Greek philosophers, the real fact at the root of all music is\nthe natural expression of a lofty passion for a right cause; that in\nproportion to the kingliness and force of any personality, the expression\neither of its joy or suffering becomes measured, chastened, calm, and\ncapable of interpretation only by the majesty of ordered, beautiful, and\nworded sound.  Exactly in proportion to the degree in which we become\nnarrow in the cause and conception of our passions, incontinent in the\nutterance of them, feeble of perseverance in them, sullied or shameful in\nthe indulgence of them, their expression by musical sound becomes broken,\nmean, fatuitous, and at last impossible; the measured waves of the air of\nheaven will not lend themselves to expression of ultimate vice, it must\nbe forever sunk into discordance or silence.  And since, as before\nstated, every work of right art has a tendency to reproduce the ethical\nstate which first developed it, this, which of all the arts is most\ndirectly in power of discipline; the first, the simplest, the most\neffective of all instruments of moral instruction; while in the failure\nand betrayal of its functions, it becomes the subtlest aid of moral\ndegradation.  Music is thus, in her health, the teacher of perfect order,\nand is the voice of the obedience of angels, and the companion of the\ncourse of the spheres of heaven; and in her depravity she is also the\nteacher of perfect disorder and disobedience, and the Gloria in Excelsis\nbecomes the Marseillaise.  In the third section of this volume, I reprint\ntwo chapters from another essay of mine (\"The Cestus of Aglaia\"), on\nmodesty or measure, and on liberty, containing further reference to music\nin her two powers; and I do this now, because, among the many monstrous\nand misbegotten fantasies which are the spawn of modern license, perhaps\nthe most impishly opposite to the truth is the conception of music which\nhas rendered possible the writing, by educated persons, and, more\nstrangely yet, the tolerant criticism, of such words as these: \"This so\npersuasive art is the only one that has no didactic efficacy, that\nengenders no emotions save such as are without issue on the side of moral\ntruth, that expresses nothing of God, nothing of reason, nothing of human\nliberty.\"  I will not give the author's name; the passage is quoted in\nthe \"Westminster Review\" for last January [1869].\n\n43.  I must also anticipate something of what I have to say respecting\nthe relation of the power of Athena to organic life, so far as to note\nthat her name, Pallas, probably refers to the quivering or vibration of\nthe air; and to its power, whether as vital force, or communicated wave,\nover every kind of matter, in giving it vibratory movement; first, and\nmost intense, in the voice and throat of the bird, which is the air\nincarnate; and so descending through the various orders of animal life to\nthe vibrating and semi-voluntary murmur of the insect; and, lower still,\nto the hiss or quiver of the tail of the half-lunged snake and deaf\nadder; all these, nevertheless, being wholly under the rule of Athena as\nrepresenting either breath or vital nervous power; and, therefore, also,\nin their simplicity, the \"oaten pipe and pastoral song,\" which belong to\nher dominion over the asphodel meadows, and breathe on their banks of\nviolets.\n\nFinally, is it not strange to think of the influence of this one power of\nPallas in vibration (we shall see a singular mechanical energy of it\npresently in the serpent's motion), in the voices of war and peace?  How\nmuch of the repose, how much of the wrath, folly, and misery of men, has\nliterally depended on this one power of the air; on the sound of the\ntrumpet and of the bell, on the lark's song, and the bee's murmur!\n\n44.  Such is the general conception in the Greek mind of the physical\npower of Athena.  The spiritual power associated with it is of two kinds:\nfirst, she is the Spirit of Life in material organism; not strength in\nthe blood only, but formative energy in the clay; and, secondly, she is\ninspired and impulsive wisdom in human conduct and human art, giving the\ninstinct of infallible decision, and of faultless invention.\n\nIt is quite beyond the scope of my present purpose--and, indeed, will\nonly be possible for me at all after marking the relative intention of\nthe Apolline myths--to trace for you the Greek conception of Athena as\nthe guide of moral passion.  But I will at least endeavor, on some near\noccasion,* to define some of the actual truths respecting the vital force\nin created organism, and inventive fancy in the works of man, which are\nmore or less expressed by the Greeks, under the personality of Athena.\nYou would, perhaps, hardly bear with me if I endeavored further to show\nyou--what is nevertheless perfectly true--the analogy between the\nspiritual power of Athena in her gentle ministry, yet irresistible anger,\nwith the ministry of anther Spirit whom we also, holding for the\nuniversal power of life, are forbidden, at our worst peril, to quench or\nto grieve.\n\n\n* I have tried to do this in mere outline in the two following sections\nof this volume.\n\n\n45.  But, I think, to-night, you should not let me close without\nrequiring of me an answer on one vital point, namely, how far these\nimaginations of gods--which are vain to us--were vain to those who had\nno better trust? and what real belief the Greek had in these creations\nof his own spirit, practical and helpful to him in the sorrow of earth?\nI am able to answer you explicitly in this.  The origin of his thoughts\nis often obscure, and we may err in endeavoring to account or their form\nof realization; but the effect of that realization on his life is not\nobscure at all.  The Greek creed was, of course, different in its\ncharacter, as our own creed is, according to the class of persons who\nheld it.  The common people's was quite literal, simple, and happy; their\nidea of Athena was as clear as a good Roman Catholic peasant's idea of\nthe Madonna.  In Athens itself, the centre of thought and refinement,\nPisistratus obtained the reins of government through the ready belief of\nthe populace that a beautiful woman, armed like Athena, was the goddess\nherself.  Even at the close of the last century some of this simplicity\nremained among the inhabitants of the Greek islands; and when a pretty\nEnglish lady first made her way into the grotto of Antiparos, she was\nsurrounded, on her return, by all the women of the neighboring village,\nbelieving her to be divine, and praying her to heal them of their\nsicknesses.\n\n46.  Then, secondly, the creed of the upper classes was more refined and\nspiritual, but quite as honest, and even more forcible in its effect on\nthe life.  You might imagine that the employment of the artifice just\nreferred to implied utter unbelief in the persons contriving it; but it\nreally meant only that the more worldly of them would play with a popular\nfaith of their own purposes, as doubly-minded persons have often done\nsince, all the while sincerely holding the same ideas themselves in a\nmore abstract form; while the good and unworldly men, the true Greek\nheroes, lived by their faith as firmly as St. Louis, or the Cid, or the\nChevalier Bayard.\n\n47.  Then, thirdly, the faith of the poets and artists was, necessarily,\nless definite, being continually modified by the involuntary action of\ntheir own fancies; and by the necessity of presenting, in clear verbal or\nmaterial form, things of which they had no authoritative knowledge.\nTheir faith was, in some respects like Dante's or Milton's: firm in\ngeneral conception, but not able to vouch for every detail in the forms\nthey gave it; but they went considerably farther, even in that minor\nsincerity, than subsequent poets; and strove with all their might to be\nas near the truth as they could.  Pindar says, quite simply, \"I cannot\nthink so-and-so of the gods.  It must have been this way--it cannot have\nbeen that way--that the thing was done.\"  And as late among the Latins as\nthe days of Horace, this sincerity remains.  Horace is just as true and\nsimple in his religion as Wordsworth; but all power of understanding any\nof the honest classic poets has been taken away from most English\ngentlemen by the mechanical drill in verse-writing at school.  Throughout\nthe whole of their lives afterwards, they never can get themselves quit\nof the notion that all verses were written as an exercise, and that\nMinerva was only a convenient word for the last of a hexameter, and\nJupiter for the last but one.\n\n48.  It is impossible that any notion can be more fallacious or more\nmisleading in its consequences.  All great song, from the first day when\nhuman lips contrived syllables, has been sincere song.  With deliberate\ndidactic purpose the tragedians--with pure and native passion the lyrists\n--fitted their perfect words to their dearest faiths.  \"Operosa parvus\ncarmina fingo.\"  \"I, little thing that I am, weave my laborious songs\" as\nearnestly as the bee among the bells of thyme on the Matin mountains. Yes,\nand he dedicates his favorite pine to Diana, and he chants his autumnal\nhymn to the Faun that guards his fields, and he guides the noble youth and\nmaids of Rome in their choir to Apollo, and he tells the farmer's little\ngirl that the gods will love her, though she has only a handful of salt\nand meal to give them--just as earnestly as ever English gentleman taught\nChristian faith to English youth in England's truest days.\n\n49.  Then, lastly, the creed of the philosophers of sages varied\naccording to the character and knowledge of each; their relative\nacquaintance with the secrets of natural science, their intellectual and\nsectarian egotism, and their mystic or monastic tendencies, for there is\na classic as well as a medi\u00e6val monasticism.  They end in losing the life\nof Greece in play upon words; but we owe to their early thought some of\nthe soundest ethics, and the foundation of the best practical laws, yet\nknown to mankind.\n\n50.  Such was the general vitality of the heathen creed in its strength.\nOf its direct influence on conduct, it is, as I said, impossible for me\nto speak now; only, remember always, in endeavoring to form a judgment of\nit, that what of good or right the heathens did, they did looking for no\nreward.  The purest forms of our own religion have always consisted in\nsacrificing less things to win greater, time to win eternity, the world\nto win the skies.  The order, \"Sell that thou hast,\" is not given without\nthe promise, \"Thou shalt have treasure in heaven;\" and well for the\nmodern Christian if he accepts the alternative as his Master left it, and\ndoes not practically read the command and promise thus: \"Sell that thou\nhast in the best market, and thou shalt have treasure in eternity also.\"\nBut the poor Greeks of the great ages expected no reward from heaven but\nhonor, and no reward from earth but rest; though, when, on those\nconditions, they patiently, and proudly, fulfilled their task of the\ngranted day, an unreasoning instinct of an immortal benediction broke\nfrom their lips in song; and they, even they, had sometimes a prophet to\ntell them of a land \"where there is sun alike by day and alike by night,\nwhere they shall need no more to trouble the earth by strength of hands\nfor daily bread; but the ocean breezes blow around the blessed islands,\nand golden flowers burn on their bright trees for evermore.\"\n\n\n\nII.\n\nATHENA KERAMITIS.*\n\n(Athena in the Earth.)\n\n\n* \"Athena, fit for being made into pottery.\"  I coin the expression as a\ncounterpart of 'ge parthenia', \"Clay intact.\"\n\n\nSTUDY, SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE PRECEDING LECTURE, OF THE SUPPOSED AND\n      ACTUAL RELATIONS OF ATHENA TO THE VITAL FORCE IN MATERIAL ORGANISM\n\n\n51.  It has been easy to decipher approximately the Greek conception of\nthe physical power of Athena in cloud and sky, because we know ourselves\nwhat clouds and skies are, and what the force of the wind is in forming\nthem.  But it is not at all easy to trace the Greek thoughts about the\npower of Athena in giving life, because we do not ourselves know clearly\nwhat life is, or in what way the air is necessary to it, or what there\nis, besides the air, shaping the forms that it is put into.  And it is\ncomparatively of small consequence to find out what the Greeks thought\nor meant, until we have determined what we ourselves think, or mean, when\nwe translate the Greek word for \"breathing\" into the Latin-English word\n\"spirit.\"\n\n52.  But it is of great consequence that you should fix in your minds--\nand hold, against the baseness of mere materialism on the one hand, and\nagainst the fallacies of controversial speculation on the other--the\ncertain and practical sense of this word \"spirit;\" the sense in which you\nall know that its reality exists, as the power which shaped you into your\nshape, and by which you love and hate when you have received that shape.\nYou need not fear, on the one hand, that either the sculpturing or the\nloving power can ever be beaten down by the philosophers into a metal, or\nevolved by them into a gas; but on the other hand, take care that you\nyourself, in trying to elevate your conception of it, do not lose its\ntruth in a dream, or even in a word.  Beware always of contending for\nwords: you will find them not easy to grasp, if you know them in several\nlanguages.  This very word, which is so solemn in your mouths, is one of\nthe most doubtful.  In Latin it means little more than breathing, and may\nmean merely accent; in French it is not breath, but wit, and our\nneighbors are therefore obliged, even in their most solemn expressions,\nto say \"wit\" when we say \"ghost.\"  In Greek, \"pneuma,\" the word we\ntranslate \"ghost,\" means either wind or breath, and the relative word\n\"psyche\" has, perhaps, a more subtle power; yet St. Paul's words\n\"pneumatic body\" and \"psychic body\" involve a difference in his mind\nwhich no words will explain.  But in Greek and in English, and in Saxon\nand in Hebrew, and in every articulate tongue of humanity the \"spirit of\nman\" truly means his passion and virtue, and is stately according to the\nheight of his conception, and stable according to the measure of his\nendurance.\n\n53. Endurance, or patience, that is the central sign of spirit; a\nconstancy against the cold and agony of death; and as, physically, it is\nby the burning power of the air that the heat of the flesh is sustained,\nso this Athena, spiritually, is the queen of all glowing virtue, the\nunconsuming fire and inner lamp of life.  And thus, as Heph\u00e6stus is lord\nof the fire of the hand, and Apollo of the fire of the brain, so Athena\nof the fire of the heart; and as Hercules wears for his chief armor the\nskin of the Nemean lion, his chief enemy, whom he slew; and Apollo has\nfor his highest name \"the Pythian,\" from his chief enemy, the Python\nslain; so Athena bears always on her breast the deadly face of her chief\nenemy slain, the Gorgonian cold, and venomous agony, that turns living\nmen to stone.\n\n54.  And so long as you have the fire of the heart within you, and know\nthe reality of it, you need to be under no alarm as to the possibility\nof its chemical or mechanical analysis.  The philosophers are very\nhumorous in their ecstasy of hope about it; but the real interest of\ntheir discoveries in this direction is very small to humankind.  It is\nquite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and that\nthe surface of the water in a ditch vibrates too; but the ditch hears\nnothing for all that; and my hearing is still to me as blessed a mystery\nas ever, and the interval between the ditch and me quite as great.  If\nthe trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which began\nmy happiness, and is now of the passing-bell which ends it, the\ndifference between those two sounds to me cannot be counted by the number\nof concussions.  There have been some curious speculations lately as to\nthe conveyance of mental consciousness by \"brain-waves.\"  What does it\nmatter how it is conveyed?  The consciousness itself is not a wave.  It\nmay be accompanied here or there by any quantity of quivers and shakes,\nup or down, of anything you can find in the universe that is shakable--\nwhat is that to me?  My friend is dead, and my--according to modern views\n--vibratory sorrow is not one whit less, or less mysterious, to me, than\nmy old quiet one.\n\n55.  Beyond, and entirely unaffected by, any questionings of this kind,\nthere are, therefore, two plain facts which we should all know: first,\nthat there is a power which gives their several shapes to things, or\ncapacities of feeling; and that we can increase or destroy both of these\nat our will.  By care and tenderness, we can extend the range of lovely\nlife in plants and animals; by our neglect and cruelty, we can arrest it,\nand bring pestilence in its stead.  Again, by right discipline we can\nincrease our strength of noble will and passion or destroy both.  And\nwhether these two forces are local conditions of the elements in which\nthey appear, or are part of a great force in the universe, out of which\nthey are taken, and to which they must be restored, is not of the\nslightest importance to us in dealing with them; neither is the manner\nof their connection with light and air.  What precise meaning we ought to\nattach to expressions such as that of the prophecy to the four winds that\nthe dry bones might be breathed upon, and might live, or why the presence\nof the vital power should be dependent on the chemical action of air, and\nits awful passing away materially signified by the rendering up of that\nbreath or ghost, we cannot at present know, and need not at any time\ndispute.  What we assuredly know is that the states of life and death are\ndifferent, and the first more desirable than the other, and by effort\nattainable, whether we understand being \"born of the spirit\" to signify\nhaving the breath of heaven in our flesh, or its power in our hearts.\n\n56.  As to its power on the body, I will endeavor to tell you, having\nbeen myself much led into studies involving necessary reference both to\nnatural science and mental phenomena, what, at least, remains to us after\nscience has done its worst; what the myth of Athena, as a formative and\ndecisive power, a spirit of creation and volition, must eternally mean\nfor all of us.\n\n57.  It is now (I believe I may use the strong word) \"ascertained\" that\nheat and motion are fixed in quantity, and measurable in the portions\nthat we deal with.  We can measure portions of power, as we can measure\nportions of space; while yet, as far as we know, space may be infinite,\nand force infinite.  There may be heat as much greater than the sun's, as\nthe sun's heat is greater than a candle's: and force as much greater than\nthe force by which the world swings, as that is greater than the force by\nwhich a cobweb trembles.  Now, on hear and force, life is inseparably\ndependent; and I believe, also, on a form of substance, which the\nphilosophers call \"protoplasm.\"  I wish they would use English instead of\nGreek words.  When I want to know why a leaf is green, they tell me it is\ncolored by \"chlorophyll,\" which at first sounds very instructive; but if\nthey would only say plainly that a leaf is colored green by a thing which\nis called \"green leaf,\" we should see more precisely how far we had got.\nHowever, it is a curious fact that life is connected with a cellular\nstructure called protoplasm, or in English, \"first stuck together;\"\nwhence, conceivably through deuteroplasms, or second stickings, and\ntritoplasms, or third stickings,* we reach the highest plastic phase in\nthe human pottery, which differs from common chinaware, primarily, by a\nmeasurable degree of heat, developed in breathing, which it borrows from\nthe rest of the universe while it lives, and which it as certainly\nreturns to the rest of the universe, when it dies.\n\n58.  Again, with this heat certain assimilative powers are connected,\nwhich the tendency of recent discovery is to simplify more and more into\nmodes of one force; or finally into mere motion, communicable in various\nstates, but not destructible.  We will assume that science has done its\nutmost; and that every chemical or animal force is demonstrably\nresolvable into heat or motion, reciprocally changing into each other.\nI would myself like better, in order of thought, to consider motion as a\nmode of heat than heat as a mode of motion; still, granting that we have\ngot thus far, we have yet to ask, What is heat? or what is motion?  What\nis this \"primo mobile,\" this transitional power, in which all things\nlive, and move, and have their being?  It is by definition something\ndifferent from matter, and we may call it as we choose, \"first cause,\" or\n\"first light,\" or \"first heat;\" but we can show no scientific proof of\nits not being personal, and coinciding with the ordinary conception of a\nsupporting spirit in all things.\n\n59.  Still, it is not advisable to apply the word \"spirit\" or \"breathing\"\nto it, while it is only enforcing chemical affinities; but, when the\nchemical affinities are brought under the influence of the air, and of\nthe sun's heat, the formative force enters and entirely different phase.\nIt does not now merely crystallize indefinite masses, but it gives to\nlimited portions of matter the power of gathering, selectively, other\nelements proper to them, and binding those elements into their own\npeculiar and adopted form.\n\nThis force, now properly called life, or breathing, or spirit, is\ncontinually creating its own shell of definite shape out of the wreck\naround it; and this is what I meant by saying, in the \"Ethics of the\nDust,\" \"you may always stand by form against force.\"  For the mere force\nof junction is not spirit; but the power that catches out of chaos\ncharcoal, water, lime, or what not, and fastens them down into a given\nform, is properly called \"spirit;\" and we shall not diminish, but\nstrengthen our conception of this creative energy by recognizing its\npresence in lower states of matter than our own; such recognition being\nenforced upon us by delight we instinctively receive from all the forms\nof matter which manifest it; and yet more, by the glorifying of those\nforms, in the parts of them that are most animated, with the colors that\nare pleasantest to our senses.  The most familiar instance of this is the\nbest, and also the most wonderful: the blossoming of plants.\n\n60.  The spirit in the plant--that is to say, its power of gathering dead\nmatter out of the wreck round it, and shaping it into its own chosen\nshape--is of course strongest at the moment of its flowering, for it then\nnot only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy.\n\nAnd where this life is in at full power, its form becomes invested with\naspects that are chiefly delightful to our own human passions; namely, at\nfirst, with the loveliest outlines of shape; and, secondly, with the most\nbrilliant phases of the primary colors, blue, yellow, and red or white,\nthe unison of all; and, to make it all more strange, this time of\npeculiar and perfect glory is associated with relations of the plants or\nblossoms to each other, correspondent to the joy of love in human\ncreatures, and having the same object in the continuance of the race.\nOnly, with respect to plants, as animals, we are wrong in speaking as if\nthe object of this strong life were only the bequeathing of itself.  The\nflower is the end or proper object of the seed, not the seed of the\nflower.  The reason for seeds is that flowers may be; not the reason of\nflowers that seeds may be.  The flower itself is the creature which the\nspirit makes; only, in connection with its perfectness is placed the\ngiving birth to its successor.\n\n61.  The main fact then, about a flower is that it is part of the plant's\nform developed at the moment of its intensest life; and this inner\nrapture is usually marked externally for us by the flush of one or more\nof the primary colors.  What the character of the flower shall be,\ndepends entirely upon the portion of the plant into which this rapture of\nspirit has been put.  Sometimes the life is put into its outer sheath,\nand then the outer sheath becomes white and pure, and full of strength\nand grace; sometimes the life is put into the common leaves, just under\nthe blossom, and they become scarlet or purple; sometimes the life is put\ninto the stalks of the flower and they flush blue; sometimes into its\nouter enclosure or calyx; mostly into its inner cup; but, in all cases,\nthe presence of the strongest life is asserted by characters in which the\nhuman sight takes pleasure, and which seem prepared with distinct\nreference to us, or rather, bear, in being delightful, evidence of having\nbeen produced by the power of the same spirit as our own.\n\n62.  And we are led to feel this still more strongly because all the\ndistinctions of species,* both in plants and animals, appear to have\nsimilar connection with human character.  Whatever the origin of species\nmay be, or however those species, once formed, may be influenced by\nexternal accident, the groups into which birth or accident reduce them\nhave distinct relation to the spirit of man.  It is perfectly possible,\nand ultimately conceivable, that the crocodile and the lamb may have\ndescended from the same ancestral atom of protoplasm; and that the\nphysical laws of the operation of calcareous slime and of meadow grass,\non that protoplasm, may in time have developed the opposite natures and\naspects of the living frames but the practically important fact for us\nis the existence of a power which creates that calcareous earth itself,\n--which creates, that separately--and quartz, separately; and gold,\nseparately; and charcoal, separately; and then so directs the relation\nof these elements as that the gold shall destroy the souls of men by\nbeing yellow; and the charcoal destroy their souls by being hard and\nbright; and the quartz represent to them an ideal purity; and the\ncalcareous earth, soft, shall beget crocodiles, and dry and hard, sheep;\nand that the aspects and qualities of these two products, crocodiles and\nlambs, shall be, the one repellant to the spirit of man, the other\nattractive to it, in a quite inevitable way; representing to him states\nof moral evil and good; and becoming myths to him of destruction or\nredemption, and, in the most literal sense, \"words\" of God.\n\n\n* The facts on which I am about to dwell are in nowise antagonistic to\nthe theories which Mr. Darwin's unwearied and unerring investigations are\nevery day rendering more probable.  The \u00e6sthetic relations of species are\nindependent of their origin.  Nevertheless, it has always seemed to me\nin what little work I have done upon organic forms, as if the species\nmocked us by their deliberate imitation of each other when they met; yet\ndid not pass one into another.\n\n\n63.  And the force of these facts cannot be escaped from by the thought\nthat there are species innumerable, passing into each other by regular\ngradations, out of which we choose what we must love or dread, and say\nthey were indeed prepared for us.  Species are not innumerable; neither\nare they now connected by consistent gradation.  They touch at certain\npoints only; and even then are connected, when we examine them deeply,\nin a kind of reticulated way, not in chains, but in chequers; also,\nhowever connected, it is but by a touch of the extremities, as it were,\nand the characteristic form of the species is entirely individual.  The\nrose nearly sinks into a grass in the sanguisorba; but the formative\nspirit does not the less clearly separate the ear of wheat from the\ndog-rose, and oscillate with tremulous constancy round the central forms\nof both, having each their due relation to the mind of man.  The great\nanimal kingdoms are connected in the same way.  The bird through the\npenguin drops towards the fish, and the fish in the cetacean reascends\nto the mammal, yet there is no confusion of thought possible between the\nperfect forms of an eagle, a trout, and a war-horse, in their relations\nto the elements, and to man.\n\n64.  Now we have two orders of animals to take some note of in connection\nwith Athena, and one vast order of plants, which will illustrate this\nmatter very sufficiently for us.\n\nThe orders of animals are the serpent and the bird: the serpent, in which\nthe breath or spirit is less than in any other creature, and the\nearth-power the greatest; the bird, in which the breath or spirit is more\nfull than in any other creature, and the earth-power least.\n\n65.  We will take the bird first.  It is little more than a drift of the\nair in all its quills, it breathes through its whole frame and flesh and\nglows with air in its flying, like blown flames; it rests upon the air,\nsubdues it, surpasses it, outraces it,--is the air, conscious of itself,\nconquering itself, ruling itself.\n\nAlso, in the throat of the bird is given the voice of the air.  All that\nin the wind itself is weak, wild, useless in sweetness, is knit together\nin its song.  As we may imagine the wild form of the bird's wings, so the\nwild voice of the cloud into its ordered and commanded voice; unwearied,\nrippling through the clear heaven in its gladness, interpreting all\nintense passion through the soft spring nights, bursting into acclaim and\nrapture of choir at daybreak, or lisping and twittering among the boughs\nand hedges through heat of day, like little winds that only make the\ncowslip bells shake, and ruffle the petals of the wild rose.\n\n66.  Also, upon the plumes of the bird are put the colors of the air; on\nthese the gold of the cloud, that cannot be gathered by any covetousness;\nthe rubies of the clouds, that are not the price of Athena, but are\nAthena; the vermillion of the cloud-bar, and the flame of the\ncloud-crest, and the snow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the melted\nblue of the deep wells of the sky,--all these, seized by the creating\nspirit, and woven by Athena herself into films and threads of plume; with\nwave on wave following and fading along breast, and throat, and opened\nwings, infinite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting of the\nsea-sand; even the white down of the cloud seeming to flutter up between\nthe stronger plumes,--seen, but too soft for touch.\n\nAnd so the Spirit of the Air is put into, and upon, this created form;\nand it becomes, through twenty centuries, the symbol of divine help,\ndescending, as the Fire, to speak but as the Dove, to bless.\n\n67.  Next, in the serpent we approach the source of a group of myths,\nworld-wide, founded on great and common human instincts, respecting which\nI must note one or two points which bear intimately on all our subject.\nFor it seems to me that the scholars who are at present occupied in\ninterpretation of human myths have most of them forgotten that there are\nany such thing as natural myths, and that the dark sayings of men may be\nboth difficult to read, and not always worth reading.  And, indeed, all\nguidance to the right sense of the human and variable myths will probably\ndepend on our first getting at the sense of the natural and invariable\nones.  The dead hieroglyph may have meant this or that; the living\nhieroglyph means always the same; but remember, it is just as much a\nhieroglyph as the other; nay, more,--a \"sacred or reserved sculpture,\" a\nthing with an inner language.  The serpent crest of the king's crown, or\nof the god's, on the pillars of Egypt, is a mystery, but the serpent\nitself, gliding past the pillar's foot, is it less a mystery?  Is there,\nindeed, no tongue, except the mute forked flash from its lips, in that\nrunning brook of horror on the ground?\n\n68.  Why that horror?  We all feel it, yet how imaginative it is, how\ndisproportioned to the real strength of the creature!  There is more\npoison in an ill-kept drain, in a pool of dish-washing at a cottage door,\nthan in the deadliest asp of Nile.  Every back yard which you look down\ninto from the railway as it carries you out by Vauxhall or Deptford,\nholds its coiled serpent; all the walls of those ghastly suburbs are\nenclosures of tank temples for serpent worship; yet you feel no horror in\nlooking down into them as you would if you saw the livid scales, and\nlifted head.  There is more venom, mortal, inevitable, in a single word,\nsometimes, or in the gliding entrance of a wordless thought than ever\n\"vanti Libia con sua rena.\"  But that horror is of the myth, not of the\ncreature.  There are myriads lower than this, and more loathsome, in the\nscale of being; the links between dead matter and animation drift\neverywhere unseen.  But it is the strength of the base element that is so\ndreadful in the serpent; it is the very omnipotence of the earth.  That\nrivulet of smooth silver, how does it flow, think you?  It literally rows\non the earth, with every scale for an oar; it bites the dust with the\nridges of its body.  Watch it, when it moves slowly.  A wave, but without\nwind! a current, but with no fall! all the body moving at the same\ninstant, yet some of it to one side, some to another, or some forward,\nand the rest of the coil backwards, but all with the same calm will and\nequal way, no contraction, no extension; one soundless, causeless, march\nof sequent rings, and spectral processions of spotted dust, with\ndissolution in its fangs, dislocation in its coils.  Startle it, the\nwinding stream will become a twisted arrow; the wave of poisoned life\nwill lash through the grass like a cast lance.*  It scarcely breathes\nwith its one lung (the other shriveled and abortive); it is passive\nto the sun and shade, and is cold or hot like a stone; yet \"it can\noutclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the zebra, outwrestle the\nathlete, and crush the tiger.\"**  It is a divine hieroglyph of the\ndemoniac power of the earth, of the entire earthly nature.  As the bird\nis the clothed power of the air, so this is the clothed power of the\ndust; as the bird is the symbol of the spirit of life, so this is the\ngrasp and sting of death.\n\n\n* I cannot understand this swift forward motion of serpents.  The seizure\nof prey by the constrictor, though invisibly swift, is quite simple in\nmechanism; it is simply the return to its coil of an opened watch-spring,\nand is just as instantaneous.  But the steady and continuous motion,\nwithout a visible fulcrum (for the whole body moves at the same instant,\nand I have often seen even small snakes glide as fast as I could walk),\nseems to involve a vibration of the scales quite too rapid to be\nconceived.  The motion of the crest and dorsal fin of the hippocampus,\nwhich is one of the intermediate types between serpent and fish, perhaps\ngives some resemblance of it, dimly visible, for the quivering turns the\nfin into a mere mist.  The entrance of the two barbs of a bee's sting by\nalternate motion, \"the teeth of one barb acting as a fulcrum for the\nother,\" must be something like the serpent motion on a small scale.\n** Richard Owen.\n\n\n69.  Hence the continual change in the interpretation put upon it in\nvarious religions.  As the worm of corruption, it is the mightiest of all\nadversaries of the gods--the special adversary of their light and\ncreative power--Python against Apollo.  As the power of the earth against\nthe air, the giants are serpent-bodied in the Gigantomachia; but as the\npower of the earth upon the seed--consuming it into new life (\"that which\nthou sowest is not quickened except it die\")--serpents sustain the\nchariot of the spirit of agriculture.\n\n70.  Yet on the other hand, there is a power in the earth to take away\ncorruption, and to purify (hence the very fact of burial, and many uses\nof earth, only lately known): and in this sense the serpent is a healing\nspirit,--the representative of \u00c6sculapius, and of Hygieia; and is a\nsacred earth-type in the temple of the native earth of Athens; so that\nits departure from the temple was a sign to the Athenians that they were\nto leave their homes.  And then, lastly, as there is a strength and\nhealing in the earth, no less than the strength of air, so there is\nconceived to be a wisdom of earth no less than a wisdom of the spirit;\nand when its deadly power is killed, its guiding power becomes true; so\nthat the Python serpent is killed at Delphi, where yet the oracle is from\nthe breath of the earth.\n\n71.  You must remember, however, that in this, as in every other\ninstance, I take the myth at its central time.  This is only the meaning\nof the serpent to the Greek mind which could conceive an Athena.  Its\nfirst meaning to the nascent eyes of men, and its continued influence\nover degraded races, are subjects of the most fearful mystery.  Mr.\nFergusson has just collected the principal evidence bearing on the matter\nin a work of very great value, and if you read his opening chapters, they\nwill put  you in possession of the circumstances needing chiefly to be\nconsidered.  I cannot touch upon any of them here, except only to point\nout that, though the doctrine of the so-called \"corruption of human\nnature,\" asserting that there is nothing but evil in humanity, is just\nas blasphemous and false as a doctrine of the corruption of physical\nnature would be, asserting there was nothing but evil in the earth,--\nthere is yet the clearest evidence of a disease, plague, or cretinous\nimperfection of development, hitherto allowed to prevail against the\ngreater part of the races of men; and this in monstrous ways, more full\nof mystery than the serpent-being itself.  I have gathered for you\ntonight only instances of what is beautiful in Greek religion; but even\nin its best time there were deep corruptions in other phases of it, and\ndegraded forms of many of its deities, all originating in a misunderstood\nworship of lower races, little less than these corrupted forms of\ndevotion can be found, all having a strange and dreadful consistency with\neach other, and infecting Christianity, even at its strongest periods,\nwith fatal terror of doctrine, and ghastliness of symbolic conception,\npassing through fear into frenzied grotesque, and thence into sensuality.\n\nIn the Psalter of St. Louis itself, half of its letters are twisted\nsnakes; there is scarcely a wreathed ornament, employed in Christian\ndress, or architecture, which cannot be traced back to the serpent's\ncoil; and there is rarely a piece of monkish decorated writing in the\nworld that is not tainted with some ill-meant vileness of grotesque,--\nnay, the very leaves of the twisted ivy-pattern of the fourteenth century\ncan be followed back to wreaths for the foreheads of bacchanalian gods.\nAnd truly, it seems to me, as I gather in my mind the evidences of insane\nreligion, degraded art, merciless war, sullen toil, detestable pleasure,\nand vain or vile hope, in which the nations of the world have lived since\nfirst they could bear record of themselves--it seems to me, I say, as if\nthe race itself were still half-serpent, not extricated yet from its\nclay; a lacertine breed of bitterness--the glory of it emaciate with\ncruel hunger, and blotted on the leaf a glittering slime, and in the sand\na useless furrow.\n\n72.  There are no myths, therefore, by which the moral state and fineness\nof intelligence of different races can be so deeply tried or measured, as\nby those of the serpent and the bird; both of them having an especial\nrelation to the kind of remorse for sin, or for the grief in fate, of\nwhich the national minds that spoke by them had been capable.  The\nserpent and vulture are alike emblems of immortality and purification\namong races which desired to be immortal and pure; and as they recognize\ntheir own misery, the serpent becomes to them the scourge of the Furies,\nand the vulture finds its eternal prey in their breast.  The bird long\ncontests among the Egyptians with the still received serpent symbol of\npower.  But the Draconian image of evil is established in the serpent\nApap; while the bird's wings, with the globe, become part of a better\nsymbol of deity, and the entire form of the vulture, as an emblem of\npurification, is associated with the earliest conception of Athena.  In\nthe type of the dove with the olive branch, the conception of the spirit\nof Athena in renewed life prevailing over ruin is embodied for the whole\nof futurity; while the Greeks, to whom, in a happier climate and higher\nlife than that of Egypt, the vulture symbol of cleansing became\nunintelligible, took the eagle instead for their hieroglyph of supreme\nspiritual energy, and it thenceforward retains its hold on the human\nimagination, till it is established among Christian myths as the\nexpression of the most exalted form of evangelistic teaching.  The\nspecial relation of Athena to her favorite bird we will trace presently;\nthe peacock of Hera, and dove of Aphrodite, are comparatively unimportant\nmyths; but the bird power is soon made entirely human by the Greeks in\ntheir flying angel of victory (partially human, with modified meaning of\nevil, in the Harpy and Siren); and thenceforward it associates itself\nwith the Hebrew cherubim, and has had the most singular influence on the\nChristian religion by giving its wings to render the conception of angels\nmysterious and untenable, and check rational endeavor to determine the\nnature of subordinate spiritual agency; while yet it has given to that\nagency a vague poetical influence of the highest value in its own\nimaginative way.\n\n73.  But with the early serpent-worship there was associated another,\nthat of the groves, of which you will also find the evidence exhaustively\ncollected in Mr. Fergussen's work.  This tree-worship may have taken a\ndark form when associated with the Draconian one; or opposed, as in\nJudea, to a purer faith; but in itself, I believe, it was always healthy,\nand though it retains little definite hieroglyphic power in subsequent\nreligion, it becomes, instead of symbolic, real; the flowers and trees\nare themselves beheld and beloved with a half-worshipping delight, which\nis always noble and healthful.\n\nAnd it is among the most notable indications of the volition of the\nanimating power that we find the ethical signs of good and evil set on\nthese also, as well as upon animals; the venom of the serpent, and in\nsome respects its image also, being associated even with the passionless\ngrowth of the leaf out of the ground; while the distinctions of species\nseem appointed with more definite ethical address to the intelligence of\nman as their material products become more useful to him.\n\n74.  I can easily show this, and, at the same time, make clear the\nrelation to other plants of the flowers which especially belong to\nAthena, by examining the natural myths in the groups of the plants which\nwould be used at any country dinner, over which Athena would, in her\nsimplest household authority, cheerfully rule here in England.  Suppose\nHorace's favorite dish of beans, with the bacon; potatoes; some savory\nstuffing of onions and herbs, with the meat; celery, and a radish or\ntwo, with the cheese; nuts and apples for desert, and brown bread.\n\n75.  The beans are, from earliest time, the most important and\ninteresting of the seeds of the great tribe of plants from which came the\nLatin and French name for all kitchen vegetables,--things that are\ngathered with the hand--podded seeds that cannot be reaped, or beaten, or\nshaken down, but must be gathered green.  \"Leguminous\" plants, all of\nthem having flowers like butterflies, seeds in (frequently pendent) pods,\n--\"l\u00e6tum siliqua quassante legumen\"--smooth and tender leaves, divided\ninto many minor ones; strange adjuncts of tendril, for climbing (and\nsometimes of thorn); exquisitely sweet, yet pure scents of blossom, and\nalmost always harmless, if not serviceable seeds.  It is of all tribes\nof plants the most definite, its blossoms being entirely limited in their\nparts, and not passing into other forms.  It is also the most usefully\nextended in range and scale; familiar in the height of the forest--\nacacia, laburnum, Judas-tree; familiar in the sown field--bean and vetch\nand pea; familiar in the pasture--in every form of clustered clover and\nsweet trefoil tracery; the most entirely serviceable and human of all\norders of plants.\n\n76.  Next, in the potato, we have the scarcely innocent underground stem\nof one of a tribe set aside for evil; having the deadly nightshade for\nits queen, and including the henbane, the witch's mandrake, and the worst\nnatural curse of modern civilization--tobacco.*  And the strange thing\nabout this tribe is, that though thus set aside for evil, they are not a\ngroup distinctly separate from those that are happier in function.  There\nis nothing in other tribes of plants like the form of the bean blossom;\nbut there is another family of forms and structure closely connected with\nthis venomous one.  Examine the purple and yellow bloom of the common\nhedge nightshade; you will find it constructed exactly like some of the\nforms of the cyclamen; and, getting this clue, you will find at last the\nwhole poisonous and terrible group to be--sisters of the primulas!\n\n\n* It is not easy to estimate the demoralizing effect on the youth of\nEurope of the cigar, in enabling them to pass their time happily in\nidleness.\n\n\nThe nightshades are, in fact, primroses with a curse upon them; and a\nsign set in their petals, by which the deadly and condemned flowers may\nalways be known from the innocent ones,--that the stamens of the\nnightshades are between the lobes, and of the primulas, opposite the\nlobes, of the corolla.\n\n77.  Next, side by side, in the celery and radish, you have the two great\ngroups of unbelled and cruciferous plants; alike in conditions of rank\namong herbs: both flowering in clusters; but the unbelled group, flat,\nthe crucifers, in spires: both of them mean and poor in the blossom, and\nlosing what beauty they have by too close crowding; both of them having\nthe most curious influence on human character in the temperate zones of\nthe earth, from the days of the parsley crown, and hemlock drink, and\nmocked Euripidean chervil, until now; but chiefly among the northern\nnations, being especially plants that are of some humble beauty, and (the\ncrucifers) of endless use, when they are chosen and cultivated; but that\nrun to wild waste, and are the signs of neglected ground, in their rank\nor ragged leaves and meagre stalks, and pursed or podded seed clusters.\nCapable, even under cultivation, of no perfect beauty, thought reaching\nsome subdued delightfulness in the lady's smock and the wallflower; for\nthe most part they have every floral quality meanly, and in vain,--they\nare white without purity; golden, without preciousness; redundant,\nwithout richness; divided, without fineness; massive, without strength;\nand slender, without grace.  Yet think over that useful vulgarity of\ntheirs; and of the relations of German and English peasant character to\nits food of kraut and cabbage (as of Arab character to its food of\npalm-fruit), and you will begin to feel what purposes of the forming\nspirit are in these distinctions of species.\n\n78.  Next we take the nuts and apples,--the nuts representing one of the\ngroups of catkined trees, whose blossoms are only tufts and dust; and the\nother, the rose tribe, in which fruit and flower alike have been the\ntypes to the highest races of men, of all passionate temptation, or pure\ndelight, from the coveting of Eve to the crowing of the Madonna, above\nthe\n\n            \"Rosa sempiterna,\n      Che si dilata, rigrada, e ridole\n      Odor di lode al Sol.\"\n\nWe have no time now for these, we must go on to the humblest group of\nall, yet the most wonderful, that of the grass which has given us our\nbread; and from that we will go back to the herbs.\n\n79.  The vast family of plants which, under rain, make the earth green\nfor man, and, under sunshine, give him bread, and, in their springing in\nthe early year, mixed with their native flowers, have given us (far more\nthan the new leaves of trees) the thought and word of \"spring,\" divide\nthemselves broadly into three great groups--the grasses, sedges, and\nrushes.  The grasses are essentially a clothing for healthy and pure\nground, watered by occasional rain, but in itself dry, and fit for all\ncultivated pasture and corn.  They are distinctively plants with round\nand jointed stems, which have long green flexible leaves, and heads of\nseed, independently emerging from them.  The sedges are essentially the\nclothing of waste and more or less poor or uncultivated soils, coarse in\ntheir structure, frequently triangular in stem--hence called \"acute\" by\nVirgil--and with their heads of seed not extricated from their leaves.\nNow, in both the sedges and grasses, the blossom has a common structure,\nthough undeveloped in the sedges, but composed always of groups of double\nhusks, which have mostly a spinous process in the centre, sometimes\nprojecting into a long awn or beard; this central process being\ncharacteristic also of the ordinary leaves of mosses, as if a moss were\na kind of ear of corn made permanently green on the ground, and with a\nnew and distinct fructification.  But the rushes differ wholly from the\nsedge and grass in their blossom structure.  It is not a dual cluster,\nbut a twice threefold one, so far separate from the grasses, and so\nclosely connected with a higher order of plants, that I think you will\nfind it convenient to group the rushes at once with that higher order,\nto which, if you will for the present let me give the general name of\nDrosid\u00e6, or dew-plants, it will enable me to say what I have to say of\nthem much more shortly and clearly.\n\n80.  These Drosid\u00e6, then, are plants delighting in interrupted moisture--\nor at certain seasons--into dry ground.  They are not among water-plants,\nbut the signs of water resting among dry places.  Many of the true\nwater-plants have triple blossoms, with a small triple calyx holding\nthem; in the Drosid\u00e6 the floral spirit passes into the calyx also, and\nthe entire flower becomes a six-rayed star, bursting out of the stem\nlaterally, as if it were the first of flowers and had made its way to the\nlight by force through the unwilling green.  They are often required to\nretain moisture or nourishment for the future blossom through long times\nof drought; and this they do in bulbs under ground, of which some become\na rude and simple, but most wholesome, food for man.\n\n81.  So, now, observe, you are to divide the whole family of the herbs of\nthe field into three great groups,--Drosid\u00e6, Carices,* Gramine\u00e6,--\ndew-plants, sedges, and grasses.  Then the Drosid\u00e6 are divided into five\ngreat orders: lilies, asphodels, amaryllids, irids, and rushes.  No\ntribes of flowers have had so great, so varied, or so healthy an\ninfluence on man as this great group of Drosid\u00e6, depending, not so much\non the whiteness of some of their blossoms, or the radiance of others, as\non the strength and delicacy of the substance of their petals; enabling\nthem to take forms of faultless elastic curvature, either in cups, as the\ncrocus, or expanding bells, as the true lily, or heath-like bells, as the\nhyacinth, or bright and perfect stars, like the star of Bethlehem, or,\nwhen they are affected by the strange reflex of the serpent nature which\nforms the labiate group of all flowers, closing into forms of exquisitely\nfantastic symmetry in the gladiolus.  Put by their side their Nereid\nsisters, the water-lilies, and you have them in the origin of the\nloveliest forms of ornamental design, and the most powerful floral myths\nyet recognized among human spirits, born by the streams of Ganges, Nile,\nArno, and Avon.\n\n\n* I think Carex will be found ultimately better than Cyperus for the\ngeneric name, being the Vergilian word, and representing a larger\nsub-species.\n\n\n82.  For consider a little what each of those five tribes* has been to\nthe spirit of man.  First, in their nobleness, the lilies gave the lily\nof the Annunciation; the asphodels, the flower of the Elysian fields; the\nirids, the fleur-de-lys of chivalry; and the amaryllids, Christ's lily of\nthe field; while the rush, trodden always under foot, became the emblem\nof humility.  Then take each of the tribes, and consider the extent of\ntheir lower influence.  Perdita's \"The crown imperial, lilies of all\nkinds,\" are the first tribe, which, giving the type of perfect purity in\nthe Madonna's lily, have, by their lovely form, influenced the entire\ndecorative design of Italian sacred art; while ornament design of war was\ncontinually enriched by the curves of the triple petals of the Florentine\n\"giglio,\" and French fleur-de-lys; so that it is impossible to count\ntheir influence for good in the middle ages, partly as a symbol of\nwomanly character, and partly of the utmost brightness and refinement of\nchivalry in the city which was the flower of cities.\n\n\n* Take this rough distinction of the four tribes: lilies, superior ovary,\nwhite seeds; asphodels, superior ovary, black seeds; irids, inferior\novary, style (typically) rising into central crest; amaryllids, inferior\novary, stamens (typically) joined in central cup.  Then the rushes are a\ndark group, through which they stoop to the grasses.\n\n\nAfterwards, the group of the turban-lilies, or tulips, did some mischief\n(their splendid stains having made them the favorite caprice of\nflorists); but they may be pardoned all such guilt for the pleasure they\nhave given in cottage gardens, and are yet to give, when lowly life may\nagain be possible among us; and the crimson bars of the tulips in their\ntrim beds, with their likeness in crimson bars of morning above them, and\nits dew glittering heavy, globed in their glossy cups, may be loved\nbetter than the gray nettles of the ash heap, under gray sky, unveined by\nvermilion or by gold.\n\n83.  The next great group, of the asphodels, divides itself also into two\nprincipal families: one, in which the flowers are like stars, and\nclustered characteristically in balls, though opening sometimes into\nlooser heads; and the other, in which the flowers are in long bells,\nopening suddenly at the lips, and clustered in spires on a long stem, or\ndrooping from it, when bent by their weight.\n\nThe star-group, of the squills, garlics, and onions, has always caused me\ngreat wonder.  I cannot understand why its beauty, and serviceableness,\nshould have been associated with the rank scent which has been really\namong the most powerful means of degrading peasant life, and separating\nit from that of the higher classes.\n\nThe belled group, of the hyacinth and convallaria, is as delicate as the\nother is coarse; the unspeakable azure light along the ground of the wood\nhyacinth in English spring; the grape hyacinth, which is in south France,\nas if a cluster of grapes and a hive of honey had been distilled and\ncompressed together into one small boss of celled and beaded blue; the\nlilies of the valley everywhere, in each sweet and wild recess of rocky\nlands,--count the influences of these on childish and innocent life; then\nmeasure the mythic power of the hyacinth and asphodel as connected with\nGreek thoughts of immortality; finally take their useful and nourishing\npower in ancient and modern peasant life, and it will be strange if you\ndo not feel what fixed relation exists between the agency of the creating\nspirit in these, and in us who live by them.\n\n84.  It is impossible to bring into any tenable compass for our present\npurpose, even hints of the human influence of the two remaining orders of\nAmaryllids and Irids; only note this generally, that while these in\nnorthern countries share with the Primulas the fields of spring, it seems\nthat in Greece, the primulace\u00e6 are not an extended tribe, while the\ncrocus, narcissus, and Amaryllis lutea, the \"lily of the field\" (I\nsuspect also that the flower whose name we translate \"violet\" was in\ntruth an iris) represented to the Greek the first coming of the breath of\nlife on the renewed herbage; and became in his thoughts the true\nembroidery of the saffron robe of Athena.  Later in the year, the\ndianthus (which, though belonging to an entirely different race of\nplants, has yet a strange look of being made out of the grasses by\nturning the sheath-membrane at the root of their leaves into a flower)\nseems to scatter, in multitudinous families, its crimson stars far and\nwide.  But the golden lily and crocus, together with the asphodel, retain\nalways the old Greek's fondest thoughts,--they are only \"golden\" flowers\nthat are to burn on the trees, and float on the streams of paradise.\n\n85.  I have but one tribe of plants more to note at our country feast--\nthe savory herbs; but must go a little out of my way to come at them\nrightly.  All flowers whose petals are fastened together, and most of\nthose whose petals are loose, are best thought of first as a kind of cup\nor tube opening at the mouth.  Sometimes the opening is gradual, as in\nthe convolvulus or campanula; oftener there is a distinct change of\ndirection between the tube and expanding lip, as in the primrose; or even\na contraction under the lip, making the tube into a narrow-necked phial\nor vase, as in the heaths; but the general idea of a tube expanding into\na quatrefoil, cinquefoil, or sixfoil, will embrace most of the forms.\n\n86.  Now, it is easy to conceive that flowers of this kind, growing in\nclose clusters, may, in process of time, have extended their outside\npetals rather than the interior ones (as the outer flowers of the\nclusters of many umbellifers actually do), and thus elongated and\nvariously distorted forms have established themselves; then if the stalk\nis attached to the side instead of the base of the tube, its base becomes\na spur, and thus all the grotesque forms of the mints, violets, and\nlarkspurs, gradually might be composed.  But, however this may be, there\nis one great tribe of plants separate from the rest, and of which the\ninfluence seems shed upon the rest, in different degrees; and these would\ngive the impression, not so much of having been developed by change, as\nof being stamped with a character of their own, more or less serpentine\nor dragon-like.  And I think you will find it convenient to call these\ngenerally Draconid\u00e6; disregarding their present ugly botanical name which\nI do not care even to write once--you may take for their principal types\nthe foxglove, snapdragon, and calceolaria; and you will find they all\nagree in a tendency to decorate themselves by spots, and with bosses or\nswollen places in their leaves, as if they had been touched by poison.\nThe spot of the foxglove is especially strange, because it draws the\ncolor out of the tissue all around it, as if it had been stung, and as if\nthe central color was really an inflamed spot, with paleness round.  Then\nalso they carry to its extreme the decoration by bulging or pouting out\nthe petal,--often beautifully used by other flowers in a minor degree,\nlike the beating out of bosses in hollow silver, as in the kalmia, beaten\nout apparently in each petal by the stamens instead of a hammer; or the\nborage, pouting towards; but the snapdragons and calceolarias carry it to\nits extreme.\n\n87.  Then the spirit of these Draconid\u00e6 seems to pass more or less into\nother flowers, whose forms are properly pure vases; but it affects some\nof them slightly, others not at all.  It never strongly affects the\nheaths; never once the roses; but it enters like an evil spirit into the\nbuttercup, and turns it into a larkspur, with a black, spotted, grotesque\ncentre, and a strange, broken blue, gorgeous and intense, yet impure,\nglittering on the surface as if it were strewn with broken glass, and\nstained or darkening irregularly into red.  And then at last the serpent\ncharm changes the ranunculus into monkshood, and makes it poisonous.  It\nenters into the forget-me-not, and the star of heavenly turquoise is\ncorrupted into the viper's bugloss, darkened with the same strange red as\nthe larkspur, and fretted into a fringe of thorn; it enters, together\nwith a strange insect-spirit, into the asphodels, and (though with a\ngreater interval between the groups) they change to spotted orchide\u00e6; it\ntouches the poppy, it becomes a fumaria; the iris, and it pouts into a\ngladiolus; the lily, and it chequers itself into a snake's-head, and\nsecretes in the deep of its bell, drops, not of venom indeed, but\nhoney-dew, as if it were a healing serpent.  For there is an \u00c6sculapian\nas well as an evil serpentry among the Draconid\u00e6, and the fairest of\nthem, the \"erba della Madonna\" of Venice (Linaria Cymbalaria), descends\nfrom the ruins it delights into the herbage at their feet, and touches\nit; and behold, instantly, a vast group of herbs for healing,--all\ndraconid in form,--spotted and crested, and from their lip-like corollas\nnamed \"labiat\u00e6;\" full of various balm, and warm strength for healing, yet\nall of them without splendid honor or perfect beauty, \"ground ives,\"\nrichest when crushed under the foot; the best sweetness and gentle\nbrightness of the robes of the field,--thyme, and marjoram, and Euphrasy.\n\n88.  And observe, again and again, with respect to all these divisions\nand powers of plants: it does not matter in the least by what\nconcurrences of circumstance or necessity they may gradually have been\ndeveloped; the concurrence of circumstance is itself the supreme and\ninexplicable fact.  We always come at last to a formative cause, which\ndirects the circumstance, and mode of meeting it.  If you ask an ordinary\nbotanist the reason of the form of the leaf, he will tell you that it is\na \"developed tubercle,\" and that its ultimate form \"is owing to the\ndirections of its vascular threads.\"  But what directs its vascular\nthreads?  \"They are seeking for something they want,\" he will probably\nanswer.  What made them want that?  What made them seek for it thus?\nSeek for it, in five fibres or in three?  Seek for it, in serration, or\nin sweeping curves?  Seek for it, in servile tendrils, or impetuous\nspray?  Seek for it, in woolen wrinkles rough with stings, or in glossy\nsurfaces, green with pure strength, and winterless delight?\n\n89.  There is no answer.  But the sum of all is, that over the entire\nsurface of the earth, and its waters, as influenced by the power of the\nair under solar light, there is developed a series of changing forms, in\nclouds, plants, and animals, all of which have reference in their action,\nor nature, to the human intelligence that perceives them; and on which,\nin their aspects of horror and beauty, and their qualities of good and\nevil, there is engraved a series of myths, or words of the forming power,\nwhich, according to the true passion and energy of the human race, they\nhave been enabled to read into religion.  And this forming power has been\nby all nations partly confused with the breath or air through which it\nacts, and partly understood as a creative wisdom, proceeding from the\nSupreme Deity; but entering into and inspiring all intelligences that\nwork in harmony with Him.  And whatever intellectual results may be in\nmodern days obtained by regarding this effluence only as a motion of\nvibration, every formative human art hitherto, and the best states of\nhuman happiness and order, may have depended on the apprehension of its\nmystery (which is certain,) and of its personality, which is probable.\n\n90.  Of its influence on the formative arts, I have a few words to say\nseparately: my present business is only to interpret, as we are now\nsufficiently enabled to do, the external symbols of the myth under which\nit was represented by the Greeks as a goddess of counsel, taken first\ninto that breast of their supreme Deity, then created out of his\nthoughts, and abiding closely beside him; always sharing and consummating\nhis power.\n\n91.  And in doing this we have first to note the meaning of the principal\nepithet applied to Athena, \"Glaukopis,\" \"with eyes full of light,\" the\nfirst syllable being connected, by its root, with words signifying sight,\nnot with words signifying color.  As far as I can trace the color\nperception of the Greeks, I find it all founded primarily on the degree\nof connection between color and light; the most important fact to them in\nthe color of red being its connection with fire and sunshine; so that\n\"purple\" is, in its original sense, \"fire-color,\" and the scarlet or\norange, of dawn, more than any other fire-color.  I was long puzzled by\nHomer's calling the sea purple; and misled into thinking he meant the\ncolor of cloud shadows on green sea; whereas he really means the gleaming\nblaze of the waves under wide light.  Aristotle's idea (partly true) is\nthat light, subdued by blackness, becomes red; and blackness, heated or\nlighted, also becomes red.  Thus, a color may be called purple because it\nis light subdued (and so death is called \"purple\" or \"shadowy\" death); or\nelse it may be called purple as being shade kindled with fire, and thus\nsaid of the lighted sea; or even of the sun itself, when it is thought of\nas a red luminary opposed to the whiteness of the moon: \"purpureos inter\nsoles, et candida lun\u00e6 sidera;\" or of golden hair: \"pro purpureo p\u0153nam\nsolvens scelerata capillo;\" while both ideas are modified by the\ninfluence of an earlier form of the word, which has nothing to do with\nfire at all, but only with mixing or staining; and then, to make the\nwhole group of thoughts inextricably complex, yet rich and subtle in\nproportion to their intricacy, the various rose and crimson colors of the\nmurex dye,--the crimson and purple of the poppy, and fruit of the palm,--\nand the association of all these with the hue of blood,--partly direct,\npartly through a confusion between the word signifying \"slaughter\" and\n\"palm-fruit color,\" mingle themselves in, and renew the whole nature of\nthe old word; so that, in later literature, it means a different color,\nor emotion of color, in almost every place where it occurs; and cast\nforever around the reflection of all that has been dipped in its dyes.\n\n92.  So that the world is really a liquid prism, and stream of opal.  And\nthen, last of all, to keep the whole history of it in the fantastic\ncourse of a dream, warped here and there into wild grotesque, we moderns,\nwho have preferred to rule over coal-mines instead of the sea (and so\nhave turned the everlasting lamp of Athena into a Davy's safety-lamp in\nthe hand of Britannia, and Athenian heavenly lightning into British\nsubterranean \"damp\"), have actually got our purple out of coal instead of\nthe sea!  And thus, grotesquely, we have had enforced on us the doubt\nthat held the old word between blackness and fire, and have completed the\nshadow, and the fear of it, by giving it a name from battle, \"Magenta.\"\n\n93.  There is precisely a similar confusion between light and color in\nthe word used for the blue of the eyes of Athena--a noble confusion,\nhowever, brought about by the intensity of the Greek sense that the\nheaven is light, more than it is blue.  I was not thinking of this when I\nwrote in speaking of pictorial chiaroscuro, \"The sky is not blue color\nmerely: it is blue fire and cannot be painted\" (Mod. P. iv. p. 36); but\nit was this that the Greeks chiefly felt of it, and so \"Glaukopis\"\nchiefly means gray-eyed: gray standing for a pale or luminous blue; but\nit only means \"owl-eyed\" in thought of the roundness and expansion, not\nfrom the color; this breath and brightness being, again, in their moral\nsense typical of the breadth, intensity, and singleness of the sight in\nprudence (\"if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of\nlight\").  Then the actual power of the bird to see in twilight enters\ninto the type, and perhaps its general fineness of sense.  \"Before the\nhuman form was adopted, her (Athena's) proper symbol was the owl, a bird\nwhich seems to surpass all other creatures in acuteness of organic\nperception, its eye being calculated to observe objects which to all\nothers are enveloped in darkness, its ear to hear sounds distinctly, and\nits nostrils to discriminate effluvia with such nicety that it has been\ndeemed prophetic, from discovering the putridity of death even in the\nfirst stages of disease.\"*\n\n\n* Payne Knight in his \"Inquiry into the Symbolical Language of Ancient\nArt,\" not trustworthy, being little more than a mass of conjectural\nmemoranda, but the heap is suggestive, if well sifted.\n\n\nI cannot find anywhere an account of the first known occurrence of the\ntype; but, in the early ones on Attic coins, the wide round eyes are\nclearly the principal things to be made manifest.\n\n94.  There is yet, however, another color of great importance in the\nconception of Athena--the dark blue of her \u00e6gis.  Just as the blue or\ngray of her eyes was conceived more as light than color, so her aegis was\ndark blue, because the Greeks thought of this tint more as shade than\ncolor, and, while they used various materials in ornamentation,\nlapislazuli, carbonate of copper, or, perhaps, smalt, with real enjoyment\nof the blue tint, it was yet in their minds as distinctly representative\nof darkness as scarlet was of light, and, therefore, anything dark,* but\nespecially the color of heavy thunder-cloud, was described by the same\nterm.  The physical power of this darkness of the \u00e6gis, fringed with\nlightning, is given quite simply when Jupiter himself uses it to\novershadow Ida and the Plain of Troy, and withdraws it at the prayer of\nAjax for light; and again when he grants it to be worn for a time by\nApollo, who is hidden by its cloud when he strikes down Patroclus; but\nits spiritual power is chiefly expressed by a word signifying deeper\nshadow,--the gloom of Erebus, or of our evening, which, when spoken of\nthe \u00e6gis, signifies, not merely the indignation of Athena, but the entire\nhiding or withdrawal of her help, and beyond even this, her deadliest of\nall hostility,--the darkness by which she herself deceives and beguiles\nto final ruin those to whom she is wholly adverse; this contradiction of\nher own glory being the uttermost judgment upon human falsehood.  Thus it\nis she who provokes Pandarus to the treachery which purposed to fulfil\nthe rape of Helen by the murder of her husband in time of truce; and then\nthe Greek king, holding his wounded brother's hand, prophesies against\nTroy the darkness of the \u00e6gis which shall be over all, and for ever.**\n\n\n* In the breastplate and shield of Atrides the serpents and bosses are\nall of this dark color, yet the serpents are said to be like rainbows;\nbut through all this splendor and opposition of hue, I feel distinctly\nthat the literal \"splendor,\" with its relative shade, are prevalent in\nthe conception; and that there is always a tendency to look through the\nhue to its cause.  And in this feeling about color the Greeks are\nseparated from the eastern nations, and from the best designers of\nChristian times.  I cannot find that they take pleasure in color for its\nown sake; it may be in something more than color, or better; but it is\nnot in the hue itself.  When Homer describes cloud breaking from a\nmountain summit, the crags become visible in light, not color; he feels\nonly their flashing out in bright edges and trenchant shadows; above, the\n\"infinite,\" \"unspeakable\" \u00e6ther is torn open--but not the blue of it.  He\nhas scarcely any abstract pleasure in blue, or green, or gold; but only\nin their shade or flame.\n\nI have yet to trace the causes of this (which will be a long task,\nbelonging to art questions, not to mythological ones); but it is, I\nbelieve, much connected with the brooding of the shadow of death over\nthe Greeks without any clear hope of immortality.  The restriction of\nthe color on their vases to dim red (or yellow) with black and white,\nis  greatly connected with their sepulchral use, and with all the\nmelancholy of Greek tragic thought; and in this gloom the failure of\ncolor-perception is partly noble, partly base: noble, in its earnestness,\nwhich raises the design of Greek vases as far above the designing of mere\ncolorist nations like the Chinese, as men's thoughts are above\nchildren's; and yet it is partly base and earthly, and inherently\ndefective in one human faculty; and I believe it was one cause of the\nperishing of their art so swiftly, for indeed there is no decline so\nsudden, or down to such utter loss and ludicrous depravity, as the fall\nof Greek design on its vases from the fifth to the third century B.C.  On\nthe other hand, the pure colored-gift, when employed for pleasure only,\ndegrades in another direction; so that among the Indians, Chinese, and\nJapanese, all intellectual progress in art has been for ages rendered\nimpossible by the prevalence of that faculty; and yet it is, as I have\nsaid again and again, the spiritual power of art; and its true brightness\nis the essential characteristic of all healthy schools.\n** 'eremnen Aigida pasi'.--Il. iv. 166.\n\n\n95.  This, then, finally, was the perfect color-conception of Athena: the\nflesh, snow-white (the hands, feet, and face of marble, even when the\nstatue was hewn roughly in wood); the eyes of keen pale blue, often in\nstatues represented by jewels; the long robe to the feet, crocus-colored;\nand the \u00e6gis thrown over it of thunderous purple; the helmet golden (Il.\nv. 744.), and I suppose its crest also, as that of Achilles.\n\nIf you think carefully of the meaning and character which is now enough\nillustrated for you in each of these colors, and remember that the\ncrocus-color and the purple were both of them developments, in opposite\ndirections, of the great central idea of fire-color, or scarlet, you will\nsee that this form of the creative spirit of the earth is conceived as\nrobed in the blue, and purple, and scarlet, the white, and the gold,\nwhich have been recognized for the sacred chords of colors, from the day\nwhen the cloud descended on a Rock more mighty than Ida.\n\n96.  I have spoken throughout, hitherto, of the conception of Athena, as\nit is traceable in the Greek mind; not as it was rendered by Greek art.\nIt is matter of extreme difficulty, requiring a sympathy at once\naffectionate and cautious, and a knowledge reaching the earliest springs\nof the religion of many lands, to discern through the imperfection, and,\nalas! more dimly yet, through the triumphs of formative art, what kind\nof thoughts they were that appointed for it the tasks of its childhood,\nand watched by the awakening of its strength.\n\nThe religions passion is nearly always vividest when the art is weakest;\nand the technical skill only reaches its deliberate splendor when the\necstacy which gave it birth has passed away forever.  It is as vain an\nattempt to reason out the visionary power or guiding influence of Athena\nin the Greek heart, from anything we now read, or possess, of the work of\nPhidias, as it would be for the disciples of some new religion to infer\nthe spirit of Christianity from Titian's \"Assumption.\"  The effective\nvitality of the religious conception can be traced only through the\nefforts of trembling hands, and strange pleasures of untaught eyes; and\nthe beauty of the dream can no more be found in the first symbols by\nwhich it is expressed, than a child's idea of fairy-land can be gathered\nfrom its pencil scrawl, or a girl's love for her broken doll explained by\nthe defaced features.  On the other hand, the Athena of Phidias was, in\nvery fact, not so much the deity, as the darling of the Athenian people.\nHer magnificence represented their pride and fondness, more than their\npiety; and the great artist, in lavishing upon her dignities which might\nbe ended abruptly by the pillage they provoked, resigned, apparently\nwithout regret, the awe of her ancient memory; and (with only the\ncareless remonstrance of a workman too strong to be proud) even the\nperfectness of his own art.  Rejoicing in the protection of their\ngoddess, and in their own hour of glory, the people of Athena robed her,\nat their will, with the preciousness of ivory and gems; forgot or denied\nthe darkness of the breastplate of judgment, and vainly bade its\nunappeasable serpents relax their coils in gold.\n\n97.  It will take me many a day yet--if days, many or few, are given me--\nto disentangle in anywise the proud and practised disguises of religious\ncreeds from the instinctive arts which, grotesquely and indecorously, yet\nwith sincerity, strove to embody them, or to relate.  But I think the\nreader, by help even of the imperfect indications already given to him,\nwill be able to follow, with a continually increasing security, the\nvestiges of the Myth of Athena; and to reanimate its almost evanescent\nshade, by connecting it with the now recognized facts of existent nature\nwhich it, more or less dimly, reflected and foretold.  I gather these\nfacts together in brief.\n\n98.  The deep of air that surrounds the earth enters into union with the\nearth at its surface, and with its waters, so as to be the apparent cause\nof their ascending into life.  First, it warms them, and shades, at once,\nstaying the heat of the sun's rays in its own body, but warding their\nforce with its clouds.  It warms and cools at once, with traffic of balm\nand frost; so that the white wreaths are withdrawn from the field of the\nSwiss peasant by the glow of Libyan rock.  It gives its own strength to\nthe sea; forms and fills every cell of its foam; sustains the precipices,\nand designs the valleys of its waves; gives the gleam to their moving\nunder the night, and the white fire to their plains under sunrise; lifts\ntheir voices along the rocks, bears above them the spray of birds,\npencils through them the dimpling of unfooted sands.  It gathers out of\nthem a portion in the hollow of its hand: dyes, with that, the hills into\ndark blue, and their glaciers with dying rose; inlays with that, for\nsapphire, the dome in which it has to set the cloud; shapes out of that\nthe heavenly flocks: divides them, numbers, cherishes, bears them on its\nbosom, calls them to their journeys, waits by their rest; feeds from them\nthe brooks that cease not, and strews with them the dews that cease.  It\nspins and weaves their fleece into wild tapestry, rends it, and renews;\nand flits and flames, and whispers, among the golden threads, thrilling\nthem with a plectrum of strange fire that traverses them to and fro, and\nis enclosed in them like life.\n\nIt enters into the surface of the earth, subdues it, and falls together\nwith it into fruitful dust, from which can be moulded flesh; it joins\nitself, in dew, to the substance of adamant, and becomes the green leaf\nout of the dry ground; it enters into the separated shapes of the earth\nit has tempered, commands the ebb and flow of the current of their life,\nfills their limbs with its own lightness, measures their existence by its\nindwelling pulse, moulds upon their lips the words by which one soul can\nbe known to another; is to them the hearing of the ear, and the beating\nof the heart; and, passing away, leaves them to the peace that hears and\nmoves no more.\n\n99.  This was the Athena of the greatest people of the days of old.  And\nopposite to the temple of this Spirit of the breath, and life-blood, of\nman and beast, stood, on the Mount of Justice, and near the chasm which\nwas haunted by the goddess-Avengers, an altar to a God unknown,--\nproclaimed at last to them, as one who, indeed, gave to all men, life,\nand breath, and all things; and rain from heaven, filling their hearts\nwith rain from heaven, filling their hearts with food and gladness; a God\nwho had made of one blood all nations of men who dwell on the face of all\nthe earth, and had determined the times of their fate, and the bounds of\ntheir habitation.\n\n100.  We ourselves, fretted here in our narrow days, know less, perhaps,\nin very deed, than they, what manner of spirit we are of, or what manner\nof spirit we ignorantly worship.  Have we, indeed, desired the Desire of\nall nations? and will the Master whom we meant to seem, and the Messenger\nin whom we thought we delighted, confirm, when He comes to His temple,--\nor not find in its midst,--the tables heavy with gold for bread, and the\nseats that are bought with the price of the dove?  Or is our own land\nalso to be left by its angered Spirit,--left among those, where sunshine\nvainly sweet, and passionate folly of storm, waste themselves in the\nsilent places of knowledge that has passed away, and of tongues that have\nceased?\n\nThis only we may discern assuredly; this, every true light of science,\nevery mercifully-granted power, every wisely-restricted thought, teach us\nmore clearly day by day, that in the heavens above, and the earth\nbeneath, there is one continual and omnipotent presence of help, and of\npeace, for all men who know that they live, and remember that they die.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nATHENA ERGANE.*\n(Athena in the Heart.)\n\n\n* \"Athena the worker, or having rule over work.\"  The name was first give\nto her by the Athenians.\n\n\nVARIOUS NOTES RELATING TO THE CONCEPTION OF ATHENA AS THE DIRECTRESS OF\n      THE IMAGINATION AND WILL.\n\n\n101.  I have now only a few words to say, bearing on what seems to me\npresent need, respecting the third function of Athena, conceived as the\ndirectress of human passion, resolution, and labor.\n\nFew words, for I am not yet prepared to give accurate distinction between\nthe intellectual rule of Athena and that of the Muses; but, broadly, the\nMuses, with their king, preside over meditative, historical, and poetic\narts, whose end is the discovery of light or truth, and the creation of\nbeauty; but Athena rules over moral passion, and practically useful art.\nShe does not make men learned, but prudent and subtle; she does not teach\nthem to make their work beautiful, but to make it right.\n\nIn different places of my writings, and though many years of endeavor to\ndefine the laws of art, I have insisted on this rightness in work, and on\nits connection with virtue of character, in so many partial ways, that\nthe impression left on the reader's mind--if, indeed, it was ever\nimpressed at all--has been confused and uncertain.  In beginning the\nseries of my corrected works, I wish this principle (in my own mind the\nfoundation of every other) to be made plain, if nothing else is; and will\ntry, therefore, to make it so, as far as, by any effort, I can put it\ninto unmistakable words.  And, at first, here is a very simple statement\nof it, given lately in a lecture on the Architecture of the Valley of the\nSomme, which will be better read in this place than in its incidental\nconnection with my account of the porches of Abbeville.\n\n102.  I had used, in a preceding part of the lecture, the expression, \"by\nwhat faults\" this Gothic architecture fell.  We continually speak thus of\nworks of art.  We talk of their faults and merits, as of virtues and\nvices.  What do we mean by talking of the faults of a picture, or the\nmerits of a piece of stone?\n\nThe faults of a work of art are the faults of its workman, and its\nvirtues his virtues.\n\nGreat art is the expression of the mind of a great man, and mean art,\nthat of the want of mind of a weak man.  A foolish person builds\nfoolishly, and a wise one, sensibly; a virtuous one, beautifully; and a\nvicious one, basely.  If stone work is well put together, it means that a\nthoughtful man planned it, and a careful man cut it, and an honest man\ncemented it.  If it has too much ornament, it means that its carver was\ntoo greedy of pleasure; if too little, that he was rude, or insensitive,\nor stupid, and the like.  So that when once you have learned how to spell\nthese most precious of all legends,--pictures and buildings,--you may\nread the characters of men, and of nations, in their art, as in a mirror;\nnay, as in a microscope, and magnified a hundredfold; for the character\nbecomes passionate in the art, and intensifies itself in all its noblest\nor meanest delights.  Nay, not only as in a microscope, but as under a\nscalpel, and in dissection; for a man may hide himself from you, or\nmisrepresent himself to you every other way; but he cannot in his work:\nthere, be sure, you have him to the inmost.  All that he likes, all that\nhe sees,--all that he can do,--his imagination, his affections, his\nperseverance, his impatience, his clumsiness, cleverness, everything is\nthere.  If the work is a cobweb, you know it was made by a spider; if a\nhoney-comb, by a bee; a wormcast is thrown up by a worm, and a nest\nwreathed by a bird; and a house built by a man, worthily, if he is\nworthy, and ignobly if he is ignoble.\n\nAnd always, from the least to the greatest, as the made thing is good or\nbad, so is the maker of it.\n\n103.  You will use this faculty of judgment more or less, whether you\ntheoretically admit the principle or not.  Take that floral gable;* you\ndon't suppose the man who built Stonehenge could have built that, or that\nthe man who built that, would have built Stonehenge?  Do you think an old\nRoman would have liked such a piece of filigree work? or that Michael\nAngelo would have spent his time in twisting these stems of roses in and\nout?  Or, of modern handicraftsmen, do you think a burglar, or a brute,\nor a pickpocket could have carved it?  Could Bill Sykes have done it? or\nthe Dodger, dexterous with finger and tool?  You will find in the end,\nthat no man could have done it but exactly the man who did it; and by\nlooking close at it, you may, if you know your letters, read precisely\nthe manner of man he was.\n\n\n* The elaborate pendiment above the central porch at the west end of\nRouen Cathedral, pierced into a transparent web of tracery, and enriched\nwith a border of \"twisted eglantine.\"\n\n\n104.  Now I must insist on this matter, for a grave reason.  Of all facts\nconcerning art, this is the one most necessary to be known, that, while\nmanufacture is the work of hands only, art is the work of the whole\nspirit of man; and as that spirit is, so is the deed of it; and by\nwhatever power of vice or virtue any art is produced, the same vice or\nvirtue it reproduces and teaches.  That which is born of evil begets\nevil; and that which is born of valor and honor, teaches valor and honor.\nAll art is either infection or education.  It must be one or other of\nthese.\n\n105.  This, I repeat, of all truths respecting art, is the one of which\nunderstanding is the most precious, and denial the most deadly.  And I\nassert it the more, because it has of late been repeatedly, expressly,\nand with contumely, denied, and that by high authority; and I hold it one\nof the most sorrowful facts connected with the decline of the arts among\nus, that English gentlemen, of high standing as scholars and artists,\nshould have been blinded into the acceptance, and betrayed into the\nassertion of a fallacy which only authority such as theirs could have\nrendered for an instant credible.  For the contrary of it is written in\nthe history of all great nations; it is the one sentence always inscribed\non the steps of their thrones; the one concordant voice in which they\nspeak to us out of their dust.\n\nAll such nations first manifest themselves as a pure and beautiful animal\nrace, with intense energy and imagination.  They live lives of hardship\nby choice, and by grand instinct of manly discipline; they become fierce\nand irresistible soldiers; the nation is always its own army, and their\nking, or chief head of government, is always their first soldier.\nPharaoh, or David, or Leonidas, or Valerius, or Barbarossa, or Coeur de\nLion, or St. Louis, or Dandalo, or Frederick the Great,--Egyptian, Jew,\nGreek, Roman, German, English, French, Venetian,--that is inviolable law\nfor them all; their king must be their first soldier, or they cannot be\nin progressive power.  Then, after their great military period, comes the\ndomestic period; in which, without betraying the discipline of war, they\nadd to their great soldiership the delights and possessions of a delicate\nand tender home-life; and then, for all nations, is the time of their\nperfect art, which is the fruit, the evidence, the reward of their\nnational idea of character, developed by the finished care of the\noccupations of peace.  That is the history of all true art that ever was,\nor can be; palpably the history of it,--unmistakably,--written on the\nforehead of it in letters of light,--in tongues of fire, by which the\nseal of virtue is branded as deep as ever iron burnt into a convict's\nflesh the seal of crime.  But always, hitherto, after the great period,\nhas followed the day of luxury, and pursuit of the arts for pleasure\nonly.  And all has so ended.\n\n106.  Thus far of Abbeville building.  Now I have here asserted two\nthings,--first, the foundation of art in moral character; next, the\nfoundation of moral character in war.  I must make both these assertions\nclearer, and prove them.\n\nFirst, of the foundation of art in moral character.  Of course art-gift\nand amiability of disposition are two different things; for a good man\nis not necessarily a painter, nor does an eye for color necessarily imply\nan honest mind.  But great art implies the union of both powers; it is\nthe expression, by an art-gift, of a pure soul.  If the gift is not\nthere, we can have no art at all; and if the soul--and a right soul too--\nis not there, the art is bad, however dexterous.\n\n107.  But also, remember, that the art-gift itself is only the result of\nthe moral character of generations.  A bad woman may have a sweet voice;\nbut that sweetness of voice comes of the past morality of her race.  That\nshe can sing with it at all, she owes to the determination of laws of\nmusic by the morality of the past.  Every act, every impulse, of virtue\nand vice, affects in any creature, face, voice, nervous power, and vigor\nand harmony of invention, at once.  Perseverance in rightness of human\nconduct renders, after a certain number of generations, human art\npossible; every sin that clouds it, be it ever so little a one; and\npersistent vicious living and following of pleasure render, after a\ncertain number of generations, all art impossible.  Men are deceived by\nthe long-suffering of the laws of nature, and mistake, in a nation, the\nreward of the virtue of its sires, for the issue of its own sins.  The\ntime of their visitation will come, and that inevitably; for, it is\nalways true, that if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children's\nteeth are set on edge.  And for the individual, as soon as you have\nlearned to read, you may, as I said, know him to the heart's core,\nthrough his art.  Let his art-gift be never so great, and cultivated to\nthe height by the schools of a great race of men, and it is still but a\ntapestry thrown over his own being and inner soul; and the bearing of it\nwill show, infallibly, whether it hangs on a man or on a skeleton.  If\nyou are dim-eyed, you may not see the difference in the fall of the folds\nat first, but learn how to look, and the folds themselves will become\ntransparent, and you shall see through them the death's shape, or the\ndivine one, making the tissue above it as a cloud of right, or as a\nwinding-sheet.\n\n108.  Then further, observe, I have said (and you will find it true, and\nthat to the uttermost) that, as all lovely art is rooted in virtue, so it\nbares fruit of virtue, and is didactic in its own nature.  It is often\ndidactic also in actually expressed thought, as Giotto's, Michael\nAngelo's, D\u00fcrer's, and hundreds more; but that is not its special\nfunction; it is didactic chiefly by being beautiful; but beautiful with\nhaunting thought, no less than with form, and full of myths that can be\nread only with the heart.\n\nFor instance, at this moment there is open beside me as I write, a page\nof Persian manuscript, wrought with wreathed azure and gold, and soft\ngreen, and violet, and ruby and scarlet, into one field of pure\nresplendence.  It is wrought to delight the eyes only; and does delight\nthem; and the man who did it assuredly had eyes in his head; but not much\nmore.  It is not didactic art, but its author was happy; and it will do\nthe good, and the harm, that mere pleasure can do.  But, opposite me, is\nan early Turner drawing of the lake of Geneva, taken about two miles from\nGeneva, on the Lausanne road, with Mont Blanc in the distance.  The old\ncity is seen lying beyond the waveless waters, veiled with a sweet misty\nveil of Athena's weaving; a faint light of morning, peaceful exceedingly,\nand almost colorless, shed from behind the Voirons, increases into soft\namber along the slope of the Sal\u00ebve, and is just seen, and no more, on\nthe fair warm fields of its summit, between the folds of a white cloud\nthat rests upon the grass, but rises, high and tower-like, into the\nzenith of dawn above.\n\n109.  There is not as much color in that low amber light upon the\nhillside as there is in the palest dead leaf.  The lake is not blue, but\ngray in mist, passing into deep shadow beneath the Voirons' pines; a few\ndark clusters of leaves, a single white flower--scarcely seen--are all\nthe gladness given to the rocks of the shore.  One of the ruby spots of\nthe eastern manuscript would give color enough for all the red that is in\nTurner's entire drawing.  For the mere pleasure of the eye, there is not\nso much in all those lines of his, throughout the entire landscape, as in\nhalf an inch square of the Persian's page.  What made him take pleasure\nin the low color that is only like the brown of a dead leaf? in the cold\ngray of dawn--in the one white flower among the rocks--in these--and no\nmore than these?\n\n110.  He took pleasure in them because he had been bred among English\nfields and hills; because the gentleness of a great race was in his\nheart, and its powers of thought in his brain; because he knew the\nstories of the Alps, and of the cities at their feet; because he had read\nthe Homeric legends of the clouds, and beheld the gods of dawn, and the\ngivers of dew to the fields; because he knew the faces of the crags, and\nthe imagery of the passionate mountains, as a man knows the face of his\nfriend; because he had in him the wonder and sorrow concerning life and\ndeath, which are the inheritance of the Gothic soul from the days of its\nfirst sea kings; and also the compassion and the joy that are woven into\nthe innermost fabric of every great imaginative spirit, born now in\ncountries that have lived by the Christian faith with any courage or\ntruth.  And the picture contains also, for us, just this which its maker\nhad in him to give; and can convey it to us, just so far as we are of the\ntemper in which it must be received.  It is didactic if we are worthy to\nbe taught, not otherwise.  The pure heart, it will make more pure; the\nthoughtful, more thoughtful.  It has in it no words for the reckless or\nthe base.\n\n111.  As I myself look at it, there is no fault nor folly of my life--and\nboth have been many and great--that does not rise up against me, and take\naway my joy, and shorten my power of possession of sight, of\nunderstanding.  And every past effort of my life, every gleam of\nrightness or good in it, is with me now, to help me in my grasp of this\nart, and its vision.  So far as I can rejoice in, or interpret either, my\npower is owing to what of right there is in me.  I dare to say it, that,\nbecause through all my life I have desired good, and not evil; because I\nhave been kind to many; have wished to be kind to all; have wilfully\ninjured none; and because I have loved much, and not selfishly;\ntherefore, the morning light is yet visible to me on those hills, and\nyou, who read, may trust my thought and word in such work as I have to do\nfor you; and you will be glad afterwards that you have trusted them.\n\n112.  Yet, remember,--I repeat it again and yet again,--that I may for\nonce, if possible, make this thing assuredly clear: the inherited\nart-gift must be there, as well as the life in some poor measure, or\nrescued fragment, right.  This art-gift of mine could not have been won\nby any work or by any conduct: it belongs to me by birthright, and came\nby Athena's will, from the air of English country villages, and Scottish\nhills.  I will risk whatever charge of folly may come on me, for printing\none of my many childish rhymes, written on a frosty day in Glen Farg,\njust north of Loch Leven.  It bears date 1st January, 1828.  I was born\non the 8th of February, 1819; and al that I ever could be, and all that I\ncannot be, the weak little rhyme already shows.\n\n\"Papa, how pretty those icicles are,\nThat are seen so near,--that are seen so far;\n--Those dropping waters that come from the rocks\nAnd many a hole, like the haunt of a fox.\nThat silvery stream that runs babbling along,\nMaking a murmuring, dancing song.\nThose trees that stand waving upon the rock's side,\nAnd men, that, like specters, among them glide.\nAnd waterfalls that are heard from far,\nAnd come in sight when very near.\nAnd the water-wheel that turns slowly round,\nGrinding the corn that--requires to be ground,--\n\n(Political Economy of the future!)\n\n----And mountains at a distance seen,\nAnd rivers winding through the plain,\nAnd quarries with their craggy stones,\nAnd the wind among them moans.\"\n\nSo foretelling Stones of Venice, and this essay on Athena.\n\nEnough now concerning myself.\n\n113.  Of Turner's life, and of its good and evil, both great, but the\ngood immeasurably the greater, his work is in all things a perfect and\ntransparent evidence.  His biography is simply, \"He did this, nor will\never another do its like again.\"  Yet read what I have said of him, as\ncompared with the great Italians, in the passages taken from the \"Cestus\nof Aglaia,\" farther on, \u00a7158, pp. 164, 165.\n\n114.  This, then, is the nature of the connection between morals and art.\nNow, secondly, I have asserted the foundation of both these, at least\nhitherto, in war.  The reason of this too manifest fact is, that, until\nnow it has been impossible for any nation, except a warrior one, to fix\nits mind wholly on its men, instead of their possessions.  Every great\nsoldier nation thinks, necessarily, first of multiplying its bodies and\nsouls of men, in good temper and strict discipline.  As long as this is\nits political aim, it does not matter what it temporarily suffers, or\nloses, either in numbers or in wealth; its morality and its arts (if it\nhave national art-gift) advance together; but so soon as it ceases to be\na warrior nation, it thinks of its possessions instead of its men; and\nthen the moral and poetic powers vanish together.\n\n115.  It is thus, however, absolutely necessary to the virtue of war that\nit should be waged by personal strength, not by money or machinery.  A\nnation that fights with a mercenary force, or with torpedoes instead of\nits own arms, is dying.  Not but that there is more true courage in\nmodern than even in ancient war; but this is, first, because all the\nremaining life of European nations is with a morbid intensity thrown into\ntheir soldiers; and, secondly, because their present heroism is the\nculmination of centuries of inbred and traditional valor, which Athena\ntaught them by forcing them to govern the foam of the sea-wave and of the\nhorse,--not the steam of kettles.\n\n116.  And further, note this, which is vital to us in the present crisis:\nIf war is to be made by money and machinery, the nation which is the\nlargest and most covetous multitude will win.  You may be as scientific\nas you choose; the mob that can pay more for sulphuric acid and gunpowder\nwill at last poison its bullets, throw acid in your faces, and make an\nend of you; of itself, also, in good time, but of you first.  And to the\nEnglish people the choice of its fate is very near now.  It may\nspasmodically defend its property with iron walls a fathom thick, a few\nyears longer--a very few.  No walls will defend either it, or its\nhavings, against the multitude that is breeding and spreading faster than\nthe clouds, over the habitable earth.  We shall be allowed to live by\nsmall pedler's business, and iron-mongery--since we have chosen those for\nour line of life--as long as we are found useful black servants to the\nAmericans, and are content to dig coals and sit in the cinders; and have\nstill coals to dig,--they once exhausted, or got cheaper elsewhere, we\nshall be abolished.  But if we think more wisely, while there is yet\ntime, and set our minds again on multiplying Englishmen, and not on\ncheapening English wares, if we resolve to submit to wholesome laws of\nlabor and economy, and setting our political squabbles aside, try how\nmany strong creatures, friendly and faithful to each other, we can crowd\ninto every spot of English dominion, neither poison nor iron will prevail\nagainst us; nor traffic, nor hatred; the noble nation will yet, by the\ngrace of heaven, rule over the ignoble, and force of heart hold its own\nagainst fireballs.\n\n117.  But there is yet a further reason for the dependence of the arts\non war.  The vice and injustice of the world are constantly springing\nanew, and are only to be subdued by battle; the keepers of order and law\nmust always be soldiers.  And now, going back to the myth of Athena, we\nsee that though she is first a warrior maid, she detests war for its own\nsake; she arms Achilles and Ulysses in just quarrels, but she disarms\nAres.  She contends, herself, continually against disorder and\nconvulsion, in the earth giants; she stands by Hercules' side in victory\nover all monstrous evil; in justice only she judges and makes war.  But\nin this war of hers she is wholly implacable.  She has little notion of\nconverting criminals.  There is no faculty of mercy in her when she has\nbeen resisted.  Her word is only, \"I will mock when your fear cometh.\"\nNote the words that follow: \"when your fear cometh as desolation, and\nyour destruction as a whirlwind;\" for her wrath is of irresistible\ntempest: once roused, it is blind and deaf,--rabies--madness of anger--\ndarkness of the Dies Ir\u00e6.\n\nAnd that is, indeed, the sorrowfullest fact we have to know about our own\nseveral lives.  Wisdom never forgives.  Whatever resistance we have\noffered to her loaw, she avenges forever; the lost hour can never be\nredeemed, and the accomplished wrong never atoned for.  The best that can\nbe done afterwards, but for that, had been better; the falsest of all the\ncries of peace, where there is no peace, is that of the pardon of sin, as\nthe mob expect it.  Wisdom can \"put away\" sin, but she cannot pardon it;\nand she is apt, in her haste, to put away the sinner as well, when the\nblack \u00e6gis is on her breast.\n\n118.  And this is also a fact we have to know about our national life,\nthat it is ended as soon as it has lost the power of noble Anger.  When\nit paints over, and apologizes for its pitiful criminalities; and endures\nits false weights, and its adulterated food; dares not to decide\npractically between good and evil, and can neither honor the one, nor\nsmite the other, but sneers at the good, as if it were hidden evil, and\nconsoles the evil with pious sympathy, and conserves it in the sugar of\nits leaden heart,--the end is come.\n\n119.  The first sign, then, of Athena's presence with any people is that\nthey become warriors, and that the chief thought of every man of them is\nto stand rightly in his rank, and not fail from his brother's side in\nbattle.  Wealth, and pleasure, and even love, are all, under Athena's\norders, sacrificed to this duty of standing fast in the rank of war.\n\nBut further: Athena presides over industry, as well as battle; typically,\nover women's industry; that brings comfort with pleasantness.  Her word\nto us all is: \"Be well exercised, and rightly clothed.  Clothed, and in\nyour right minds; not insane and in rags, nor in soiled fine clothes\nclutched from each other's shoulders.  Fight and weave.  Then I myself\nwill answer for the course of the lance, and the colors of the loom.\"\n\nAnd now I will ask the reader to look with some care through these\nfollowing passages respecting modern multitudes and their occupations,\nwritten long ago, but left in fragmentary form, in which they must now\nstay, and be of what use they can.\n\n120.  It is not political economy to put a number of strong men down on\nan acre of ground, with no lodging, and nothing to eat.  Nor is it\npolitical economy to build a city on good ground, and fill it with store\nof corn and treasure, and put a score of lepers to live in it.  Political\neconomy creates together the means of life, and the living persons who\nare to use them; and of both, the best and the most that it can, but\nimperatively the best, not the most.  A few good and healthy men, rather\nthan a multitude of diseased rogues; and a little real milk and wine\nrather than much chalk and petroleum; but the gist of the whole business\nis that the men and their property must both be produced together--not\none to the loss of the other.  Property must not be created in lands\ndesolate by exile of their people, nor multiplied and depraved humanity,\nin lands barren of bread.\n\n121.  Nevertheless, though the men and their possessions are to be\nincreased at the same time, the first object of thought is always to be\nthe multiplication of a worthy people.  The strength of the nation is in\nits multitude, not in its territory; but only in its sound multitude.  It\nis one thing, both in a man and a nation, to gain flesh, and another to\nbe swollen with putrid humors.  Not that multitude ever ought to be\ninconsistent with virtue.  Two men should be wiser than one, and two\nthousand than two; nor do I know another so gross fallacy in the records\nof human stupidity as that excuse for neglect of crime by greatness of\ncities.  As if the first purpose of congregation were not to devise laws\nand repress crimes!  As if bees and wasps could live honestly in flocks--\nmen, only in separate dens!  As if it were easy to help one another on\nthe opposite sides of a mountain, and impossible on the opposite sides of\na street!  But when the men are true and good, and stand shoulder to\nshoulder, the strength of any nation is in its quantity of life, not in\nits land nor gold.  The more good men a state has, in proportion to its\nterritory, the stronger the state.  And as it has been the madness of\neconomists to seek for gold instead of life, so it has been the madness\nof kings to seek for land instead of life.  They want the town on the\nother side of the river, and seek it at the spear point; it never enters\ntheir stupid heads that to double the honest souls in the town on this\nside of the river would make them stronger kings; and that this doubling\nmight be done by the ploughshare instead of the spear, and through\nhappiness instead of misery.\n\nTherefore, in brief, this is the only object of all true policy and true\neconomy: \"utmost multitude of good men on every given space of ground\"--\nimperatively always good, sound, honest men,--not a mob of white-faced\nthieves.  So that, on the one hand all aristocracy is wrong which is\ninconsistent with numbers; and on the other all numbers are wrong which\nare inconsistent with breeding.\n\n122.  Then, touching the accumulation of wealth for the maintenance of\nsuch men, observe, that you must never use the terms \"money\" and \"wealth\"\nas synonymous.  Wealth consists of the good, and therefore useful, things\nin the possession of the nation; money is only the written or coined sign\nof the relative quantities of wealth in each person's possession.  All\nmoney is a divisible title-deed, of immense importance as an expression\nof right to property, but absolutely valueless as property itself.  Thus,\nsupposing a nation isolated from all others, the money in its possession\nis, at its maximum value, worth all the property of the nation, and no\nmore, because no more can be got for it.  And the money of all nations\nis worth, at its maximum, the property of all nations, and no more, for\nno more can be got for it.  Thus, every article of property produced\nincreases, by its value, the value of all the money in the world, and\nevery article of property destroyed, diminishes the value of all the\nmoney in the world.  If ten men are cast away on a rock, with a thousand\npounds in their pockets, and there is on the rock, neither food nor\nshelter, their money is worth simply nothing, for nothing is to be had\nfor it.  If they built ten huts, and recover a cask of biscuit from the\nwreck, then their thousand pounds, at its maximum value, is worth ten\nhuts and a cask of biscuit.  If they make their thousand pounds into two\nthousand by writing new notes, their two thousand pounds are still worth\nten huts and a cask of biscuit.  And the law of relative value is the\nsame for all the world, and all the people in it, and all their property,\nas for ten men on a rock.  Therefore, money is truly and finally lost in\nthe degree in which its value is taken from it (ceasing in that degree to\nbe money at all); and it is truly gained in the degree in which value is\nadded to it.  Thus, suppose the money coined by the nation be a fixed\nsum, and divided very minutely (say into francs and cents), and neither\nto be added to nor diminished.  Then every grain of food and inch of\nlodging added to its possessions makes every cent in its pockets worth\nproportionally more, and every gain of food it consumes, and inch of roof\nit allows to fall to ruin, makes every cent in its pockets worth less;\nand this with mathematical precision.  The immediate value of the money\nat particular times and places depends, indeed, on the humors of the\npossessors of property; but the nation is in the one case gradually\ngetting richer, and will feel the pressure of poverty steadily everywhere\nrelaxing, whatever the humors of individuals may be; and, in the other\ncase, is gradually growing poorer, and the pressure of its poverty will\nevery day tell more and more, in ways that it cannot explain, but will\nmost bitterly feel.\n\n123.  The actual quantity of money which it coins, in relation to its\nreal property, is therefore only of consequence for convenience of\nexchange; but the proportion in which this quantity of money is divided\namong individuals expresses their various rights to greater or less\nproportions of the national property, and must not, therefore, be\ntampered with.  The government may at any time, with perfect justice,\ndouble its issue of coinage, if it gives every man who has ten pounds in\nhis pocket another ten pounds, and every man who had ten pence another\nten pence; for it thus does not make any of them richer; it merely\ndivides their counters for them into twice the number.  But if it gives\nthe newly-issued coins to other people, or keeps them itself, it simply\nrobs the former holders to precisely that extent.  This most important\nfunction of money, as a title-deed, on the non-violation of which all\nnational soundness of commerce and peace of life depend, has been never\nrightly distinguished by economists from the quite unimportant function\nof money as a means of exchange.  You can exchange goods--at some\ninconvenience, indeed, but you can still contrive to do it--without money\nat all; but you cannot maintain your claim to the savings of your past\nlife without a document declaring the amount of them, which the nation\nand its government will respect.\n\n124.  And as economists have lost sight of this great function of money\nin relation to individual rights, so they have equally lost sight of its\nfunction as a representative of good things.  That, for every good thing\nproduced, so much money is put into everybody's pocket, is the one simple\nand primal truth for the public to know, and for economists to teach.\nHow many of them have taught it?  Some have; but only incidentally; and\nothers will say it is a truism.  If it be, do the public know it?  Does\nyour ordinary English householder know that every costly dinner he gives\nhas destroyed forever as much money as it is worth?  Does every\nwell-educated girl--do even the women in high political position--know\nthat every fine dress they wear themselves, or cause to be worn, destroys\nprecisely so much of the national money as the labor and material of it\nare worth?  If this be a truism, it is one that needs proclaiming\nsomewhat louder.\n\n125.  That, then, is the relation of money and goods.  So much goods, so\nmuch money; so little goods, so little money.  But, as there is this true\nrelation between money and \"goods,\" or good things, so there is a false\nrelation between money and \"bads,\" or bad things.  Many bad things will\nfetch a price in exchange; but they do not increase the wealth of the\ncountry.  Good wine is wealth, drugged wine is not; good meat is wealth,\nputrid meat is not; good pictures are wealth, bad pictures are not.  A\nthing is worth precisely what it can do for you; not what you choose to\npay for it.  You may pay a thousand pounds for a cracked pipkin, if you\nplease; but you do not by that transaction make the cracked pipkin worth\none that will hold water, nor that, nor any pipkin whatsoever, worth more\nthan it was before you paid such sum for it.  You may, perhaps, induce\nmany potters to manufacture fissured pots, and many amateurs of clay to\nbuy them; but the nation is, through the whole business so encouraged,\nrich by the addition to its wealth of so many potsherds,--and there an\nend.  The thing is worth what it CAN do for you, not what you think it\ncan; and most national luxuries, nowadays, are a form of potsherd,\nprovided for the solace of a self-complacent Job, voluntary sedent on his\nash-heap.\n\n126.  And, also, so far as good things already exist, and have become\nmedia of exchange, the variations in their prices are absolutely\nindifferent to the nation.  Whether Mr. A. buys a Titian from Mr. B. for\ntwenty, or for two thousand, pounds, matters not sixpence to the national\nrevenue; that is to say, it matters in nowise to the revenue whether Mr.\nA. has the picture, and Mr. B. the money, or Mr. B. the picture, and Mr.\nA. the money.  Which of them will spend the money most wisely, and which\nof them will keep the picture most carefully, is, indeed, a matter of\nsome importance; but this cannot be known by the mere fact of exchange.\n\n127.  The wealth of a nation then, first, and its peace and well-being\nbesides, depend on the number of persons it can employ in making good and\nuseful things.  I say its well-being also, for the character of men\ndepends more on their occupations than on any teaching we can give them,\nor principles with which we can imbue them.  The employment forms the\nhabits of body and mind, and these are the constitution of the man,--the\ngreater part of his moral or persistent nature, whatever effort, under\nspecial excitement, he may make to change or overcome them.  Employment\nis the half, and the primal half, of education--it is the warp of it; and\nthe fineness or the endurance of all subsequently woven pattern depends\nwholly on its straightness and strength.  And, whatever difficulty there\nmay be in tracing through past history the remoter connections of event\nand cause, one chain of sequence is always clear: the formation, namely,\nof the character of nations by their employments, and the determination\nof their final fate by their character.  The moment, and the first\ndirection of decisive revolutions, often depend on accident; but their\npersistent course, and their consequences, depend wholly on the nature of\nthe people.  The passing of the Reform Bill by the late English\nParliament may have been more or less accidental; the results of the\nmeasure now rest on the character of the English people, as it has been\ndeveloped by their recent interests, occupations, and habits of life.\nWhether, as a body, they employ their new powers for good or evil will\ndepend, not on their facilities of knowledge, nor even on the general\nintelligence they may possess, but on the number of persons among them\nwhom wholesome employments have rendered familiar with the duties, and\nmodest in their estimate of the promises, of life.\n\n128.  But especially in framing laws respecting the treatment or\nemployment of improvident and more or less vicious persons, it is to be\nremembered that as men are not made heroes by the performance of an act\nof heroism, but must be brave before they can perform it, so they are not\nmade villains by the commission of a crime, but were villains before they\ncommitted it; and the right of public interference with their conduct\nbegins when they begin to corrupt themselves,--not merely at the moment\nwhen they have proved themselves hopelessly corrupt.\n\nAll measures of reformation are effective in exact proportion to their\ntimeliness: partial decay may be cut away and cleansed; incipient error\ncorrected; but there is a point at which corruption can be no more\nstayed, nor wandering recalled.  It has been the manner of modern\nphilanthropy to remain passive until that precise period, and to leave\nthe sick to perish, and the foolish to stray, while it spends itself in\nfrantic exertions to raise the dead, and reform the dust.\n\nThe recent direction of a great weight of public opinion against capital\npunishment is, I trust, the sign of an awakening perception that\npunishment is the last and worst instrument in the hands of the\nlegislator for the prevention of crime.  The true instruments of\nreformation are employment and reward; not punishment.  Aid the willing,\nhonour the virtuous, and compel the idle into occupation, and there will\nbe no deed for the compelling of any into the great and last indolence of\ndeath.\n\n129.  The beginning of all true reformation among the criminal classes\ndepends on the establishment of institutions for their active employment,\nwhile their criminality is still unripe, and their feelings of\nself-respect, capacities of affection, and sense of justice, not\naltogether quenched.  That those who are desirous of employment should\nalways be able to find it, will hardly, at the present day, be disputed;\nbut that those who are undesirous of employment should of all persons be\nthe most strictly compelled to it, the public are hardly yet convinced;\nand they must be convinced.  If the danger of the principal thoroughfares\nin their capital city, and the multiplication of crimes more ghastly than\never yet disgraced a nominal civilization, are not enough, they will not\nhave to wait long before they receive sterner lessons.  For our neglect\nof the lower orders has reached a point at which it begins to bear its\nnecessary fruit, and every day makes the fields, not whiter, but more\nstable, to harvest.\n\n130.  The general principles by which employment should be regulated may\nbe briefly stated as follows:\n\n   I. There being three great classes of mechanical powers at our\ndisposal, namely, (a) vital or muscular power; (b) natural mechanical\npower of wind, water, and electricity; and (c) artificially produced\nmechanical power; it is the first principle of economy to use all\navailable vital power first, then the inexpensive natural forces, and\nonly at last have recourse to artificial power.  And this because it is\nalways better for a man to work with his own hands to feed and clothe\nhimself, than to stand idle while a machine works for him; and if he\ncannot by all the labor healthily possible to him feed and clothe\nhimself, then it is better to use an inexpensive machine--as a windmill\nor watermill--than a costly one like a steam-engine, so long as we have\nnatural force enough at our disposal.  Whereas at present we continually\nhear economists regret that the water-power of the cascades or streams of\na country should be lost, but hardly ever that the muscular power of its\nidle inhabitants should be lost; and, again, we see vast districts, as\nthe south of Provence, where a strong wind* blows steadily all day long\nfor six days out of seven throughout the year, without a windmill, while\nmen are continually employed at a hundred miles to the north, in digging\nfuel to obtain artificial power.  But the principal point of all to be\nkept in view is, that in every idle arm and shoulder throughout the\ncountry there is a certain quantity of force, equivalent to the force of\nso much fuel; and that it is mere insane waste to dig for coal for our\nforce, while the vital force is unused, and not only unused, but in being\nso, corrupting and polluting itself.  We waste our coal, and spoil our\nhumanity at one and the same instant.  Therefore, wherever there is an\nidle arm, always save coal with it, and the stores of England will last\nall the longer.  And precisely the same argument answers the common one\nabout \"taking employment out of the hands of the industrious laborer.\"\nWhy, what is \"employment\" but the putting out of vital force instead of\nmechanical force?  We are continually in search of means to pull, to\nhammer, to fetch, to carry.  We waste our future resources to get this\nstrength, while we leave all the living fuel to burn itself out in mere\npestiferous breath, and production of its variously noisome forms of\nashes!  Clearly, if we want fire for force, we want men for force first.\nThe industrious hands must already have so much to do that they can do\nno more, or else we need not use machines to help them.  Then use the\nidle hands first.  Instead of dragging petroleum with a steam-engine, put\nit on a canal, and drag it with human arms and shoulders.  Petroluem\ncannot possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere.  We can always order\nthat, and many other things, time enough before we want it.  So, the\ncarriage of everything which does not spoil by keeping may most\nwholesomely and safely be done by water-traction and sailing-vessels; and\nno healthier work can men be put to, nor better discipline, than such\nactive porterage.\n\n\n* In order fully to utilize this natural power, we only require machinery\nto turn the variable into a constant velocity--no insurmountable\ndifficulty.\n\n\n131.  (2d.) In employing all the muscular power at our disposal we are to\nmake the employments we choose as educational as possible; for a\nwholesome human employment is the first and best method of education,\nmental as well as bodily.  A man taught to plough, row, or steer well,\nand a woman taught to cook properly, and make a dress neatly, are already\neducated in many essential moral habits.  Labor considered as a\ndiscipline has hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real\nand noblest function of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be\nReformatory, but Formatory.\n\n132.  The third great principle of employment is, that whenever there is\npressure of poverty to be met, all enforced occupation should be directed\nto the production of useful articles only; that is to say, of food, of\nsimple clothing, of lodging, or of the means of conveying, distributing,\nand preserving these.  It is yet little understood by economists, and not\nat all by the public, that the employment of persons in a useless\nbusiness cannot relieve ultimate distress.  The money given to employ\nriband-makers at Coventry is merely so much money withdrawn from what\nwould have employed lace-makers at Honiton; or makers of something else,\nas useless, elsewhere.  We must spend our money in some way, at some\ntime, and it cannot at any time be spent without employing somebody.  If\nwe gamble it away, the person who wins it must spend it; if we lose it in\na railroad speculation, it has gone into some one else's pockets, or\nmerely gone to pay navies for making a useless embankment, instead of to\npay riband or button makers for making useless ribands or buttons; we\ncannot lose it (unless by actually destroying it) without giving\nemployment of some kind; and, therefore, whatever quantity of money\nexists, the relative quantity of employment must some day come out of it;\nbut the distress of the nation signifies that the employments given have\nproduced nothing that will support its existence.  Men cannot live on\nribands, or buttons, or velvet, or by going quickly from place to place;\nand every coin spent in useless ornament, or useless motion, is so much\nwithdrawn from the national means of life.  One of the most beautiful\nuses of railroads is to enable A to travel from the town of X to take\naway the business of B in the town of Y; while, in the mean time, B\ntravels from the town of Y to take away A's business in the town of X.\nBut the national wealth is not increased by these operations.  Whereas\nevery coin spent in cultivating ground, in repairing lodging, in making\nnecessary and good roads, in preventing danger by sea or land, and in\ncarriage of food or fuel where they are required, is so much absolute and\ndirect gain to the whole nation.  To cultivate land round Coventry makes\nliving easier at Honiton, and every acre of sand gained from the sea in\nLincolnshire, makes life easier all over England.\n\n4th, and lastly.  Since for every idle person some one else must be\nworking somewhere to provide him with clothes and food, and doing,\ntherefore, double the quantity of work that would be enough for his own\nneeds, it is only a matter of pure justice to compel the idle person to\nwork for his maintenance himself.  The conscription has been used in many\ncountries to take away laborers who supported their families, from their\nuseful work, and maintain them for purposes chiefly of military display\nat the public expense.  Since this has been long endured by the most\ncivilized nations, let it not be thought they would not much more gladly\nendure a conscription which should seize only the vicious and idle,\nalready living by criminal procedures at the public expense; and which\nshould discipline and educate them to labor which would not only maintain\nthemselves, but be serviceable to the commonwealth.  The question is\nsimply this: we must feed the drunkard, vagabond, and thief; but shall we\ndo so by letting them steal their food, and do no work for it? or shall\nwe give them their food in appointed quantity, and enforce their doing\nwork which shall be worth it, and which, in process of time, will redeem\ntheir own characters and make them happy and serviceable members of\nsociety?\n\nI find by me a violent little fragment of undelivered lecture, which puts\nthis, perhaps, still more clearly.  Your idle people (it says), as they\nare now, are not merely waste coal-beds.  They are explosive coal-beds,\nwhich you pay a high annual rent for.  You are keeping all these idle\npersons, remember, at far greater cost than if they were busy.  Do you\nthink a vicious person eats less than an honest one? or that it is\ncheaper to keep a bad man drunk, than a good man sober?  There is, I\nsuppose, a dim idea in the mind of the public, that they don't pay for\nthe maintenance of people they don't employ.  Those staggering rascals\nat the street corner, grouped around its splendid angle of public-house,\nwe fancy that they are no servants of ours! that we pay them no wages!\nthat no cash out of our pockets is spent over that beer-stained counter!\n\nWhose cash is it then they are spending?  It is not got honestly by work.\nYou know that much.  Where do they get it from?  Who has paid for their\ndinner and their pot?  Those fellows can only live in one of two ways--by\npillage or beggary.  Their annual income by thieving comes out of the\npublic pocket, you will admit.  They are not cheaply fed, so far as they\nare fed by theft.  But the rest of their living--all that they don't\nsteal--they must beg.  Not with success from you, you think.  Wise, as\nbenevolent, you never gave a penny in \"indiscriminate charity.\"  Well,\nI congratulate you on the freedom of your conscience from that sin, mine\nbeing bitterly burdened with the memory of many a sixpence given to\nbeggars of whom I knew nothing but that they had pale faces and thin\nwaists.  But it is not that kind of street beggary that is the worst\nbeggars' trade.  Home alms which it is their worst degradation to\nreceive.  Those scamps know well enough that you and your wisdom are\nworth nothing to them.  They won't beg of you.  They will beg of their\nsisters, and mothers, and wives, and children, and of any one else who is\nenough ashamed of being of the same blood with them to pay to keep them\nout of sight.  Every one of those blackguards is the bane of a family.\nThat is the deadly \"indiscriminate charity\"--the charity which each\nhousehold pays to maintain its own private curse.\n\n133.  And you think that is no affair of yours? and that every family\nought to watch over and subdue its own living plague?  Put it to\nyourselves this way, then: suppose you knew every one of those families\nkept an idol in an inner room--a big-bellied bronze figure, to which\ndaily sacrifice and oblation was made; at whose feet so much beer and\nbrandy was poured out every morning on the ground; and before which,\nevery night, good meat, enough for two men's keep, was set, and left,\ntill it was putrid, and then carried out and thrown on the dunghill; you\nwould put an end to that form of idolatry with your best diligence, I\nsuppose.  You would understand then that the beer, and brandy, and meat,\nwere wasted; and that the burden imposed by each household on itself lay\nheavily through them on the whole community?  But, suppose further, that\nthis idol were not of silent and quiet bronze only, but an ingenious\nmechanism, wound up every morning, to run itself down into automatic\nblasphemies; that it struck and tore with its hands the people who set\nfood before it; that it was anointed with poisonous unguents, and\ninfected the air for miles round.  You would interfere with the idolatry\nthen, straightway?  Will you not interfere with it now, when the\ninfection that they venomous idol spreads is not merely death, but sin?\n\n134.  So far the old lecture.  Returning to cool English, the end of the\nmatter is, that, sooner or later, we shall have to register our people;\nand to know how they live; and to make sure, if they are capable of work,\nthat right work is given them to do.\n\nThe different classes of work for which bodies of men could be\nconsistently organized, might ultimately become numerous; these following\ndivisions of occupation may all at once be suggested:\n\n   I.  Road-making.--Good roads to be made, wherever needed, and kept in\nrepair; and the annual loss on unfrequented roads, in spoiled horses,\nstrained wheels, and time, done away with.\n\n   II.  Bringing in of waste land.--All waste lands not necessary for\npublic health, to be made accessible and gradually reclaimed; chiefly our\nwide and waste seashores.  Not our mountains nor moorland.  Our life\ndepends on them, more than on the best arable we have.\n\n   III.  Harbor-making.--The deficiencies of safe or convenient harborage\nin our smaller ports to be remedied; other harbors built at dangerous\npoints of coast, and a disciplined body of men always kept in connection\nwith the pilot and life-boat services.  There is room for every order of\nintelligence in this work, and for a large body of superior officers.\n\n   IV.  Porterage.--All heavy goods, not requiring speed in transit, to\nbe carried (under preventative duty on transit, by railroad) by\ncanal-boats, employing men for draught; and the merchant-shipping service\nextended by sea; so that no ships may be wrecked for want of hands, while\nthere are idle ones in mischief on shore.\n\n   V.  Repair of buildings.--A body of men in various trades to be kept\nat the disposal of the authorities in every large town, for repair of\nbuildings, especially the houses of the poorer orders, who, if no such\nprovision were made, could not employ workmen on their own houses, but\nwould simply live with rent walls and roofs.\n\n   VI.  Dressmaking.--Substantial dress, of standard material and kind,\nstrong shoes, and stout bedding, to be manufactured for the poor, so as\nto render it unnecessary for them, unless by extremity of improvidence,\nto wear cast clothes, or be without sufficiency of clothing.\n\n   VII.  Works of Art.--Schools to be established on thoroughly sound\nprinciples of manufacture, and use of materials, and with sample and, for\ngiven periods, unalterable modes of work; first, in pottery, and\nembracing gradually metal work, sculpture, and decorative painting; the\ntwo points insisted upon, in distinction from ordinary commercial\nestablishments, being perfectness of material to the utmost attainable\ndegree; and the production of everything by hand-work, for the special\npurpose of developing personal power and skill in the workman.\n\nThe last two departments, and some subordinate branches of others, would\ninclude the service of women and children.\n\nI give now, for such further illustrations as they contain of the points\nI desire most to insist upon with respect both to education and\nemployment, a portion of the series of notes published some time ago in\nthe \"Art Journal,\" on the opposition of Modesty and Liberty, and the\nunescapable law of wise restraint.  I am sorry that they are written\nobscurely--and it may be thought affectedly; but the fact is, I have\nalways had three different ways of writing: one, with the single view of\nmaking myself understood, in which I necessarily omit a great deal of\nwhat comes into my head; another, in which I say what I think ought to be\nsaid, in what I suppose to be the best words I can find for it (which is\nin reality an affected style--be it good or bad); and my third way of\nwriting is to say all that comes into my head for my own pleasure, in the\nfirst words that come, retouching them afterward into (approximate)\ngrammar.  These notes for the \"Art Journal\" were so written; and I like\nthem myself, of course; but ask the reader's pardon for their\nconfusedness.\n\n135.  \"Sir, it cannot be better done.\"\n\nWe will insist, with the reader's permission, on this comfortful saying\nof Albert D\u00fcrer's in order to find out, if we may, what Modesty is; which\nit will be well for painters, readers, and especially critics, to know,\nbefore going farther.  What it is; or, rather, who she is, her fingers\nbeing among the deftest in laying the ground-threads of Aglaia's cestus.\n\nFor this same opinion of Albert's is entertained by many other people\nrespecting their own doings--a very prevalent opinion, indeed, I find it;\nand the answer itself, though rarely made with the Nuremberger's crushing\ndecision, is nevertheless often enough intimated, with delicacy, by\nartists of all countries, in their various dialects.  Neither can it\nalways be held an entirely modest one, as it assuredly was in the man who\nwould sometimes estimate a piece of his unconquerable work at only the\nworth of a plate of fruit, or a flask of wine--would have taken even one\n\"fig for it,\" kindly offered; or given it royally for nothing, to show\nhis hand to a fellow-king of his own, or any other craft--as Gainsborough\ngave the \"Boy at the Stile\" for a solo on the violin.  An entirely modest\nsaying, I repeat, in him--not always in us.  For Modesty is \"the\nmeasuring virtue,\" the virtue of modes or limits.  She is, indeed, said\nto be only the third or youngest of the children of the cardinal virtue,\nTemperance; and apt to be despised, being more given to arithmetic, and\nother vulgar studies (Cinderella-like), than her elder sisters; but she\nis useful in the household, and arrives at great results with her\nyard-measure and slate-pencil--a pretty little Marchande des Modes,\ncutting her dress always according to the silk (if this be the proper\nfeminine reading of \"coat according to the cloth\"), so that, consulting\nwith her carefully of a morning, men get to know not only their income,\nbut their in being--to know themselves, that is, in a gauger's manner,\nround, and up and down--surface and contents; what is in them and what\nmay be got out of them; and in fine, their entire canon of weight and\ncapacity.  That yard-measure of Modesty's, lent to those who will use it,\nis a curious musical reed, and will go round and round waists that are\nslender enough, with latent melody in every joint of it, the dark root\nonly being soundless, moist from the wave wherein\n\n      \"Null' altra pianta che facesse fronda\n         O che 'n durasse, vi puote aver vita.\"*\n\n\n* \"Purgatorio,\" i. 108, 109.\n\n\nBut when the little sister herself takes it in hand, to measure things\noutside of us with, the joints shoot out in an amazing manner: the\nfour-square walls even of celestial cities being measurable enough by\nthat reed; and the way pointed to them, though only to be followed, or\neven seen, in the dim starlight shed down from worlds amidst which there\nis no name of Measure any more, though the reality of it always.  For,\nindeed, to all true modesty the necessary business is not inlook, but\noutlook, and especially uplook: it is only her sister Shamefacedness, who\nis known by the drooping lashes--Modesty, quite otherwise, by her large\neyes full of wonder; for she never contemns herself, nor is ashamed of\nherself, but forgets herself--at least until she has done something worth\nmemory.  It is easy to peep and potter about one's own deficiencies in a\nquiet immodest discontent; but Modesty is so pleased with other people's\ndoings, that she has no leisure to lament her own: and thus, knowing the\nfresh feeling of contentment, unstained with thought of self, she does\nnot fear being pleased, when there is cause, with her own rightness, as\nwith another's, as with another's, saying calmly, \"Be it mine or yours,\nor whose else's it may, it is no matter; this also is well.\"  But the\nright to say such a thing depends on continual reverence and manifold\nsense of failure.  If you have known yourself to have failed, you may\ntrust, when it comes, the strange consciousness of success; if you have\nfaithfully loved the noble work of others, you need not fear to speak\nwith respect of things duly done, of your own.\n\n136.  But the principal good that comes of art being followed in this\nreverent feeling is of it.  Men who know their place can take it and\nkeep it, be it low or high, contentedly and firmly, neither yielding\nnor grasping; and the harmony of hand and thought follows, rendering all\ngreat deeds of art possible--deeds in which the souls of men meet like\nthe jewels in the windows of Aladdin's palace, the little gems and the\nlarge all equally pure, needing no cement but the fitting of facets;\nwhile the associative work of immodest men is all jointless, and astir\nwith wormy ambition; putridly dissolute, and forever on the crawl: so\nthat if it come together for a time, it can only be by metamorphosis\nthrough a flash of volcanic fire out of the vale of Siddim, vitrifying\nthe clay of it, and fastening the slime, only to end in wilder\nscattering; according to the fate of those oldest, mightiest, immodestest\nof builders, of whom it is told in scorn, \"They had brick for stone, and\nslime had they for mortar.\"\n\n137.  The first function of Modesty, then, being this recognition of\nplace, her second is the recognition of law, and delight in it, for the\nsake of law itself, whether her part be to assert it, or obey.  For as it\nbelongs to all immodesty to defy or deny law, and assert privilege and\nlicense, according to its own pleasure (it being therefore rightly called\n\"insolent,\" that is, \"custom-breaking,\" violating some usual and\nappointed order to attain for itself greater forwardness or power), so it\nis the habit of all modesty to love the constancy and \"solemnity,\" or,\nliterally, \"accustomedness,\" of law, seeking first what are the solemn,\nappointed, inviolable customs and general orders of nature, and of the\nMaster of nature, touching the matter in hand; and striving to put\nitself, as habitually and inviolably, in compliance with them.  Out of\nwhich habit, once established, arises what is rightly called\n\"conscience,\" nor \"science\" merely, but \"with-science,\" a science \"with\nus,\" such as only modest creatures can have--with or within them--and\nwithin all creation besides, every member of it, strong or weak,\nwitnessing together, and joining in the happy consciousness that each\none's work is good; the bee also being profoundly of that opinion; and\nthe lark; and the swallow, in that noisy, but modestly upside-down, Babel\nof hers, under the eaves, with its unvolcanic slime for mortar; and the\ntwo ants who are asking of each other at the turn of that little\nant's-foot-worn bath through the moss \"lor via e lor fortuna;\" and the\nbuilders also, who built yonder pile of cloud-marble in the west, and the\ngilder who gilded it, and is gone down behind it.\n\n138.  But I think we shall better understand what we ought of the nature\nof Modesty, and of her opposite, by taking a simple instance of both, in\nthe practice of that art of music which the wisest have agreed in\nthinking the first element of education; only I must ask the reader's\npatience with me through a parenthesis.\n\nAmong the foremost men whose power has had to assert itself, though with\nconquest, yet with countless loss, through peculiarly English\ndisadvantages of circumstance, are assuredly to be ranked together, both\nfor honor, and for mourning, Thomas Bewick and George Cruikshank.  There\nis, however, less cause for regret in the instance of Bewick.  We may\nunderstand that it was well for us once to see what an entirely keen and\ntrue man's temper, could achieve, together, unhelped, but also unharmed,\namong the black bans and wolds of Tyne.  But the genius of Cruikshank has\nbeen cast away in an utterly ghastly and lamentable manner: his superb\nline-work, worthy of any class of subject, and his powers of conception\nand composition, of which I cannot venture to estimate the range in their\ndegraded application, having been condemned, by his fate, to be spent\neither in rude jesting, or in vain war with conditions of vice too low\nalike for record or rebuke, among the dregs of the British populace.  Yet\nperhaps I am wrong in regretting even this: it may be an appointed lesson\nfor futurity, that the art of the best English etcher in the nineteenth\ncentury, spent on illustrations of the lives of burglars and drunkards,\nshould one day be seen in museums beneath Greek vases fretted with\ndrawings of the wars of Troy, or side by side with D\u00fcrer's \"Knight and\nDeath.\"\n\n139.  Be that as it may, I am at present glad to be able to refer to one\nof these perpetuations, by his strong hand, of such human character as\nour faultless British constitution occasionally produces in\nout-of-the-way corners.  It is among his illustrations of the Irish\nRebellion, and represents the pillage and destruction of a gentleman's\nhouse by the mob.  They have made a heap in the drawing-room of the\nfurniture and books, to set first fire to; and are tearing up the floor\nfor its more easily kindled planks, the less busily-disposed meanwhile\nhacking round in rage, with axes, and smashing what they can with\nbutt-ends of guns.  I do not care to follow with words the ghastly truth\nof the picture into its detail; but the most expressive incident of the\nwhole, and the one immediately to my purpose, is this, that one fellow\nhas sat himself at the piano, on which, hitting down fiercely with his\nclenched fists, he plays, grinning, such tune as may be so producible, to\nwhich melody two of his companions, flourishing knotted sticks, dance,\nafter their manner, on the top of the instrument.\n\n140.  I think we have in this conception as perfect an instance as we\nrequire of the lowest supposable phase of immodest or licentious art in\nmusic; the \"inner consciousness of good\" being dim, even in the musician\nand his audience, and wholly unsympathized with, and unacknowledged by\nthe Delphian, Vestal, and all other prophetic and cosmic powers.  This\nrepresented scene came into my mind suddenly one evening, a few weeks\nago, in contrast with another which I was watching in its reality;\nnamely, a group of gentle school-girls, leaning over Mr. Charles Hall\u00ea,\nas he was playing a variation on \"Home, Sweet Home.\"  They had sustained\nwith unwonted courage the glance of subdued indignation with which,\nhaving just closed a rippling melody of Sebastian Bach's (much like what\none might fancy the singing of nightingales would be if they fed on honey\ninstead of flies), he turned to the slight, popular air.  But they had\ntheir own associations with it, and besought for, and obtained it, and\npressed close, at first, in vain, to see what no glance could follow, the\ntraversing of the fingers.  They soon thought no more of seeing.  The wet\neyes, round-open, and the little scarlet upper lips, lifted, and drawn\nslightly together, in passionate glow of utter wonder, became\npicture-like, porcelain-like, in motionless joy, as the sweet multitude\nof low notes fell, in their timely infinities, like summer rain.  Only\nLa Robbia himself (nor even he, unless with tenderer use of color than is\nusual in his work) could have rendered some image of that listening.\n\n141.  But if the reader can give due vitality in his fancy to these two\nscenes, he will have in them representative types, clear enough for all\nfuture purpose, of the several agencies of debased and perfect art.  And\nthe interval may easily and continuously be filled by mediate gradations.\nBetween the entirely immodeset, unmeasured, and (in evil sense)\nunmannered, execution with the fist; and the entirely modest, measured,\nand (in the noblest sense) mannered, or moral'd execution with the\nfinger; between the impatient and unpractised doing, containing in itself\nthe witness of lasting impatience and idleness through all previous life,\nand the patient and practised doing, containing in itself the witness\nof self-restraint and unwearied toil through all previous life; between\nthe expressed subject and sentiment of home violation, and the expressed\nsubject and sentiment of home love; between the sympathy of audience,\ngiven in irreverent and contemptuous rage, joyless as the rabidness of a\ndog, and the sympathy of audience given in an almost appalled humility of\nintense, rapturous, and yet entirely reasoning and reasonable pleasure;\nbetween these two limits of octave, the reader will find he can class,\naccording to its modesty, usefulness and grace, or becomingness, all\nother musical art.  For although purity of purpose and fineness of\nexecution by no means go together, degree to degree (since fine, and\nindeed all but the finest, work is often spent in the most wanton purpose\n--as in all our modern opera--and the rudest execution is again often\njoined with purest purpose, as in a mother's song to her child), still\nthe entire accomplishment of music is only in the union of both.  For the\ndifference between that \"all but\" finest and \"finest\" is an infinite one;\nand besides this, however the power of the performer, once attained, may\nbe afterwards misdirected, in slavery to popular passion or childishness,\nand spend itself, at its sweetest, in idle melodies, cold and ephemeral\n(like Michael Angelo's snow statue in the other art), or else in vicious\ndifficulty and miserable noise--crackling of thorns under the pot of\npublic sensuality--still, the attainment of this power, and the\nmaintenance of it, involve always in the executant some virtue or courage\nof high kind; the understanding of which, and of the difference between\nthe discipline which develops it and the disorderly efforts of the\namateur, it will be one of our first businesses to estimate rightly.  And\nthough not indeed by degree to degree, yet in essential relation (as of\nwinds to waves, the one being always the true cause of the other, though\nthey are not necessarily of equal force at the same time,) we shall find\nvice in its varieties, with art-failure,--and virtue in its varieties,\nwith art-success,--fall and rise together; the peasant-girl's song at her\nspinning-wheel, the peasant laborer's \"to the oaks and rills,\"--domestic\nmusic, feebly yet sensitively skilful,--music for the multitude, of\nbeneficent or of traitorous power,--dance-melodies, pure and orderly, or\nfoul and frantic,--march-music, blatant in mere fever of animal\npugnacity, or majestic with force of national duty and memory,--\nsong-music, reckless, sensual, sickly, slovenly, forgetful even of the\nfoolish words it effaces with foolish noise,--or thoughtful, sacred,\nhealthful, artful, forever sanctifying noble thought with separately\ndistinguished loveliness of belonging sound,--all these families and\ngraduations of good or evil, however mingled, follow, in so far as they\nare good, one constant law of virtue (or \"life-strength,\" which is the\nliteral meaning of the word, and its intended one, in wise men's mouths),\nand in so far as they are evil, are evil by outlawry and unvirtue, or\ndeath-weakness.  Then, passing wholly beyond the domain of death, we may\nstill imagine the ascendant nobleness of the art, through all the\nconcordant life of incorrupt creatures, and a continually deeper harmony\nof \"puissant words and murmurs made to bless,\" until we reach\n\n      \"The undisturbed song of pure consent,\n      Aye sung before the sapphire-colored throne.\"\n\n142.  And so far as the sister arts can be conceived to have place or\noffice, their virtues are subject to a law absolutely the same as that of\nmusic, only extending its authority into more various conditions, owing\nto the introduction of a distinctly representative and historical power,\nwhich acts under logical as well as mathematical restrictions, and is\ncapable of endlessly changeful fault, fallacy, and defeat, as well as of\nendlessly manifold victory.\n\n143.  Next to Modesty, and her delight in measures, let us reflect a\nlittle on the character of her adversary, the Goddess of Liberty, and her\ndelight in absence of measures, or in false ones.  It is true that there\nare liberties and liberties.  Yonder torrent, crystal-clear, and\narrow-swift, with its spray leaping into the air like white troops of\nfawns, is free enough.  Lost, presently, amidst bankless, boundless marsh\n--soaking in slow shallowness, as it will, hither and thither, listless\namong the poisonous reeds and unresisting slime--it is free also.  We may\nchoose which liberty we like,--the restraint of voiceful rock, or the\ndumb and edgeless shore of darkened sand.  Of that evil liberty which men\nare now glorifying and proclaiming as essence of gospel to all the earth,\nand will presently, I suppose, proclaim also to the stars, with\ninvitation to them out of their courses,--and of its opposite continence,\nwhich is the clasp and 'chrusee perone' of Aglaia's cestus, we must try\nto find out something true.  For no quality of Art has been more powerful\nin its influence on public mind; none is more frequently the subject of\npopular praise, or the end of vulgar effort, than what we call \"Freedom.\"\nIt is necessary to determine the justice or injustice of this popular\npraise.\n\n144.  I said, a little while ago, that the practical teaching of the\nmasters of Art was summed by the O of Giotto.  \"You may judge my\nmasterhood of craft,\" Giotto tells us, \"by seeing that I can draw a\ncircle unerringly.\"  And we may safely believe him, understanding him to\nmean that, though more may be necessary to an artist than such a power,\nat least this power is necessary.  The qualities of hand and eye needful\nto do this are the first conditions of artistic craft.\n\n145.  Try to draw a circle yourself with the \"free\" hand, and with a\nsingle line.  You cannot do it if your hand trembles, nor if it is in the\ncommon sense of the word \"free.\"  So far from being free, it must be as\nif it were fastened to an inflexible bar of steel.  And yet it must move,\nunder this necessary control, with perfect, untormented serenity of ease.\n\n146.  That is the condition of all good work whatsoever.  All freedom is\nerror.  Every line you lay down is either right or wrong; it may be\ntimidly and awkwardly wrong, or fearlessly and impudently wrong.  The\naspect of the impudent wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons, and is\nwhat they commonly call \"free\" execution; the timid, tottering,\nhesitating wrongness is rarely so attractive; yet sometimes, if\naccompanied with good qualities, and right aims in other directions, it\nbecomes in a manner charming, like the inarticulateness of a child; but,\nwhatever the charm or manner of the error, there is but one question\nultimately to be asked respecting every line you draw, Is it right or\nwrong?  If right, it most assuredly is not a \"free\" line, but an\nintensely continent, restrained, and considered line; and the action of\nthe hand in laying it is just as decisive, and just as \"free,\" as the\nhand of a first-rate surgeon in a critical incision.  A great operator\ntold me that his hand could check itself within about the two-hundredth\nof an inch, in penetrating a membrane; and this, of course, without the\nhelp of sight, by sensation only.  With help of sight, and in action on a\nsubstance which does not quiver or yield, a fine artist's line is\nmeasurable in its proposed direction to considerably less than the\nthousandth of an inch.\n\nA wide freedom, truly!\n\n147.  The conditions of popular art which most foster the common ideas\nabout freedom, are merely results of irregularly energetic effort by men\nimperfectly educated; these conditions being variously mingled with\ncruder mannerisms resulting from timidity, or actual imperfection of\nbody.  Northern hands and eyes are, of course, never so subtle as\nSouthern; and in very cold countries, artistic execution is palsied.  The\neffort to break through this timidity, or to refine the bluntness, may\nlead to a licentious impetuosity, or an ostentatious minuteness.  Every\nman's manner has this kind of relation to some defect in his physical\npowers or modes of thought; so that in the greatest work there is no\nmanner visible.  It is at first uninteresting from its quietness; the\nmajesty of restrained power only dawns gradually upon us, as we walk\ntowards its horizon.\n\nThere is, indeed, often great delightfulness in the innocent manners of\nartists who have real power and honesty, and draw in this way or that, as\nbest they can, under such and such untoward circumstances of life.  But\nthe greater part of the looseness, flimsiness, or audacity of modern work\nis the expression of an inner spirit of license in mind and heart,\nconnected, as I said, with the peculiar folly of this age, its hope of,\nand trust in, \"liberty,\" of which we must reason a little in more general\nterms.\n\n148.  I believe we can nowhere find a better type of a perfectly free\ncreature than in the common house-fly.  Nor free only, but brave; and\nirreverent to a degree which I think no human republican could by any\nphilosophy exalt himself to.  There is no courtesy in him; he does not\ncare whether it is king or clown whom he teases; and in every step of his\nswift mechanical march, and in every pause of his resolute observation,\nthere is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect\nindependence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having\nbeen made for flies.  Strike at him with your hand, and to him, the\nmechanical fact and external aspect of the matter is, what to you it\nwould be if an acre of red clay, ten feet thick, tore itself up from the\nground in one massive field, hovered over you in the air for a second,\nand came crashing down with an aim.  That is the external aspect of it;\nthe inner aspect, to his fly's mind, is of a quite natural and\nunimportant occurrence--one of the momentary conditions of his active\nlife.  He steps out of the way of your hand, and alights on the back of\nit.  You cannot terrify him, nor govern him, nor persuade him, nor\nconvince him.  He has his own positive opinion on all matters; not an\nunwise one, usually, for his own ends; and will ask no advice of yours.\nHe has no work to do--no tyrannical instinct to obey.  The earthworm has\nhis digging; the bee her gathering and building; the spider her cunning\nnetwork; the ant her treasury and accounts.  All these are comparatively\nslaves, or people of vulgar business.  But your fly, free in the air,\nfree in the chamber--a black incarnation of caprice, wandering,\ninvestigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich\nvariety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window\nto those of the butcher's back-yard, and from the galled place on your\ncab-horse's back, to the brown spot in the road, from which, as the hoof\ndisturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz--what freedom is like\nhis?\n\n149.  For captivity, again, perhaps your poor watch-dog is as sorrowful\na type as you will easily find.  Mine certainly is.  The day is lovely,\nbut I must write this, and cannot go out with him.  He is chained in the\nyard because I do not like dogs in rooms, and the gardener does not like\ndogs in gardens.  He has no books,--nothing but his own weary thoughts\nfor company, and a group of those free flies, whom he snaps at, with\nsullen ill success.  Such dim hope as he may have that I may take him out\nwith me, will be, hour by hour, wearily disappointed; or, worse, darkened\nat once into a leaden despair by an authoritative \"No\"--too well\nunderstood.  His fidelity only seals his fate; if he would not watch for\nme, he would be sent away, and go hunting with some happier master: but\nhe watches, and is wise, and faithful, and miserable; and his high animal\nintellect only gives him the wistful powers of wonder, and sorrow, and\ndesire, and affection, which embitter his captivity.  Yet of the two,\nwould we rather be watch-dog or fly?\n\n150.  Indeed, the first point we have all to determine is not how free\nwe are, but what kind of creatures we are.  It is of small importance to\nany of us whether we get liberty; but of the greatest that we deserve it.\nWhether we can win it, fate must determine; but that we will be worthy of\nit we may ourselves determine; and the sorrowfullest fate of all that we\ncan suffer is to have it without deserving it.\n\n151.  I have hardly patience to hold my pen and go on writing, as I\nremember (I would that it were possible for a few consecutive instants to\nforget) the infinite follies of modern thought in this matter, centred in\nthe notion that liberty is good for a man, irrespectively of the use he\nis likely to make of it.  Folly unfathomable! unspeakable! unendurable to\nlook in the full face of, as the laugh of a cretin.  You will send your\nchild, will you, into a room where the table is loaded with sweet wine\nand fruit--some poisoned, some not?--you will say to him, \"Choose freely,\nmy little child!  It is so good for you to have freedom of choice; it\nforms your character--your individuality!  If you take the wrong cup or\nthe wrong berry, you will die before the day is over, but you will have\nacquired the dignity of a Free child?\"\n\n152.  You think that puts the case too sharply?  I tell you, lover of\nliberty, there is no choice offered to you, but it is similarly between\nlife and death.  There is no act, nor option of act, possible, but the\nwrong deed or option has poison in it which will stay in your veins\nthereafter forever.  Never more to all eternity can you be as you might\nhave been had you not done that--chosen that.  You have \"formed your\ncharacter,\" forsooth!  No; if you have chosen ill, you have De-formed\nit, and that for ever!  In some choices it had been better for you that\na red-hot iron bar struck you aside, scarred and helpless, than that you\nhad so chosen.  \"You will know better next time!\"  No.  Next time will\nnever come.  Next time the choice will be in quite another aspect--\nbetween quite different things,--you, weaker than you were by the evil\ninto which you have fallen; it, more doubtful than it was, by the\nincreased dimness of your sight.  No one ever gets wiser by doing wrong,\nnor stronger.  You will get wiser and stronger only by doing right,\nwhether forced or not; the prime, the one need is to do that, under\nwhatever compulsion, until you can do it without compulsion.  And then\nyou are a Man.\n\n153.  \"What!\" a wayward youth might perhaps answer, incredulously, \"no\none ever gets wiser by doing wrong?  Shall I not know the world best by\ntrying the wrong of it, and repenting?  Have I not, even as it is,\nlearned much by many of my errors?\"  Indeed, the effort by which\npartially you recovered yourself was precious; that part of your thought\nby which you discerned the error was precious.  What wisdom and strength\nyou kept, and rightly used, are rewarded; and in the pain and the\nrepentance, and in the acquaintance with the aspects of folly and sin,\nyou have learned something; how much less than you would have learned in\nright paths can never be told, but that it is less is certain.  Your\nliberty of choice has simply destroyed for you so much life and strength\nnever regainable.  It is true, you now know the habits of swine, and the\ntaste of husks; do you think your father could not have taught you to\nknow better habits and pleasanter tastes, if you had stayed in his house;\nand that the knowledge you have lost would not have been more, as well as\nsweeter, than that you have gained?  But \"it so forms my individuality\nto be free!\"  Your individuality was given you by God, and in your race,\nand if you have any to speak of, you will want no liberty.  You will want\na den to work in, and peace, and light--no more,--in absolute need; if\nmore, in anywise, it will still not be liberty, but direction,\ninstruction, reproof, and sympathy.  But if you have no individuality, if\nthere is no true character nor true desire in you, then you will indeed\nwant to be free.  You will begin early, and, as a boy, desire to be a\nman; and, as a man, think yourself as good as every other.  You will\nchoose freely to eat, freely to drink, freely to stagger and fall,\nfreely, at last, to curse yourself and die.  Death is the only real\nfreedom possible to us; and that is consummate freedom, permission for\nevery particle in the rotting body to leave its neighbor particle, and\nshift for itself.  You call it \"corruption\" in the flesh; but before it\ncomes to that, all liberty is an equal corruption in mind.  You ask for\nfreedom of thought; but if you have not sufficient grounds for thought,\nyou have no business to think; and if you have sufficient grounds, you\nhave no business to think wrong.  Only one thought is possible to you if\nyou are wise--your liberty is geometrically proportionate to your folly.\n\n154.  \"But all this glory and activity of our age; what are they owing\nto, but to freedom of thought?\"  In a measure, they are owing--what good\nis in them--to the discovery of many lies, and the escape from the power\nof evil.  Not to liberty, but to the deliverance from evil or cruel\nmasters.  Brave men have dared to examine lies which had long been\ntaught, not because they were free-thinkers, but because they were such\nstern and close thinkers that the lie could no longer escape them.  Of\ncourse the restriction of thought, or of its expression, by persecution,\nis merely a form of violence, justifiable or not, as other violence is,\naccording to the character of the persons against whom it is exercised,\nand the divine and eternal laws which it vindicates or violates.  We must\nnot burn a man alive for saying that the Athanasian creed is\nungrammatical, nor stop a bishop's salary because we are getting the\nworst of an argument with him; neither must we let drunken men howl in\nthe public streets at night.  There is much that is true in the part of\nMr. Mill's essay on Liberty which treats of freedom of thought; some\nimportant truths are there beautifully expressed, but many, quite vital,\nare omitted; and the balance, therefore, is wrongly struck.  The liberty\nof expression, with a great nation, would become like that in a\nwell-educated company, in which there is indeed freedom of speech, but\nnot of clamor; or like that in an orderly senate, in which men who\ndeserve to be heard, are heard in due time, and under determined\nrestrictions.  The degree of liberty you can rightly grant to a number\nof men is in the inverse ratio of their desire for it; and a general\nhush, or call to order, would be often very desirable in this England of\nours.  For the rest, of any good or evil extent, it is impossible to say\nwhat measure is owing to restraint, and what to license where the right\nis balanced between them.  I was not a little provoked one day, a summer\nor two since, in Scotland, because the Duke of Athol hindered me from\nexamining the gneiss and slate junctions in Glen Tilt, at the hour\nconvenient to me; but I saw them at last, and in quietness; and to the\nvery restriction that annoyed me, owed, probably, the fact of their being\nin existence, instead of being blasted away by a mob-company; while the\n\"free\" paths and inlets of Loch Katrine and the Lake of Geneva are\nforever trampled down and destroyed, not by one duke, but by tens of\nthousands of ignorant tyrants.\n\n155.  So, a Dean and Chapter may, perhaps, unjustifiably charge me\ntwopence for seeing a cathedral; but your free mob pulls spire and all\ndown about my ears, and I can see it no more forever.  And even if I\ncannot get up to the granite junctions in the glen, the stream comes down\nfrom them pure to the Garry; but in Beddington Park I am stopped by the\nnewly-erected fence of a building speculator; and the bright Wandel,\ndivine of waters as Castaly, is filled by the free public with old shoes,\nobscene crockery, and ashes.\n\n156.  In fine, the arguments for liberty may in general be summed in a\nfew very simple forms, as follows:\n\nMisguiding is mischievous: therefore guiding is.\n\nIf the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch: therefore, nobody\nshould lead anybody.\n\nLambs and fawns should be left free in the fields; much more bears and\nwolves.\n\nIf a man's gun and shot are his own, he may fire in any direction he\npleases.\n\nA fence across a road is inconvenient; much more one at the side of it.\n\nBabes should not be swaddled with their hands bound down to their sides:\ntherefore they should be thrown out to roll in the kennels naked.\n\nNone of these arguments are good, and the practical issues of them are\nworse.  For there are certain eternal laws for human conduct which are\nquite clearly discernible by human reason.  So far as these are\ndiscovered and obeyed, by whatever machinery or authority the obedience\nis procured, there follow life and strength.  So far as they are\ndisobeyed, by whatever good intention the disobedience is brought about,\nthere follow ruin and sorrow.  And the first duty of every man in the\nworld is to find his true master, and, for his own good, submit to him;\nand to find his true inferior, and, for that inferior's good, conquer\nhim.  The punishment is sure, if we either refuse the reverence, or are\ntoo cowardly and indolent to enforce the compulsion.  A base nation\ncrucifies or poisons its wise men, and lets its fools rave and rot in the\nstreets.  A wise nation obeys the one, restrains the other, and cherishes\nall.\n\n157.  The best examples of the results of wise normal evidence in Art\nwill be found in whatever evidence remains respecting the lives of great\nItalian painters, though, unhappily, in eras of progress, but just in\nproportion to the admirableness and efficiency of the life, will be\nusually the scantiness of its history.  The individualities and liberties\nwhich are causes of destruction may be recorded; but the loyal conditions\nof daily breath are never told.  Because Leonardo made models of\nmachines, dug canals, built fortifications, and dissipated half his\nart-power in capricious ingenuities, we have many anecdotes of him;--but\nno picture of importance on canvas, and only a few withered stains of one\nupon a wall.  But because his pupil, or reputed pupil, Luini, labored in\nconstant and successful simplicity, we have no anecdotes of him;--only\nhundreds of noble works.  Luini is, perhaps, the best central type of the\nhighly-trained Italian painter.  He is the only man who entirely united\nthe religious temper which was the spirit-life of art, with the physical\npower which was its bodily life.  He joins the purity and passion of\nAngelico to the strength of Veronese: the two elements, poised in perfect\nbalance, are so calmed and restrained, each by the other, that most of us\nlose the sense of both.  The artist does not see the strength, by reason\nof the chastened spirit in which it is used: and the religious visionary\ndoes not recognize the passion, by reason of the frank human truth with\nwhich it is rendered.  He is a man ten times greater than Leonardo;--a\nmighty colorist, while Leonardo was only a fine draughtsman in black,\nstaining the chiaroscuro drawing, like a colored print: he perceived and\nrendered the delicatest types of human beauty that have been painted\nsince the days of the Greeks, while Leonardo depraved his finer instincts\nby caricature, and remained to the end of his days the slave of an\narchaic smile: and he is a designer as frank, instinctive, and\nexhaustless as Tintoret, while Leonardo's design is only an agony of\nscience, admired chiefly because it is painful, and capable of analysis\nin its best accomplishment.  Luini has left nothing behind him that is\nnot lovely; but of his life I believe hardly anything is known beyond\nremnants of tradition which murmur about Lugano and Saronno, and which\nremain ungleaned.  This only is certain, that he was born in the\nloveliest district of North Italy, where hills, and streams, and air\nmeet in softest harmonies.  Child of the Alps, and of their divinest\nlake, he is taught, without doubt or dismay, a lofty religious creed, and\na sufficient law of life, and of its mechanical arts.  Whether lessoned\nby Leonardo himself, or merely one of many disciplined in the system of\nthe Milanese school, he learns unerringly to draw, unerringly and\nenduringly to paint.  His tasks are set him without question day by day,\nby men who are justly satisfied with his work, and who accept it without\nany harmful praise, or senseless blame.  Place, scale, and subject are\ndetermined for him on the cloister wall or the church dome; as he is\nrequired, and for sufficient daily bread, and little more, he paints what\nhe has been taught to design wisely, and has passion to realize\ngloriously: every touch he lays is eternal, every thought he conceives is\nbeautiful and pure: his hand moves always in radiance of blessing; from\nday to day his life enlarges in power and peace; it passes away\ncloudlessly, the starry twilight remaining arched far against the night.\n\n158.  Oppose to such a life as this that of a great painter amidst the\nelements of modern English liberty.  Take the life of Turner, in whom the\nartistic energy and inherent love of beauty were at least as strong as in\nLuini: but, amidst the disorder and ghastliness of the lower streets of\nLondon, his instincts in early infancy were warped into toleration of\nevil, or even into delight in it.  He gathers what he can of instruction\nby questioning and prying among half-informed masters; spells out some\nknowledge of classical fable; educates himself, by an admirable force, to\nthe production of wildly majestic or pathetically tender and pure\npictures, by which he cannot live.  There is no one to judge them, or to\ncommand him: only some of the English upper classes hire him to paint\ntheir houses and parks, and destroy the drawings afterwards by the most\nwanton neglect.  Tired of laboring carefully, without either reward or\npraise, he dashes out into various experimental and popular works--makes\nhimself the servant of the lower public, and is dragged hither and\nthither at their will; while yet, helpless and guideless, he indulges his\nidiosyncrasies till they change into insanities; the strength of his soul\nincreasing its sufferings, and giving force to its errors; all the\npurpose of life degenerating into instinct; and the web of his work\nwrought, at last, of beauties too subtle to be understood, his liberty,\nwith vices too singular to be forgiven--all useless, because magnificent\nidiosyncrasy had become solitude, or contention, in the midst of a\nreckless populace, instead of submitting itself in loyal harmony to the\nArt-laws of an understanding nation.  And the life passed away in\ndarkness; and its final work, in all the best beauty of it, has already\nperished, only enough remaining to teach us what we have lost.\n\n159.  These are the opposite effects of Law and of Liberty on men of the\nhighest powers.  In the case of inferiors the contrast is still more\nfatal: under strict law, they become the subordinate workers in great\nschools, healthily aiding, echoing, or supplying, with multitudinous\nforce of hand, the mind of the leading masters: they are the nameless\ncarvers of great architecture--stainers of glass--hammerers of iron--\nhelpful scholars, whose work ranks round, if not with, their master's,\nand never disgraces it.  But the inferiors under a system of license\nfor the most part perish in miserable effort;* a few struggle into\npernicious eminence--harmful alike to themselves and to all who admire\nthem; many die of starvation; many insane, either in weakness of insolent\negotism, like Haydon, or in a conscientious agony of beautiful purpose\nand warped power, like Blake.  There is no probability of the persistence\nof a licentious school in any good accidentally discovered by them; there\nis an approximate certainty of their gathering, with acclaim, round any\nshadow of evil, and following it to whatever quarter of destruction it\nmay lead.\n\n\n* As I correct this sheet for press, my \"Pall Mall Gazette\" of last\nSaturday, April 17, is lying on the table by me.  I print a few lines out\nof it:\n\n   \"AN ARTIST'S DEATH.--A sad story was told at an inquest held in St.\nPancras last night by Dr. Lankester on the body of . . ., aged\nfifty-nine, a French artist who was found dead in his bed at his rooms in\n. . . Street.  M. . . ., also an artist, said he had known the deceased\nfor fifteen years.  He once held a high position, and being anxious to\nmake a name in the world, he five years ago commenced a large picture,\nwhich he hoped, when completed, to have in the gallery at Versailles; and\nwith that view he sent a photograph of it to the French Emperor.  He also\nhad an idea of sending it to the English Royal Academy.  He labored on\nthis picture, neglecting other work which would have paid him well, and\ngradually sank lower and lower into poverty.  His friends assisted him,\nbut being absorbed in his great work, he did not heed their advice, and\nthey left him.  He was, however, assisted by the French Ambassador, and\nlast Saturday, he (the witness) saw deceased, who was much depressed in\nspirits, as he expected the brokers to be put in possession for rent.  He\nsaid his troubles were so great that he feared his brain would give way.\nThe witness gave him a shilling for which he appeared very thankful.  On\nMonday the witness called upon him, but received no answer to his knock.\nHe went again on Tuesday, and entered the deceased's bedroom and found\nhim dead.  Dr. George Ross said that when called into the deceased he had\nbeen dead at least two days.  The room was in a filthy, dirty condition,\nand the picture referred to--certainly a very fine one--was in that room.\nThe post-mortem examination showed that the cause of death was fatty\ndegeneration of the heart, the latter probably having ceased its action\nthrough the mental excitement of the deceased.\"\n\n\n160.  Thus far the notes of Freedom.  Now, lastly, here is some talk\nwhich I tried at the time to make intelligible; and with which I close\nthis volume, because it will serve sufficiently to express the practical\nrelation in which I think the art and imagination of the Greeks stand to\nour own; and will show the reader that my view of that relation is\nunchanged, from the first day on which I began to write, until now.\n\n\n***\n\n\nTHE HERCULES OF CAMARINA.\n\nADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ART SCHOOL OF SOUTH LAMBERT, MARCH 15,\n1869.\n\n\n161.  Among the photographers of Greek coins which present so many\nadmirable subjects for your study, I must speak for the present of one\nonly: the Hercules of Camarina.  You have, represented by a Greek\nworkman, in that coin, the face of a man and the skin of a lion's head.\nAnd the man's face is like a man's face, but the lion's skin is not like\na lion's skin.\n\n162.  Now there are some people who will tell you that Greek art is fine,\nbecause it is true; and because it carves men's faces as like men's as it\ncan.\n\nAnd there are other people who will tell you that Greek art is fine,\nbecause it is not true; and carves a lion's skin so as to look not at all\nlike a lion's skin.\n\nAnd you fancy that one or the other of these sets of people must be\nwrong, and are perhaps much puzzled to find out which you should believe.\n\nBut neither of them are wrong, and you will have eventually to believe,\nor rather to understand and know, in reconciliation, the truths taught by\neach; but for the present, the teachers of the first group are those you\nmust follow.\n\nIt is they who tell you the deepest and usefullest truth, which involves\nall others in time.  Greek art, and all other art, is fine when it makes\na man's face as like a man's face as it can.  Hold to that.  All kinds of\nnonsense are talked to you, nowadays, ingeniously and irrelevantly about\nart.  Therefore, for the most part of the day, shut your ears, and keep\nyour eyes open: and understand primarily, what you may, I fancy, easily\nunderstand, that the greatest masters of all greatest schools--Phidias,\nDonatello, Titian, Velasquez, or Sir Joshua Reynolds--all tried to make\nhuman creatures as like human creatures as they could; and that anything\nless like humanity than their work, is not so good as theirs.\n\nGet that well driven into your heads; and don't let it out again, at your\nperil.\n\n163.  Having got it well in, you may then further understand, safely,\nthat three is a great deal of secondary work in pots, and pans, and\nfloors, and carpets, and shawls, and architectural ornament, which ought\nessentially, to be unlike reality, and to depend for its charm on quite\nother qualities than imitative ones.  But all such art is inferior and\nsecondary--much of it more or less instinctive and animal, and a\ncivilized human creature can only learn those principles rightly, by\nknowing those of great civilized art first--which is always the\nrepresentation, to the utmost of its power, of whatever it has got to\nshow--made to look as like the thing as possible.  Go into the National\nGallery, and look at the foot of Correggio's Venus there.  Correggio\nmade it as like a foot as he could, and you won't easily find anything\nliker.  Now, you will find on any Greek vase something meant for a foot,\nor a hand, which is not at all like one.  The Greek vase is a good thing\nin its way, but Correggio's picture is the best work.\n\n164.  So, again, go into the Turner room of the National Gallery, and\nlook at Turner's drawing of \"Ivy Bridge.\"  You will find the water in it\nis like real water, and the ducks in it are like real ducks.  Then go\ninto the British Museum, and look for an Egyptian landscape, and you will\nfind the water in that constituted of blue zigzags, not at all like\nwater; and ducks in the middle of it made of blue lines, looking not in\nthe least as if they could stand stuffing with sage and onions.  They are\nvery good in their way, but Turner's are better.\n\n165.  I will not pause to fence my general principle against what you\nperfectly well know of the due contradiction,--that a thing may be\npainted very like, yet painted ill.  Rest content with knowing that it\nmust be like, if it is painted well; and take this further general law:\nImitation is like charity.  When it is done for love it is lovely; when\nit is done for show, hateful.\n\n166.  Well, then, this Greek coin is fine, first because the face is like\na face.  Perhaps you think there is something particularly handsome in\nthe face, which you can't see in the photograph, or can't at present\nappreciate.  But there is nothing of the kind.  It is a very regular,\nquiet, commonplace sort of face; and any average English gentleman's, of\ngood descent, would be far handsomer.\n\n167.  Fix that in your heads also, therefore, that Greek faces are not\nparticularly beautiful.  Of that much nonsense against which you are to\nkeep your ears shut, that which is talked to you of the Greek ideal of\nbeauty is the absolutest.  There is not a single instance of a very\nbeautiful head left by the highest school of Greek art.  On coins, there\nis even no approximately beautiful one.  The Juno of Argos is a virago;\nthe Athena of Athens grotesque, the Athena of Corinth is insipid; and of\nThurium, sensual.  The Siren Ligeia, and fountain of Arethusa, on the\ncoins of Terina and Syracuse, are prettier, but totally without\nexpression, and chiefly set off by their well-curled hair.  You might\nhave expected something subtle in Mercuries; but the Mercury of \u00c6nus is\na very stupid-looking fellow, in a cap like a bowl, with a knob on the\ntop of it.  The Bacchus of Thasos is a drayman with his hair pomatum'd.\nThe Jupiter of Syracurse is, however, calm and refined; and the Apollo\nof Clazomen\u00e6 would have been impressive, if he had not come down to us,\nmuch flattened by friction.  But on the whole, the merit of Greek coins\ndoes not primarily depend on beauty of features, nor even, in the period\nof highest art, that of the statues.  You make take the Venus of Melos as\na standard of beauty of the central Greek type.  She has tranquil,\nregular, and lofty features; but could not hold her own for a moment\nagainst the beauty of a simple English girl, of pure race and kind heart.\n\n168.  And the reason that Greek art, on the whole, bores you (and you\nknow it does), is that you are always forced to look in it for something\nthat is not there; but which may be seen every day, in real life, all\nround you; and which you are naturally disposed to delight in, and ought\nto delight in.  For the Greek race was not at all one of exalted beauty,\nbut only of general and healthy completeness of form.  They were only,\nand could be only, beautiful in body to the degree that they were\nbeautiful in soul (for you will find, when you read deeply into the\nmatter, that the body is only the soul made visible).  And the Greeks\nwere indeed very good people, much better people than most of us think,\nor than many of us are; but there are better people alive now than the\nbest of them, and lovelier people to be seen now than the loveliest of\nthem.\n\n169.  Then what are the merits of this Greek art, which make it so\nexemplary for you?  Well, not that it is beautiful, but that it is\nRight.*  All that it desires to do, it does, and all that it does, does\nwell.  You will find, as you advance in the knowledge of art, that its\nlaws of self-restraint are very marvelous; that its peace of heart, and\ncontentment in doing a simple thing, with only one or two qualities,\nrestrictedly desired, and sufficiently attained, are a most wholesome\nelement of education for you, as opposed to the wild writhing, and\nwrestling, and longing for the moon, and tilting at windmills, and agony\nof eyes, and torturing of fingers, and general spinning out of one's\nsoul into fiddle-strings, which constitute the ideal life of a modern\nartist.\n\n\n* Compare above, \u00a7101.\n\n\nAlso observe, there is an entire masterhood of its business up to the\nrequired point.  A Greek does not reach after other people's strength,\nnor outreach his own.  He never tries to paint before he can draw; he\nnever tries to lay on flesh where there are no bones; and he never\nexpects to find the bones of anything in his inner consciousness.  Those\nare his first merits--sincere and innocent purpose, strong common-sense\nand principle, and all the strength that follows on that strength.\n\n170.  But, secondly, Greek art is always exemplary in disposition of\nmasses, which is a thing that in modern days students rarely look for,\nartists not enough, and the public never.  But, whatever else Greek work\nmay fail of, you may always be sure its masses are well placed, and their\nplacing has been the object of the most subtle care.  Look, for instance,\nat the inscription in front of this Hercules of the name of the town--\nCamarina.  You can't read it, even though you may know Greek, without\nsome pains; for the sculptor knew well enough that it mattered very\nlittle whether you read it or not, for the Camarina Hercules could tell\nhis own story; but what did above all things matter was, that no K or A\nor M should come in a wrong place with respect to the outline of the\nhead, and divert the eye from it, or spoil any of its lines.  So the\nwhole inscription is thrown into a sweeping curve of gradually\ndiminishing size, continuing from the lion's paws, round the neck, up to\nthe forehead, and answering a decorative purpose as completely as the\ncurls of the mane opposite.  Of these, again, you cannot change or\ndisplace one without mischief; they are almost as even in reticulation as\na piece of basket-work; but each has a different form and a due relation\nto the rest, and if you set to work to draw that mane rightly, you will\nfind that, whatever time you give to it, you can't get the tresses quite\ninto their places, and that every tress out of its place does an injury.\nIf you want to test your powers of accurate drawing, you may make that\nlion's mane your pons asinorum, I have never yet met with a student who\ndidn't make an ass in a lion's skin of himself when he tried it.\n\n171.  Granted, however, that these tresses may be finely placed, still\nthey are not like a lion's mane.  So we come back to the question,--if\nthe face is to be like a man's face, why is not the lion's mane to be\nlike a lion's mane?  Well, because it can't be like a lion's mane without\ntoo much trouble,--and inconvenience after that, and poor success, after\nall.  Too much trouble, in cutting the die into fine fringes and jags;\ninconvenience after that,--because, though you can easily stamp cheeks\nand foreheads smooth at a blow, you can't stamp projecting tresses fine\nat a blow, whatever pains you take with your die.\n\nSo your Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, uses no skill, and\nsays to you, \"Here is beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully\ndesigned and easily stamped.  Enjoy them, and if you cannot understand\nthat they mean lion's mane, heaven mend your wits.\"\n\n172.  See, then, you have in this work well-founded knowledge, simple and\nright aims, thorough mastery of handicraft, splendid invention in\narrangement, unerring common sense in treatment,--merits, these, I think,\nexemplary enough to justify our tormenting you a little with Greek art.\nBut it has one merit more than these, the greatest of all.  It always\nmeans something worth saying.  Not merely worth saying for that time\nonly, but for all time.  What do you think this helmet of lion's hide is\nalways given to Hercules for?  You can't suppose it means only that he\nonce killed a lion, and always carried its skin afterwards to show that\nhe had, as Indian sportsmen sent home stuffed rugs, with claws at the\ncorners, and a lump in the middle which one tumbles over every time one\nstirs the fire.  What was this Nemean Lion, whose spoils were evermore to\ncover Hercules from the cold?  Not merely a large specimen of Felis Leo,\nranging the fields of Nemea, be sure of that.  This Nemean cub was one of\na bad litter.  Born of Typhon and Echidna,--of the whirlwind and the\nsnake,--Cerberus his brother, the Hydra of Lerna his sister,--it must\nhave been difficult to get his hide off him.  He had to be found in\ndarkness, too, and dealt upon without weapons, by grip at the throat--\narrows and club of no avail against him.  What does all that mean?\n\n173.  It means that the Nemean Lion is the first great adversary of life,\nwhatever that may be--to Hercules, or to any of us, then or now.  The\nfirst monster we have to strangle, or be destroyed by, fighting in the\ndark, and with none to help us, only Athena standing by to encourage with\nher smile.  Every man's Nemean Lion lies in wait for him somewhere.  The\nslothful man says, There is a lion in the path.  He says well.  The quiet\nunslothful man says the same, and knows it too.  But they differ in their\nfurther reading of the text.  The slothful man says, I shall be slain,\nand the unslothful, IT shall be.  It is the first ugly and strong enemy\nthat rises against us, all future victory depending on victory over that.\nKill it; and through all the rest of your life, what was once dreadful is\nyour armor, and you are clothed with that conquest for every other, and\nhelmed with its crest of fortitude for evermore.\n\nAlas, we have most of us to walk bare-headed; but that is the meaning of\nthe story of Nemea,--worth laying to heart and thinking of sometimes,\nwhen you see a dish garnished with parsley, which was the crown at the\nNemean games.\n\n174.  How far, then, have we got in our list of the merits of Greek art\nnow?\n\n      Sound knowledge.\n      Simple aims.\n      Mastered craft.\n      Vivid invention.\n      Strong common sense.\n      And eternally true and wise meaning.\n\nAre these not enough?  Here is one more, then, which will find favor, I\nshould think, with the British Lion.  Greek art is never frightened at\nanything; it is always cool.\n\n175.  It differs essentially from all other art, past or present, in this\nincapability of being frightened.  Half the power and imagination of\nevery other school depend on a certain feverish terror mingling with\ntheir  sense of beauty,--the feeling that a child has in a dark room, or\na sick person in seeing ugly dreams.  But the Greeks never have ugly\ndreams.  They cannot draw anything ugly when they try.  Sometimes they\nput themselves to their wits'-end to draw an ugly thing,--the Medusa's\nhead, for instance,--but they can't do it, not they, because nothing\nfrightens them.  They widen the mouth, and grind the teeth, and puff the\ncheeks, and set the eyes a goggling; and the thing is only ridiculous\nafter all, not the least dreadful, for there is no dread in their hearts.\nPensiveness; amazement; often deepest grief and desolateness.  All these;\nbut terror never.  Everlasting calm in the presence of all fate; and joy\nsuch as they could win, not indeed in a perfect beauty, but in beauty at\nperfect rest!  A kind of art this, surely, to be looked at, and thought\nupon sometimes with profit, even in these latter days.\n\n176.  To be looked at sometimes.  Not continually, and never as a model\nfor imitation.  For you are not Greeks; but, for better or worse, English\ncreatures; and cannot do, even if it were a thousand times better worth\ndoing, anything well, except what your English hearts shall prompt, and\nyour English skies teach you.  For all good art is the natural utterance\nof its own people in its own day.\n\nBut also, your own art is a better and brighter one than ever this Greek\nart was.  Many motives, powers, and insights have been added to those\nelder ones.  The very corruptions into which we have fallen are signs of\na subtle life, higher than theirs was, and therefore more fearful in its\nfaults and death.  Christianity has neither superceded, nor, by itself,\nexcelled heathenism; but it has added its own good, won also by many a\nNemean contest in dark valleys, to all that was good and noble in\nheathenism; and our present thoughts and work, when they are right, are\nnobler than the heathen's.  And we are not reverent enough to them,\nbecause we possess too much of them.  That sketch of four cherub heads\nfrom and English girl, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Kensington, is an\nincomparably finer thing than ever the Greeks did.  Ineffably tender in\nthe touch, yet Herculean in power; innocent, yet exalted in feeling; pure\nin color as a pearl; reserved and decisive in design, as this Lion crest,\n--if it alone existed of such,--if it were a picture by Zeuxis, the only\none left in the world, and you build a shrine for it, and were allowed to\nsee it only seven days in a year, it alone would teach you all of art\nthat you ever needed to know.  But you do not learn from this or any\nother such work, because you have not reverence enough for them, and are\ntrying to learn from all at once, and from a hundred other masters\nbesides.\n\n177.  Here, then, is the practical advice which I would venture to deduce\nfrom what I have tried to show you.  Use Greek art as a first, not a\nfinal, teacher.  Learn to draw carefully from Greek work; above all, to\nplace forms correctly, and to use light and shade tenderly.  Never allow\nyourselves black shadows.  It is easy to make things look round and\nprojecting; but the things to exercise yourselves in are the placing of\nthe masses, and the modelling of the lights.  It is an admirable exercise\nto take a pale wash of color for all the shadows, never reinforcing it\neverywhere, but drawing the statue as if it were in far distance, making\nall the darks one flat pale tint.  Then model from those into the lights,\nrounding as well as you can, on those subtle conditions.  In your chalk\ndrawings, separate the lights from the darks at once all over; then\nreinforce the darks slightly where absolutely necessary, and put your\nwhole strength on the lights and their limits.  Then, when you have\nlearned to draw thoroughly, take one master for your painting, as you\nwould have done necessarily in old times by being put into his school\n(were I to choose for you, it should be among six men only--Titian,\nCorreggio, Paul Veronese, Velasquez, Reynolds, or Holbein).  If you are a\nlandscapist, Turner must be your only guide (for no other great landscape\npainter has yet lived); and having chosen, do your best to understand\nyour own chosen master, and obey him, and no one else, till you have\nstrength to deal with the nature itself round you, and then, be your own\nmaster, and see with your own eyes.  If you have got masterhood or sight\nin you, that is the way to make the most of them; and if you have\nneither, you will at least be sound in your work, prevented from immodest\nand useless effort, and protected from vulgar and fantastic error.\n\nAnd so I wish you all, good speed, and the favor of Hercules and of the\nMuses; and to those who shall best deserve them, the crown of Parsley\nfirst and then of the Laurel.","title":"The Queen of the Air: Being a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":48995}