{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1293/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1293","id":"gutenberg_1293","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1293","summary":null,"tags":["Books and reading -- Great Britain","Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life","Social problems","Women"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1894 George Allen edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n                   [Picture: Public domain book cover]\n\n\n\n\n\n                            SESAME AND LILIES\n\n\n                                    By\n                               John Ruskin\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\nLecture I.  Sesame\nLecture II.  Lilies\nPreface to the Later Editions\nLecture III.  The Mystery of Life and its Arts\n\n\n\n\nPreface to the Later Editions\n\n\nBEING now fifty-one years old, and little likely to change my mind\nhereafter on any important subject of thought (unless through weakness of\nage), I wish to publish a connected series of such parts of my works as\nnow seem to me right, and likely to be of permanent use.  In doing so I\nshall omit much, but not attempt to mend what I think worth reprinting.\nA young man necessarily writes otherwise than an old one, and it would be\nworse than wasted time to try to recast the juvenile language: nor is it\nto be thought that I am ashamed even of what I cancel; for great part of\nmy earlier work was rapidly written for temporary purposes, and is now\nunnecessary, though true, even to truism.  What I wrote about religion,\nwas, on the contrary, painstaking, and, I think, forcible, as compared\nwith most religious writing; especially in its frankness and\nfearlessness: but it was wholly mistaken: for I had been educated in the\ndoctrines of a narrow sect, and had read history as obliquely as\nsectarians necessarily must.\n\nMingled among these either unnecessary or erroneous statements, I find,\nindeed, some that might be still of value; but these, in my earlier\nbooks, disfigured by affected language, partly through the desire to be\nthought a fine writer, and partly, as in the second volume of \u2018Modern\nPainters,\u2019 in the notion of returning as far as I could to what I thought\nthe better style of old English literature, especially to that of my then\nfavourite, in prose, Richard Hooker.\n\nFor these reasons,\u2014though, as respects either art, policy, or morality,\nas distinct from religion, I not only still hold, but would even wish\nstrongly to re-affirm the substance of what I said in my earliest\nbooks,\u2014I shall reprint scarcely anything in this series out of the first\nand second volumes of \u2018Modern Painters\u2019; and shall omit much of the\n\u2018Seven Lamps\u2019 and \u2018Stones of Venice\u2019; but all my books written within the\nlast fifteen years will be republished without change, as new editions of\nthem are called for, with here and there perhaps an additional note, and\nhaving their text divided, for convenient reference, into paragraphs,\nconsecutive through each volume.  I shall also throw together the shorter\nfragments that bear on each other, and fill in with such unprinted\nlectures or studies as seem to me worth preserving, so as to keep the\nvolumes, on an average, composed of about a hundred leaves each.\n\nThe first book of which a new edition is required chances to be \u2018Sesame\nand Lilies,\u2019 from which I now detach the whole preface, about the Alps,\nfor use elsewhere; and to I which I add a lecture given in Ireland on a\nsubject closely connected with that of the book itself.  I am glad that\nit should be the first of the complete series, for many reasons; though\nin now looking over these two lectures, I am painfully struck by the\nwaste of good work in them.  They cost me much thought, and much strong\nemotion; but it was foolish to suppose that I could rouse my audiences in\na little while to any sympathy with the temper into which I had brought\nmyself by years of thinking over subjects full of pain; while, if I\nmissed my purpose at the time, it was little to be hoped I could attain\nit afterwards; since phrases written for oral delivery become ineffective\nwhen quietly read.  Yet I should only take away what good is in them if I\ntried to translate them into the language of books; nor, indeed, could I\nat all have done so at the time of their delivery, my thoughts then\nhabitually and impatiently putting themselves into forms fit only for\nemphatic speech; and thus I am startled, in my review of them, to find\nthat, though there is much, (forgive me the impertinence) which seems to\nme accurately and energetically said, there is scarcely anything put in a\nform to be generally convincing, or even easily intelligible: and I can\nwell imagine a reader laying down the book without being at all moved by\nit, still less guided, to any definite course of action.\n\nI think, however, if I now say briefly and clearly what I meant my\nhearers to understand, and what I wanted, and still would fain have, them\nto do, there may afterwards be found some better service in the\npassionately written text.\n\nThe first lecture says, or tries to say, that, life being very short, and\nthe quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading\nvalueless books; and that valuable books should, in a civilized country,\nbe within the reach of every one, printed in excellent form, for a just\nprice; but not in any vile, vulgar, or, by reason of smallness of type,\nphysically injurious form, at a vile price.  For we none of us need many\nbooks, and those which we need ought to be clearly printed, on the best\npaper, and strongly bound.  And though we are, indeed, now, a wretched\nand poverty-struck nation, and hardly able to keep soul and body\ntogether, still, as no person in decent circumstances would put on his\ntable confessedly bad wine, or bad meat, without being ashamed, so he\nneed not have on his shelves ill-printed or loosely and\nwretchedly-stitched books; for though few can be rich, yet every man who\nhonestly exerts himself may, I think, still provide, for himself and his\nfamily, good shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his cart or carriage\nhorses, and stout leather binding for his books.  And I would urge upon\nevery young man, as the beginning of his due and wise provision for his\nhousehold, to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest economy, a\nrestricted, serviceable, and steadily\u2014however slowly\u2014increasing, series\nof books for use through life; making his little library, of all the\nfurniture in his room, the most studied and decorative piece; every\nvolume having its assigned place, like a little statue in its niche, and\none of the earliest and strictest lessons to the children of the house\nbeing how to turn the pages of their own literary possessions lightly and\ndeliberately, with no chance of tearing or dog\u2019s ears.\n\nThat is my notion of the founding of Kings\u2019 Treasuries; and the first\nlecture is intended to show somewhat the use and preciousness of their\ntreasures: but the two following ones have wider scope, being written in\nthe hope of awakening the youth of England, so far as my poor words might\nhave any power with them, to take some thought of the purposes of the\nlife into which they are entering, and the nature of the world they have\nto conquer.\n\nThese two lectures are fragmentary and ill-arranged, but not, I think,\ndiffuse or much compressible.  The entire gist and conclusion of them,\nhowever, is in the last six paragraphs of the third lecture, which I\nwould beg the reader to look over not once nor twice, (rather than any\nother part of the book,) for they contain the best expression I have yet\nbeen able to put in words of what, so far as is within my power, I mean\nhenceforward both to do myself, and to plead with all over whom I have\nany influence, to do also according to their means: the letters begun on\nthe first day of this year, to the workmen of England, having the object\nof originating, if possible, this movement among them, in true alliance\nwith whatever trustworthy element of help they can find in the higher\nclasses.  After these paragraphs, let me ask you to read, by the fiery\nlight of recent events, the fable at p. 170 {1}, and then paragraphs\n129\u2013131 {2}; and observe, my statement respecting the famine at Orissa is\nnot rhetorical, but certified by official documents as within the truth.\nFive hundred thousand persons, _at least_, died by starvation in our\nBritish dominions, wholly in consequence of carelessness and want of\nforethought.  Keep that well in your memory; and note it as the best\npossible illustration of modern political economy in true practice, and\nof the relations it has accomplished between Supply and Demand.  Then\nbegin the second lecture, and all will read clear enough, I think, to the\nend; only, since that second lecture was written, questions have arisen\nrespecting the education and claims of women which have greatly troubled\nsimple minds and excited restless ones.  I am sometimes asked my thoughts\non this matter, and I suppose that some girl readers of the second\nlecture may at the end of it desire to be told summarily what I would\nhave them do and desire in the present state of things.  This, then, is\nwhat I would say to any girl who had confidence enough in me to believe\nwhat I told her, or to do what I asked her.\n\nFirst, be quite sure of one thing, that, however much you may know, and\nwhatever advantages you may possess, and however good you may be, you\nhave not been singled out, by the God who made you, from all the other\ngirls in the world, to be especially informed respecting His own nature\nand character.  You have not been born in a luminous point upon the\nsurface of the globe, where a perfect theology might be expounded to you\nfrom your youth up, and where everything you were taught would be true,\nand everything that was enforced upon you, right.  Of all the insolent,\nall the foolish persuasions that by any chance could enter and hold your\nempty little heart, this is the proudest and foolishest,\u2014that you have\nbeen so much the darling of the Heavens, and favourite of the Fates, as\nto be born in the very nick of time, and in the punctual place, when and\nwhere pure Divine truth had been sifted from the errors of the Nations;\nand that your papa had been providentially disposed to buy a house in the\nconvenient neighbourhood of the steeple under which that Immaculate and\nfinal verity would be beautifully proclaimed.  Do not think it, child; it\nis not so.  This, on the contrary, is the fact,\u2014unpleasant you may think\nit; pleasant, it seems to _me_,\u2014that you, with all your pretty dresses,\nand dainty looks, and kindly thoughts, and saintly aspirations, are not\none whit more thought of or loved by the great Maker and Master than any\npoor little red, black, or blue savage, running wild in the pestilent\nwoods, or naked on the hot sands of the earth: and that, of the two, you\nprobably know less about God than she does; the only difference being\nthat she thinks little of Him that is right, and you much that is wrong.\n\nThat, then, is the first thing to make sure of;\u2014that you are not yet\nperfectly well informed on the most abstruse of all possible subjects,\nand that if you care to behave with modesty or propriety, you had better\nbe silent about it.\n\nThe second thing which you may make sure of is, that however good you may\nbe, you have faults; that however dull you may be, you can find out what\nsome of them are; and that however slight they may be, you had better\nmake some\u2014not too painful, but patient\u2014effort to get quit of them.  And\nso far as you have confidence in me at all, trust me for this, that how\nmany soever you may find or fancy your faults to be, there are only two\nthat are of real consequence,\u2014Idleness and Cruelty.  Perhaps you may be\nproud.  Well, we can get much good out of pride, if only it be not\nreligious.  Perhaps you may be vain; it is highly probable; and very\npleasant for the people who like to praise you.  Perhaps you are a little\nenvious: that is really very shocking; but then\u2014so is everybody else.\nPerhaps, also, you are a little malicious, which I am truly concerned to\nhear, but should probably only the more, if I knew you, enjoy your\nconversation.  But whatever else you may be, you must not be useless, and\nyou must not be cruel.  If there is any one point which, in six thousand\nyears of thinking about right and wrong, wise and good men have agreed\nupon, or successively by experience discovered, it is that God dislikes\nidle and cruel people more than any others:\u2014that His first order is,\n\u201cWork while you have light;\u201d and His second, \u201cBe merciful while you have\nmercy.\u201d\n\n\u201cWork while you have light,\u201d especially while you have the light of\nmorning.  There are few things more wonderful to me than that old people\nnever tell young ones how precious their youth is.  They sometimes\nsentimentally regret their own earlier days; sometimes prudently forget\nthem; often foolishly rebuke the young, often more foolishly indulge,\noften most foolishly thwart and restrain; but scarcely ever warn or watch\nthem.  Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned _you_, that the\nhappiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in earth or\nin heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.  They are not to be\nsad days: far from that, the first duty of young people is to be\ndelighted and delightful; but they are to be in the deepest sense solemn\ndays.  There is no solemnity so deep, to a rightly-thinking creature, as\nthat of dawn.  But not only in that beautiful sense, but in all their\ncharacter and method, they are to be solemn days.  Take your Latin\ndictionary, and look out \u201csolennis,\u201d and fix the sense of the word well\nin your mind, and remember that every day of your early life is ordaining\nirrevocably, for good or evil, the custom and practice of your soul;\nordaining either sacred customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or\ntrenching deeper and deeper the furrows for seed of sorrow.  Now,\ntherefore, see that no day passes in which you do not make yourself a\nsomewhat better creature: and in order to do that, find out, first, what\nyou are now.  Do not think vaguely about it; take pen and paper, and\nwrite down as accurate a description of yourself as you can, with the\ndate to it.  If you dare not do so, find out why you dare not, and try to\nget strength of heart enough to look yourself fairly in the face in mind\nas well as body.  I do not doubt but that the mind is a less pleasant\nthing to look at than the face, and for that very reason it needs more\nlooking at; so always have two mirrors on your toilet table, and see that\nwith proper care you dress body and mind before them daily.  After the\ndressing is once over for the day, think no more about it: as your hair\nwill blow about your ears, so your temper and thoughts will get ruffled\nwith the day\u2019s work, and may need, sometimes, twice dressing; but I don\u2019t\nwant you to carry about a mental pocket-comb; only to be smooth braided\nalways in the morning.\n\nWrite down then, frankly, what you are, or, at least, what you think\nyourself, not dwelling upon those inevitable faults which I have just\ntold you are of little consequence, and which the action of a right life\nwill shake or smooth away; but that you may determine to the best of your\nintelligence what you are good for and can be made into.  You will find\nthat the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help\nother people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve\nyourself.  Thus, from the beginning, consider all your accomplishments as\nmeans of assistance to others; read attentively, in this volume,\nparagraphs 74, 75, 19, and 79, {3} and you will understand what I mean,\nwith respect to languages and music.  In music especially you will soon\nfind what personal benefit there is in being serviceable: it is probable\nthat, however limited your powers, you have voice and ear enough to\nsustain a note of moderate compass in a concerted piece;\u2014that, then, is\nthe first thing to make sure you can do.  Get your voice disciplined and\nclear, and think only of accuracy; never of effect or expression: if you\nhave any soul worth expressing, it will show itself in your singing; but\nmost likely there are very few feelings in you, at present, needing any\nparticular expression; and the one thing you have to do is to make a\nclear-voiced little instrument of yourself, which other people can\nentirely depend upon for the note wanted.  So, in drawing, as soon as you\ncan set down the right shape of anything, and thereby explain its\ncharacter to another person, or make the look of it clear and interesting\nto a child, you will begin to enjoy the art vividly for its own sake, and\nall your habits of mind and powers of memory will gain precision: but if\nyou only try to make showy drawings for praise, or pretty ones for\namusement, your drawing will have little of real interest for you, and no\neducational power whatever.\n\nThen, besides this more delicate work, resolve to do every day some that\nis useful in the vulgar sense.  Learn first thoroughly the economy of the\nkitchen; the good and bad qualities of every common article of food, and\nthe simplest and best modes of their preparation: when you have time, go\nand help in the cooking of poorer families, and show them how to make as\nmuch of everything as possible, and how to make little, nice; coaxing and\ntempting them into tidy and pretty ways, and pleading for well-folded\ntable-cloths, however coarse, and for a flower or two out of the garden\nto strew on them.  If you manage to get a clean table-cloth, bright\nplates on it, and a good dish in the middle, of your own cooking, you may\nask leave to say a short grace; and let your religious ministries be\nconfined to that much for the present.\n\nAgain, let a certain part of your day (as little as you choose, but not\nto be broken in upon) be set apart for making strong and pretty dresses\nfor the poor.  Learn the sound qualities of all useful stuffs, and make\neverything of the best you can get, whatever its price.  I have many\nreasons for desiring you to do this,\u2014too many to be told just now,\u2014trust\nme, and be sure you get everything as good as can be: and if, in the\nvillainous state of modern trade, you cannot get it good at any price,\nbuy its raw material, and set some of the poor women about you to spin\nand weave, till you have got stuff that can be trusted: and then, every\nday, make some little piece of useful clothing, sewn with your own\nfingers as strongly as it can be stitched; and embroider it or otherwise\nbeautify it moderately with fine needlework, such as a girl may be proud\nof having done.  And accumulate these things by you until you hear of\nsome honest persons in need of clothing, which may often too sorrowfully\nbe; and, even though you should be deceived, and give them to the\ndishonest, and hear of their being at once taken to the pawnbroker\u2019s,\nnever mind that, for the pawnbroker must sell them to some one who has\nneed of them.  That is no business of yours; what concerns you is only\nthat when you see a half-naked child, you should have good and fresh\nclothes to give it, if its parents will let it be taught to wear them.\nIf they will not, consider how they came to be of such a mind, which it\nwill be wholesome for you beyond most subjects of inquiry to ascertain.\nAnd after you have gone on doing this a little while, you will begin to\nunderstand the meaning of at least one chapter of your Bible, Proverbs\nxxxi., without need of any laboured comment, sermon, or meditation.\n\nIn these, then (and of course in all minor ways besides, that you can\ndiscover in your own household), you must be to the best of your strength\nusefully employed during the greater part of the day, so that you may be\nable at the end of it to say, as proudly as any peasant, that you have\nnot eaten the bread of idleness.\n\nThen, secondly, I said, you are not to be cruel.  Perhaps you think there\nis no chance of your being so; and indeed I hope it is not likely that\nyou should be deliberately unkind to any creature; but unless you are\ndeliberately kind to every creature, you will often be cruel to many.\nCruel, partly through want of imagination, (a far rarer and weaker\nfaculty in women than men,) and yet more, at the present day, through the\nsubtle encouragement of your selfishness by the religious doctrine that\nall which we now suppose to be evil will be brought to a good end;\ndoctrine practically issuing, not in less earnest efforts that the\nimmediate unpleasantness may be averted from ourselves, but in our\nremaining satisfied in the contemplation of its ultimate objects, when it\nis inflicted on others.\n\nIt is not likely that the more accurate methods of recent mental\neducation will now long permit young people to grow up in the persuasion\nthat, in any danger or distress, they may expect to be themselves saved\nby the Providence of God, while those around them are lost by His\nimprovidence: but they may be yet long restrained from rightly kind\naction, and long accustomed to endure both their own pain occasionally,\nand the pain of others always, with an unwise patience, by misconception\nof the eternal and incurable nature of real evil.  Observe, therefore,\ncarefully in this matter; there are degrees of pain, as degrees of\nfaultfulness, which are altogether conquerable, and which seem to be\nmerely forms of wholesome trial or discipline.  Your fingers tingle when\nyou go out on a frosty morning, and are all the warmer afterwards; your\nlimbs are weary with wholesome work, and lie down in the pleasanter rest;\nyou are tried for a little while by having to wait for some promised\ngood, and it is all the sweeter when it comes.  But you cannot carry the\ntrial past a certain point.  Let the cold fasten on your hand in an\nextreme degree, and your fingers will moulder from their sockets.\nFatigue yourself, but once, to utter exhaustion, and to the end of life\nyou shall not recover the former vigour of your frame.  Let\nheart-sickness pass beyond a certain bitter point, and the heart loses\nits life for ever.\n\nNow, the very definition of evil is in this irremediableness.  It means\nsorrow, or sin, which ends in death; and assuredly, as far as we know, or\ncan conceive, there are many conditions both of pain and sin which cannot\nbut so end.  Of course we are ignorant and blind creatures, and we cannot\nknow what seeds of good may be in present suffering, or present crime;\nbut with what we cannot know we are not concerned.  It is conceivable\nthat murderers and liars may in some distant world be exalted into a\nhigher humanity than they could have reached without homicide or\nfalsehood; but the contingency is not one by which our actions should be\nguided.  There is, indeed, a better hope that the beggar, who lies at our\ngates in misery, may, within gates of pearl, be comforted; but the\nMaster, whose words are our only authority for thinking so, never Himself\ninflicted disease as a blessing, nor sent away the hungry unfed, or the\nwounded unhealed.\n\nBelieve me then, the only right principle of action here, is to consider\ngood and evil as defined by our natural sense of both; and to strive to\npromote the one, and to conquer the other, with as hearty endeavour as if\nthere were, indeed, no other world than this.  Above all, get quit of the\nabsurd idea that Heaven will interfere to correct great errors, while\nallowing its laws to take their course in punishing small ones.  If you\nprepare a dish of food carelessly, you do not expect Providence to make\nit palatable; neither if, through years of folly, you misguide your own\nlife, need you expect Divine interference to bring round everything at\nlast for the best.  I tell you, positively, the world is not so\nconstituted: the consequences of great mistakes are just as sure as those\nof small ones, and the happiness of your whole life, and of all the lives\nover which you have power, depend as literally on your own common sense\nand discretion as the excellence and order of the feast of a day.\n\nThink carefully and bravely over these things, and you will find them\ntrue: having found them so, think also carefully over your own position\nin life.  I assume that you belong to the middle or upper classes, and\nthat you would shrink from descending into a lower sphere.  You may fancy\nyou would not: nay, if you are very good, strong-hearted, and romantic,\nperhaps you really would not; but it is not wrong that you should.  You\nhave, then, I suppose, good food, pretty rooms to live in, pretty dresses\nto wear, power of obtaining every rational and wholesome pleasure; you\nare, moreover, probably gentle and grateful, and in the habit of every\nday thanking God for these things.  But why do you thank Him?  Is it\nbecause, in these matters, as well as in your religious knowledge, you\nthink He has made a favourite of you?  Is the essential meaning of your\nthanksgiving, \u201cLord, I thank Thee that I am not as other girls are, not\nin that I fast twice in the week while they feast, but in that I feast\nseven times a week while they fast,\u201d and are you quite sure this is a\npleasing form of thanksgiving to your Heavenly Father?  Suppose you saw\none of your own true earthly sisters, Lucy or Emily, cast out of your\nmortal father\u2019s house, starving, helpless, heartbroken; and that every\nmorning when you went into your father\u2019s room, you said to him, \u201cHow good\nyou are, father, to give me what you don\u2019t give Lucy,\u201d are you sure that,\nwhatever anger your parent might have just cause for, against your\nsister, he would be pleased by that thanksgiving, or flattered by that\npraise?  Nay, are you even sure that you _are_ so much the\nfavourite?\u2014suppose that, all this while, he loves poor Lucy just as well\nas you, and is only trying you through her pain, and perhaps not angry\nwith her in anywise, but deeply angry with you, and all the more for your\nthanksgivings?  Would it not be well that you should think, and earnestly\ntoo, over this standing of yours; and all the more if you wish to believe\nthat text, which clergymen so much dislike preaching on, \u201cHow hardly\nshall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God\u201d?  You do not\nbelieve it now, or you would be less complacent in your state; and you\ncannot believe it at all, until you know that the Kingdom of God\nmeans,\u2014\u201cnot meat and drink, but justice, peace, and joy in the Holy\nGhost,\u201d nor until you know also that such joy is not by any means,\nnecessarily, in going to church, or in singing hymns; but may be joy in a\ndance, or joy in a jest, or joy in anything you have deserved to possess,\nor that you are willing to give; but joy in nothing that separates you,\nas by any strange favour, from your fellow-creatures, that exalts you\nthrough their degradation\u2014exempts you from their toil\u2014or indulges you in\ntime of their distress.\n\nThink, then, and some day, I believe, you will feel also,\u2014no morbid\npassion of pity such as would turn you into a black Sister of Charity,\nbut the steady fire of perpetual kindness which will make you a bright\none.  I speak in no disparagement of them; I know well how good the\nSisters of Charity are, and how much we owe to them; but all these\nprofessional pieties (except so far as distinction or association may be\nnecessary for effectiveness of work) are in their spirit wrong, and in\npractice merely plaster the sores of disease that ought never to have\nbeen permitted to exist; encouraging at the same time the herd of less\nexcellent women in frivolity, by leading them to think that they must\neither be good up to the black standard, or cannot be good for anything.\nWear a costume, by all means, if you like; but let it be a cheerful and\nbecoming one; and be in your heart a Sister of Charity always, without\neither veiled or voluble declaration of it.\n\nAs I pause, before ending my preface\u2014thinking of one or two more points\nthat are difficult to write of\u2014I find a letter in \u2018The Times,\u2019 from a\nFrench lady, which says all I want so beautifully, that I will print it\njust as it stands:\u2014\n\n    SIR,\u2014It is often said that one example is worth many sermons.  Shall\n    I be judged presumptuous if I point out one, which seems to me so\n    striking just now, that, however painful, I cannot help dwelling upon\n    it?\n\n    It is the share, the sad and large share, that French society and its\n    recent habits of luxury, of expenses, of dress, of indulgence in\n    every kind of extravagant dissipation, has to lay to its own door in\n    its actual crisis of ruin, misery, and humiliation.  If our\n    _m\u00e9nag\u00e8res_ can be cited as an example to English housewives, so,\n    alas! can other classes of our society be set up as an example\u2014_not_\n    to be followed.\n\n    Bitter must be the feelings of many a French woman whose days of\n    luxury and expensive habits are at an end, and whose bills of bygone\n    splendour lie with a heavy weight on her conscience, if not on her\n    purse!\n\n    With us the evil has spread high and low.  Everywhere have the\n    examples given by the highest ladies in the land been followed but\n    too successfully.\n\n    Every year did dress become more extravagant, entertainments more\n    costly, expenses of every kind more considerable.  Lower and lower\n    became the tone of society, its good breeding, its delicacy.  More\n    and more were _monde_ and _demi-monde_ associated in newspaper\n    accounts of fashionable doings, in scandalous gossip, on racecourses,\n    in _premi\u00e8res repr\u00e9sentations_, in imitation of each other\u2019s\n    costumes, _mobiliers_ and slang.\n\n    Living beyond one\u2019s means became habitual\u2014almost necessary\u2014for every\n    one to keep up with, if not to go beyond, every one else.\n\n    What the result of all this has been we now see in the wreck of our\n    prosperity, in the downfall of all that seemed brightest and highest.\n\n    Deeply and fearfully impressed by what my own country has incurred\n    and is suffering, I cannot help feeling sorrowful when I see in\n    England signs of our besetting sins appearing also.  Paint and\n    chignons, slang and vaudevilles, knowing \u201cAnonymas\u201d by name, and\n    reading doubtfully moral novels, are in themselves small offences,\n    although not many years ago they would have appeared very heinous\n    ones, yet they are quick and tempting conveyances on a very dangerous\n    high-road.\n\n    I would that all Englishwomen knew how they are looked up to from\n    abroad\u2014what a high opinion, what honour and reverence we foreigners\n    have for their principles, their truthfulness, the fresh and pure\n    innocence of their daughters, the healthy youthfulness of their\n    lovely children.\n\n    May I illustrate this by a short example which happened very near me?\n    During the days of the _\u00e9meutes_ of 1848, all the houses in Paris\n    were being searched for firearms by the mob.  The one I was living in\n    contained none, as the master of the house repeatedly assured the\n    furious and incredulous Republicans.  They were going to lay violent\n    hands on him when his wife, an English lady, hearing the loud\n    discussion, came bravely forward and assured them that no arms were\n    concealed.  \u201cVous \u00eates anglaise, nous vous croyons; les anglaises\n    disent toujours la v\u00e9rit\u00e9,\u201d was the immediate answer, and the rioters\n    quietly left.\n\n    Now, Sir, shall I be accused of unjustified criticism if, loving and\n    admiring your country, as these lines will prove, certain new\n    features strike me as painful discrepancies in English life?\n\n    Far be it from me to preach the contempt of all that can make life\n    lovable and wholesomely pleasant.  I love nothing better than to see\n    a woman nice, neat, elegant, looking her best in the prettiest dress\n    that her taste and purse can afford, or your bright, fresh young\n    girls fearlessly and perfectly sitting their horses, or adorning\n    their houses as pretty [sic; it is not quite grammar, but it is\n    better than if it were;] as care, trouble, and refinement can make\n    them.\n\n    It is the degree _beyond_ that which to us has proved so fatal, and\n    that I would our example could warn you from as a small repayment for\n    your hospitality and friendliness to us in our days of trouble.\n\n    May Englishwomen accept this in a kindly spirit as a New-year\u2019s wish\n    from\n\n                                                            A FRENCH LADY.\n\n    _Dec._ 29.\n\nThat, then, is the substance of what I would fain say convincingly, if it\nmight be, to my girl friends; at all events with certainty in my own mind\nthat I was thus far a safe guide to them.\n\nFor other and older readers it is needful I should write a few words\nmore, respecting what opportunity I have had to judge, or right I have to\nspeak, of such things; for, indeed, too much of what I have said about\nwomen has been said in faith only.  A wise and lovely English lady told\nme, when \u2018Sesame and Lilies\u2019 first appeared, that she was sure the\n\u2018Sesame\u2019 would be useful, but that in the \u2018Lilies\u2019 I had been writing of\nwhat I knew nothing about.  Which was in a measure too true, and also\nthat it is more partial than my writings are usually: for as Ellesmere\nspoke his speech on the \u2014 intervention, not, indeed, otherwise than he\nfelt, but yet altogether for the sake of Gretchen, so I wrote the\n\u2018Lilies\u2019 to please one girl; and were it not for what I remember of her,\nand of few besides, should now perhaps recast some of the sentences in\nthe \u2018Lilies\u2019 in a very different tone: for as years have gone by, it has\nchanced to me, untowardly in some respects, fortunately in others\n(because it enables me to read history more clearly), to see the utmost\nevil that is in women, while I have had but to believe the utmost good.\nThe best women are indeed necessarily the most difficult to know; they\nare recognized chiefly in the happiness of their husbands and the\nnobleness of their children; they are only to be divined, not discerned,\nby the stranger; and, sometimes, seem almost helpless except in their\nhomes; yet without the help of one of them, {4} to whom this book is\ndedicated, the day would probably have come before now, when I should\nhave written and thought no more.\n\nOn the other hand, the fashion of the time renders whatever is forward,\ncoarse, or senseless, in feminine nature, too palpable to all men:\u2014the\nweak picturesqueness of my earlier writings brought me acquainted with\nmuch of their emptiest enthusiasm; and the chances of later life gave me\nopportunities of watching women in states of degradation and\nvindictiveness which opened to me the gloomiest secrets of Greek and\nSyrian tragedy.  I have seen them betray their household charities to\nlust, their pledged love to devotion; I have seen mothers dutiful to\ntheir children, as Medea; and children dutiful to their parents, as the\ndaughter of Herodias: but my trust is still unmoved in the preciousness\nof the natures that are so fatal in their error, and I leave the words of\nthe \u2018Lilies\u2019 unchanged; believing, yet, that no man ever lived a right\nlife who had not been chastened by a woman\u2019s love, strengthened by her\ncourage, and guided by her discretion.\n\nWhat I might myself have been, so helped, I rarely indulge in the\nidleness of thinking; but what I am, since I take on me the function of a\nteacher, it is well that the reader should know, as far as I can tell\nhim.\n\nNot an unjust person; not an unkind one; not a false one; a lover of\norder, labour, and peace.  That, it seems to me, is enough to give me\nright to say all I care to say on ethical subjects; more, I could only\ntell definitely through details of autobiography such as none but\nprosperous and (in the simple sense of the word) faultless lives could\njustify;\u2014and mine has been neither.  Yet, if any one, skilled in reading\nthe torn manuscripts of the human soul, cares for more intimate knowledge\nof me, he may have it by knowing with what persons in past history I have\nmost sympathy.\n\nI will name three.\n\nIn all that is strongest and deepest in me,\u2014that fits me for my work, and\ngives light or shadow to my being, I have sympathy with Guido Guinicelli.\n\nIn my constant natural temper, and thoughts of things and of people, with\nMarmontel.\n\nIn my enforced and accidental temper, and thoughts of things and of\npeople, with Dean Swift.\n\nAny one who can understand the natures of those three men, can understand\nmine; and having said so much, I am content to leave both life and work\nto be remembered or forgotten, as their uses may deserve.\n\nDENMARK HILL,\n            1_st_ _January_, 1871.\n\n\n\n\nLecture I.\nSesame.\nOf King\u2019s Treasuries\n\n\n    \u201cYou shall each have a cake of sesame,\u2014and ten pound.\u201d\n\n                                                  LUCIAN: _The Fisherman_.\n\nMY first duty this evening is to ask your pardon for the ambiguity of\ntitle under which the subject of lecture has been announced: for indeed I\nam not going to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of treasuries,\nunderstood to contain wealth; but of quite another order of royalty, and\nanother material of riches, than those usually acknowledged.  I had even\nintended to ask your attention for a little while on trust, and (as\nsometimes one contrives, in taking a friend to see a favourite piece of\nscenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, with such imperfect cunning\nas I might, until we unexpectedly reached the best point of view by\nwinding paths.  But\u2014and as also I have heard it said, by men practised in\npublic address, that hearers are never so much fatigued as by the\nendeavour to follow a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose,\u2014I\nwill take the slight mask off at once, and tell you plainly that I want\nto speak to you about the treasures hidden in books; and about the way we\nfind them, and the way we lose them.  A grave subject, you will say; and\na wide one!  Yes; so wide that I shall make no effort to touch the\ncompass of it.  I will try only to bring before you a few simple thoughts\nabout reading, which press themselves upon me every day more deeply, as I\nwatch the course of the public mind with respect to our daily enlarging\nmeans of education; and the answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of\nthe irrigation of literature.\n\nIt happens that I have practically some connexion with schools for\ndifferent classes of youth; and I receive many letters from parents\nrespecting the education of their children.  In the mass of these letters\nI am always struck by the precedence which the idea of a \u201cposition in\nlife\u201d takes above all other thoughts in the parents\u2019\u2014more especially in\nthe mothers\u2019\u2014minds.  \u201cThe education befitting such and such a _station in\nlife_\u201d\u2014this is the phrase, this the object, always.  They never seek, as\nfar as I can make out, an education good in itself; even the conception\nof abstract rightness in training rarely seems reached by the writers.\nBut, an education \u201cwhich shall keep a good coat on my son\u2019s back;\u2014which\nshall enable him to ring with confidence the visitors\u2019 bell at\ndouble-belled doors; which shall result ultimately in establishment of a\ndouble-belled door to his own house;\u2014in a word, which shall lead to\nadvancement in life;\u2014_this_ we pray for on bent knees\u2014and this is _all_\nwe pray for.\u201d  It never seems to occur to the parents that there may be\nan education which, in itself, _is_ advancement in Life;\u2014that any other\nthan that may perhaps be advancement in Death; and that this essential\neducation might be more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they\nset about it in the right way; while it is for no price, and by no\nfavour, to be got, if they set about it in the wrong.\n\nIndeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective in the mind of this\nbusiest of countries, I suppose the first\u2014at least that which is\nconfessed with the greatest frankness, and put forward as the fittest\nstimulus to youthful exertion\u2014is this of \u201cAdvancement in life.\u201d  May I\nask you to consider with me, what this idea practically includes, and\nwhat it should include?\n\nPractically, then, at present, \u201cadvancement in life\u201d means, becoming\nconspicuous in life; obtaining a position which shall be acknowledged by\nothers to be respectable or honourable.  We do not understand by this\nadvancement, in general, the mere making of money, but the being known to\nhave made it; not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen\nto have accomplished it.  In a word, we mean the gratification of our\nthirst for applause.  That thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds,\nis also the first infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the\nstrongest impulsive influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts\nof the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its\ngreatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.\n\nI am not about to attack or defend this impulse.  I want you only to feel\nhow it lies at the root of effort; especially of all modern effort.  It\nis the gratification of vanity which is, with us, the stimulus of toil\nand balm of repose; so closely does it touch the very springs of life\nthat the wounding of our vanity is always spoken of (and truly) as in its\nmeasure _mortal_; we call it \u201cmortification,\u201d using the same expression\nwhich we should apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt.  And\nalthough a few of us may be physicians enough to recognise the various\neffect of this passion upon health and energy, I believe most honest men\nknow, and would at once acknowledge, its leading power with them as a\nmotive.  The seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only\nbecause he knows he can manage the ship better than any other sailor on\nboard.  He wants to be made captain that he may be _called_ captain.  The\nclergyman does not usually want to be made a bishop only because he\nbelieves that no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the diocese\nthrough its difficulties.  He wants to be made bishop primarily that he\nmay be called \u201cMy Lord.\u201d  And a prince does not usually desire to\nenlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom, because he believes no one else\ncan as well serve the State, upon its throne; but, briefly, because he\nwishes to be addressed as \u201cYour Majesty,\u201d by as many lips as may be\nbrought to such utterance.\n\nThis, then, being the main idea of \u201cadvancement in life,\u201d the force of it\napplies, for all of us, according to our station, particularly to that\nsecondary result of such advancement which we call \u201cgetting into good\nsociety.\u201d  We want to get into good society, not that we may have it, but\nthat we may be seen in it; and our notion of its goodness depends\nprimarily on its conspicuousness.\n\nWill you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I fear you may\nthink an impertinent question?  I never can go on with an address unless\nI feel, or know, that my audience are either with me or against me: I do\nnot much care which, in beginning; but I must know where they are; and I\nwould fain find out, at this instant, whether you think I am putting the\nmotives of popular action too low.  I am resolved, to-night, to state\nthem low enough to be admitted as probable; for whenever, in my writings\non Political Economy, I assume that a little honesty, or generosity,\u2014or\nwhat used to be called \u201cvirtue,\u201d\u2014may be calculated upon as a human motive\nof action, people always answer me, saying, \u201cYou must not calculate on\nthat: that is not in human nature: you must not assume anything to be\ncommon to men but acquisitiveness and jealousy; no other feeling ever has\ninfluence on them, except accidentally, and in matters out of the way of\nbusiness.\u201d  I begin, accordingly, to-night low in the scale of motives;\nbut I must know if you think me right in doing so.  Therefore, let me ask\nthose who admit the love of praise to be usually the strongest motive in\nmen\u2019s minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any\nkind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands.\n(About a dozen hands held up\u2014the audience, partly, not being sure the\nlecturer is serious, and, partly, shy of expressing opinion.)  I am quite\nserious\u2014I really do want to know what you think; however, I can judge by\nputting the reverse question.  Will those who think that duty is\ngenerally the first, and love of praise the second, motive, hold up their\nhands?  (One hand reported to have been held up behind the lecturer.)\nVery good: I see you are with me, and that you think I have not begun too\nnear the ground.  Now, without teasing you by putting farther question, I\nventure to assume that you will admit duty as at least a secondary or\ntertiary motive.  You think that the desire of doing something useful, or\nobtaining some real good, is indeed an existent collateral idea, though a\nsecondary one, in most men\u2019s desire of advancement.  You will grant that\nmoderately honest men desire place and office, at least in some measure\nfor the sake of beneficent power; and would wish to associate rather with\nsensible and well-informed persons than with fools and ignorant persons,\nwhether they are seen in the company of the sensible ones or not.  And\nfinally, without being troubled by repetition of any common truisms about\nthe preciousness of friends, and the influence of companions, you will\nadmit, doubtless, that according to the sincerity of our desire that our\nfriends may be true, and our companions wise,\u2014and in proportion to the\nearnestness and discretion with which we choose both,\u2014will be the general\nchances of our happiness and usefulness.\n\nBut, granting that we had both the will and the sense to choose our\nfriends well, how few of us have the power! or, at least, how limited,\nfor most, is the sphere of choice!  Nearly all our associations are\ndetermined by chance or necessity; and restricted within a narrow circle.\nWe cannot know whom we would; and those whom we know, we cannot have at\nour side when we most need them.  All the higher circles of human\nintelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and partially open.\nWe may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a great poet, and hear the\nsound of his voice; or put a question to a man of science, and be\nanswered good-humouredly.  We may intrude ten minutes\u2019 talk on a cabinet\nminister, answered probably with words worse than silence, being\ndeceptive; or snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of\nthrowing a bouquet in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind\nglance of a queen.  And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend\nour years, and passions, and powers, in pursuit of little more than\nthese; while, meantime, there is a society continually open to us, of\npeople who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or\noccupation;\u2014talk to us in the best words they can choose, and of the\nthings nearest their hearts.  And this society, because it is so numerous\nand so gentle, and can be kept waiting round us all day long,\u2014kings and\nstatesmen lingering patiently, not to grant audience, but to gain it!\u2014in\nthose plainly furnished and narrow ante-rooms, our bookcase shelves,\u2014we\nmake no account of that company,\u2014perhaps never listen to a word they\nwould say, all day long!\n\nYou may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, that the apathy\nwith which we regard this company of the noble, who are praying us to\nlisten to them; and the passion with which we pursue the company,\nprobably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have nothing to teach us,\nare grounded in this,\u2014that we can see the faces of the living men, and it\nis themselves, and not their sayings, with which we desire to become\nfamiliar.  But it is not so.  Suppose you never were to see their\nfaces;\u2014suppose you could be put behind a screen in the statesman\u2019s\ncabinet, or the prince\u2019s chamber, would you not be glad to listen to\ntheir words, though you were forbidden to advance beyond the screen?  And\nwhen the screen is only a little less, folded in two instead of four, and\nyou can be hidden behind the cover of the two boards that bind a book,\nand listen all day long, not to the casual talk, but to the studied,\ndetermined, chosen addresses of the wisest of men;\u2014this station of\naudience, and honourable privy council, you despise!\n\nBut perhaps you will say that it is because the living people talk of\nthings that are passing, and are of immediate interest to you, that you\ndesire to hear them.  Nay; that cannot be so, for the living people will\nthemselves tell you about passing matters much better in their writings\nthan in their careless talk.  Yet I admit that this motive does influence\nyou, so far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeral writings to slow and\nenduring writings\u2014books, properly so called.  For all books are divisible\ninto two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.  Mark\nthis distinction\u2014it is not one of quality only.  It is not merely the bad\nbook that does not last, and the good one that does.  It is a distinction\nof species.  There are good books for the hour, and good ones for all\ntime; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time.  I must define\nthe two kinds before I go farther.\n\nThe good book of the hour, then,\u2014I do not speak of the bad ones,\u2014is\nsimply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot\notherwise converse with, printed for you.  Very useful often, telling you\nwhat you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend\u2019s\npresent talk would be.  These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured\nand witty discussions of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in\nthe form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the\nevents of passing history;\u2014all these books of the hour, multiplying among\nus as education becomes more general, are a peculiar possession of the\npresent age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely\nashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them.  But we make the\nworst possible use if we allow them to usurp the place of true books:\nfor, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or\nnewspapers in good print.  Our friend\u2019s letter may be delightful, or\nnecessary, to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered.\nThe newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it\nis not reading for all day.  So, though bound up in a volume, the long\nletter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and\nweather, last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing\nstory, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events,\nhowever valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense\nof the word, a \u201cbook\u201d at all, nor, in the real sense, to be \u201cread.\u201d  A\nbook is essentially not a talking thing, but a written thing; and\nwritten, not with a view of mere communication, but of permanence.  The\nbook of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands\nof people at once; if he could, he would\u2014the volume is mere\n_multiplication_ of his voice.  You cannot talk to your friend in India;\nif you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere _conveyance_ of\nvoice.  But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to\ncarry it merely, but to perpetuate it.  The author has something to say\nwhich he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful.  So far\nas he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can\nsay it.  He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may;\nclearly at all events.  In the sum of his life he finds this to be the\nthing, or group of things, manifest to him;\u2014this, the piece of true\nknowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted\nhim to seize.  He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if\nhe could; saying, \u201cThis is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and\ndrank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the\nvapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine,\nis worth your memory.\u201d  That is his \u201cwriting;\u201d it is, in his small human\nway, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his\ninscription, or scripture.  That is a \u201cBook.\u201d\n\nPerhaps you think no books were ever so written?\n\nBut, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, or at all in\nkindness, or do you think there is never any honesty or benevolence in\nwise people?  None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to think that.  Well,\nwhatever bit of a wise man\u2019s work is honestly and benevolently done, that\nbit is his book or his piece of art. {5}  It is mixed always with evil\nfragments\u2014ill-done, redundant, affected work.  But if you read rightly,\nyou will easily discover the true bits, and those _are_ the book.\n\nNow books of this kind have been written in all ages by their greatest\nmen:\u2014by great readers, great statesmen, and great thinkers.  These are\nall at your choice; and Life is short.  You have heard as much\nbefore;\u2014yet have you measured and mapped out this short life and its\npossibilities?  Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read\nthat\u2014that what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow?  Will you go\nand gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk\nwith queens and kings; or flatter yourself that it is with any worthy\nconsciousness of your own claims to respect, that you jostle with the\nhungry and common crowd for _entree_ here, and audience there, when all\nthe while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, wide as\nthe world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of\nevery place and time?  Into that you may enter always; in that you may\ntake fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered\ninto it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by your\naristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be\nassuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high\nplace in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and\nsincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this\ncompany of the Dead.\n\n\u201cThe place you desire,\u201d and the place you _fit yourself for_, I must also\nsay; because, observe, this court of the past differs from all living\naristocracy in this:\u2014it is open to labour and to merit, but to nothing\nelse.  No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, the\nguardian of those Elysian gates.  In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar\nperson ever enters there.  At the porti\u00e8res of that silent Faubourg St.\nGermain, there is but brief question:\u2014\u201cDo you deserve to enter?  Pass.\nDo you ask to be the companion of nobles?  Make yourself noble, and you\nshall be.  Do you long for the conversation of the wise?  Learn to\nunderstand it, and you shall hear it.  But on other terms?\u2014no.  If you\nwill not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you.  The living lord may assume\ncourtesy, the living philosopher explain his thought to you with\nconsiderate pain; but here we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise\nto the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share\nour feelings, if you would recognise our presence.\u201d\n\nThis, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much.  You\nmust, in a word, love these people, if you are to be among them.  No\nambition is of any use.  They scorn your ambition.  You must love them,\nand show your love in these two following ways.\n\n(1)  First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into\ntheir thoughts.  To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own\nexpressed by them.  If the person who wrote the book is not wiser than\nyou, you need not read it; if he be, he will think differently from you\nin many respects.\n\n(2)  Very ready we are to say of a book, \u201cHow good this is\u2014that\u2019s exactly\nwhat I think!\u201d  But the right feeling is, \u201cHow strange that is!  I never\nthought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not now, I\nhope I shall, some day.\u201d  But whether thus submissively or not, at least\nbe sure that you go to the author to get at _his_ meaning, not to find\nyours.  Judge it afterwards if you think yourself qualified to do so; but\nascertain it first.  And be sure, also, if the author is worth anything,\nthat you will not get at his meaning all at once;\u2014nay, that at his whole\nmeaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise.  Not that he\ndoes not say what he means, and in strong words too; but he cannot say it\nall; and what is more strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in\nparables, in order that he may be sure you want it.  I cannot quite see\nthe reason of this, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the breasts of\nwise men which makes them always hide their deeper thought.  They do not\ngive it you by way of help, but of reward; and will make themselves sure\nthat you deserve it before they allow you to reach it.  But it is the\nsame with the physical type of wisdom, gold.  There seems, to you and me,\nno reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry whatever\nthere is of gold within it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings\nand people might know that all the gold they could get was there; and\nwithout any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or waste of time,\ncut it away, and coin as much as they needed.  But Nature does not manage\nit so.  She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where:\nyou may dig long and find none; you must dig painfully to find any.\n\nAnd it is just the same with men\u2019s best wisdom.  When you come to a good\nbook, you must ask yourself, \u201cAm I inclined to work as an Australian\nminer would?  Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good\ntrim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, and my\ntemper?\u201d  And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at cost of\ntiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in\nsearch of being the author\u2019s mind or meaning, his words are as the rock\nwhich you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it.  And your\npickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your smelting furnace is\nyour own thoughtful soul.  Do not hope to get at any good author\u2019s\nmeaning without those tools and that fire; often you will need sharpest,\nfinest chiselling, and patientest fusing, before you can gather one grain\nof the metal.\n\nAnd, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I\n_know_ I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking\nintensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by\nsyllable\u2014nay, letter by letter.  For though it is only by reason of the\nopposition of letters in the function of signs, to sounds in the function\nof signs, that the study of books is called \u201cliterature,\u201d and that a man\nversed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters\ninstead of a man of books, or of words, you may yet connect with that\naccidental nomenclature this real fact:\u2014that you might read all the books\nin the British Museum (if you could live long enough), and remain an\nutterly \u201cilliterate,\u201d uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages\nof a good book, letter by letter,\u2014that is to say, with real accuracy,\u2014you\nare for evermore in some measure an educated person.  The entire\ndifference between education and non-education (as regards the merely\nintellectual part of it), consists in this accuracy.  A well-educated\ngentleman may not know many languages,\u2014may not be able to speak any but\nhis own,\u2014may have read very few books.  But whatever language he knows,\nhe knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly;\nabove all, he is learned in the _peerage_ of words; knows the words of\ntrue descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern\ncanaille; remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant\nrelationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices\nthey held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any\ncountry.  But an uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages,\nand talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any,\u2014not a word even\nof his own.  An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to\nmake his way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of\nany language to be known for an illiterate person: so also the accent, or\nturn of expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar.\nAnd this is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by educated\npersons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the\nparliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree\nof inferior standing for ever.\n\nAnd this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on is not\ngreater, and required to a serious purpose.  It is right that a false\nLatin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons; but it is\nwrong that a false English _meaning_ should _not_ excite a frown there.\nLet the accent of words be watched; and closely: let their meaning be\nwatched more closely still, and fewer will do the work.  A few words well\nchosen, and distinguished, will do work that a thousand cannot, when\nevery one is acting, equivocally, in the function of another.  Yes; and\nwords, if they are not watched, will do deadly work sometimes.  There are\nmasked words droning and skulking about us in Europe just now,\u2014(there\nnever were so many, owing to the spread of a shallow, blotching,\nblundering, infectious \u201cinformation,\u201d or rather deformation, everywhere,\nand to the teaching of catechisms and phrases at school instead of human\nmeanings)\u2014there are masked words abroad, I say, which nobody understands,\nbut which everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live for,\nor even die for, fancying they mean this or that, or the other, of things\ndear to them: for such words wear chameleon cloaks\u2014\u201cground-lion\u201d cloaks,\nof the colour of the ground of any man\u2019s fancy: on that ground they lie\nin wait, and rend them with a spring from it.  There never were creatures\nof prey so mischievous, never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so\ndeadly, as these masked words; they are the unjust stewards of all men\u2019s\nideas: whatever fancy or favourite instinct a man most cherishes, he\ngives to his favourite masked word to take care of for him; the word at\nlast comes to have an infinite power over him,\u2014you cannot get at him but\nby its ministry.\n\nAnd in languages so mongrel in breed as the English, there is a fatal\npower of equivocation put into men\u2019s hands, almost whether they will or\nno, in being able to use Greek or Latin words for an idea when they want\nit to be awful; and Saxon or otherwise common words when they want it to\nbe vulgar.  What a singular and salutary effect, for instance, would be\nproduced on the minds of people who are in the habit of taking the Form\nof the \u201cWord\u201d they live by, for the Power of which that Word tells them,\nif we always either retained, or refused, the Greek form \u201cbiblos,\u201d or\n\u201cbiblion,\u201d as the right expression for \u201cbook\u201d\u2014instead of employing it\nonly in the one instance in which we wish to give dignity to the idea,\nand translating it into English everywhere else.  How wholesome it would\nbe for many simple persons if, in such places (for instance) as Acts xix.\n19, we retained the Greek expression, instead of translating it, and they\nhad to read\u2014\u201cMany of them also which used curious arts, brought their\nbibles together, and burnt them before all men; and they counted the\nprice of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver\u201d!  Or if, on\nthe other hand, we translated where we retain it, and always spoke of\n\u201cThe Holy Book,\u201d instead of \u201cHoly Bible,\u201d it might come into more heads\nthan it does at present, that the Word of God, by which the heavens were,\nof old, and by which they are now kept in store, {6} cannot be made a\npresent of to anybody in morocco binding; nor sown on any wayside by help\neither of steam plough or steam press; but is nevertheless being offered\nto us daily, and by us with contumely refused; and sown in us daily, and\nby us, as instantly as may be, choked.\n\nSo, again, consider what effect has been produced on the English vulgar\nmind by the use of the sonorous Latin form \u201cdamno,\u201d in translating the\nGreek _\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9_, when people charitably wish to make it forcible; and\nthe substitution of the temperate \u201ccondemn\u201d for it, when they choose to\nkeep it gentle; and what notable sermons have been preached by illiterate\nclergymen on\u2014\u201cHe that believeth not shall be damned;\u201d though they would\nshrink with horror from translating Heb. xi. 7, \u201cThe saving of his house,\nby which he damned the world,\u201d or John viii. 10\u201311, \u201cWoman, hath no man\ndamned thee?  She saith, No man, Lord.  Jesus answered her, Neither do I\ndamn thee: go and sin no more.\u201d  And divisions in the mind of Europe,\nwhich have cost seas of blood, and in the defence of which the noblest\nsouls of men have been cast away in frantic desolation, countless as\nforest-leaves\u2014though, in the heart of them, founded on deeper causes\u2014have\nnevertheless been rendered practically possible, mainly, by the European\nadoption of the Greek word for a public meeting, \u201cecclesia,\u201d to give\npeculiar respectability to such meetings, when held for religious\npurposes; and other collateral equivocations, such as the vulgar English\none of using the word \u201cPriest\u201d as a contraction for \u201cpresbyter.\u201d\n\nNow, in order to deal with words rightly, this is the habit you must\nform.  Nearly every word in your language has been first a word of some\nother language\u2014of Saxon, German, French, Latin, or Greek; (not to speak\nof eastern and primitive dialects).  And many words have been all\nthese\u2014that is to say, have been Greek first, Latin next, French or German\nnext, and English last: undergoing a certain change of sense and use on\nthe lips of each nation; but retaining a deep vital meaning, which all\ngood scholars feel in employing them, even at this day.  If you do not\nknow the Greek alphabet, learn it; young or old\u2014girl or boy\u2014whoever you\nmay be, if you think of reading seriously (which, of course, implies that\nyou have some leisure at command), learn your Greek alphabet; then get\ngood dictionaries of all these languages, and whenever you are in doubt\nabout a word, hunt it down patiently.  Read Max M\u00fcller\u2019s lectures\nthoroughly, to begin with; and, after that, never let a word escape you\nthat looks suspicious.  It is severe work; but you will find it, even at\nfirst, interesting, and at last endlessly amusing.  And the general gain\nto your character, in power and precision, will be quite incalculable.\n\nMind, this does not imply knowing, or trying to know, Greek or Latin, or\nFrench.  It takes a whole life to learn any language perfectly.  But you\ncan easily ascertain the meanings through which the English word has\npassed; and those which in a good writer\u2019s work it must still bear.\n\nAnd now, merely for example\u2019s sake, I will, with your permission, read a\nfew lines of a true book with you, carefully; and see what will come out\nof them.  I will take a book perfectly known to you all.  No English\nwords are more familiar to us, yet few perhaps have been read with less\nsincerity.  I will take these few following lines of Lycidas:\u2014\n\n    \u201cLast came, and last did go,\n    The pilot of the Galilean lake.\n    Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,\n    (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,)\n    He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,\n    \u2018How well could I have spared for thee, young swain,\n    Enow of such as for their bellies\u2019 sake\n    Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold!\n    Of other care they little reckoning make,\n    Than how to scramble at the shearers\u2019 feast,\n    And shove away the worthy bidden guest;\n    Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold\n    A sheep-hook, or have learn\u2019d aught else, the least\n    That to the faithful herdman\u2019s art belongs!\n    What recks it them?  What need they?  They are sped;\n    And when they list, their lean and flashy songs\n    Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;\n    The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,\n    But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,\n    Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;\n    Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw\n    Daily devours apace, and nothing said.\u2019\u201d\n\nLet us think over this passage, and examine its words.\n\nFirst, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to St. Peter, not only\nhis full episcopal function, but the very types of it which Protestants\nusually refuse most passionately?  His \u201cmitred\u201d locks!  Milton was no\nBishop-lover; how comes St. Peter to be \u201cmitred\u201d?  \u201cTwo massy keys he\nbore.\u201d  Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed by the Bishops of\nRome? and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetical licence,\nfor the sake of its picturesqueness, that he may get the gleam of the\ngolden keys to help his effect?\n\nDo not think it.  Great men do not play stage tricks with the doctrines\nof life and death: only little men do that.  Milton means what he says;\nand means it with his might too\u2014is going to put the whole strength of his\nspirit presently into the saying of it.  For though not a lover of false\nbishops, he _was_ a lover of true ones; and the Lake-pilot is here, in\nhis thoughts, the type and head of true episcopal power.  For Milton\nreads that text, \u201cI will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of\nheaven,\u201d quite honestly.  Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out\nof the book because there have been bad bishops; nay, in order to\nunderstand _him_, we must understand that verse first; it will not do to\neye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if it were a weapon of\nan adverse sect.  It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply to be kept\nin mind by all sects.  But perhaps we shall be better able to reason on\nit if we go on a little farther, and come back to it.  For clearly this\nmarked insistence on the power of the true episcopate is to make us feel\nmore weightily what is to be charged against the false claimants of\nepiscopate; or generally, against false claimants of power and rank in\nthe body of the clergy; they who, \u201cfor their bellies\u2019 sake, creep, and\nintrude, and climb into the fold.\u201d\n\nNever think Milton uses those three words to fill up his verse, as a\nloose writer would.  He needs all the three;\u2014especially those three, and\nno more than those\u2014\u201ccreep,\u201d and \u201cintrude,\u201d and \u201cclimb;\u201d no other words\nwould or could serve the turn, and no more could be added.  For they\nexhaustively comprehend the three classes, correspondent to the three\ncharacters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power.  First,\nthose who \u201c_creep_\u201d into the fold; who do not care for office, nor name,\nbut for secret influence, and do all things occultly and cunningly,\nconsenting to any servility of office or conduct, so only that they may\nintimately discern, and unawares direct, the minds of men.  Then those\nwho \u201cintrude\u201d (thrust, that is) themselves into the fold, who by natural\ninsolence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly\nperseverant self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common\ncrowd.  Lastly, those who \u201cclimb,\u201d who, by labour and learning, both\nstout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own\nambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become \u201clords over the\nheritage,\u201d though not \u201censamples to the flock.\u201d\n\nNow go on:\u2014\n\n    \u201cOf other care they little reckoning make,\n    Than how to scramble at the shearers\u2019 feast.\n    _Blind mouths_\u2014\u201d\n\nI pause again, for this is a strange expression; a broken metaphor, one\nmight think, careless and unscholarly.\n\nNot so: its very audacity and pithiness are intended to make us look\nclose at the phrase and remember it.  Those two monosyllables express the\nprecisely accurate contraries of right character, in the two great\noffices of the Church\u2014those of bishop and pastor.\n\nA \u201cBishop\u201d means \u201ca person who sees.\u201d\n\nA \u201cPastor\u201d means \u201ca person who feeds.\u201d\n\nThe most unbishoply character a man can have is therefore to be Blind.\n\nThe most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be fed,\u2014to be a\nMouth.\n\nTake the two reverses together, and you have \u201cblind mouths.\u201d  We may\nadvisably follow out this idea a little.  Nearly all the evils in the\nChurch have arisen from bishops desiring _power_ more than _light_.  They\nwant authority, not outlook.  Whereas their real office is not to rule;\nthough it may be vigorously to exhort and rebuke: it is the king\u2019s office\nto rule; the bishop\u2019s office is to _oversee_ the flock; to number it,\nsheep by sheep; to be ready always to give full account of it.  Now it is\nclear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has not so much as\nnumbered the bodies, of his flock.  The first thing, therefore, that a\nbishop has to do is at least to put himself in a position in which, at\nany moment, he can obtain the history, from childhood, of every living\nsoul in his diocese, and of its present state.  Down in that back street,\nBill, and Nancy, knocking each other\u2019s teeth out!\u2014Does the bishop know\nall about it?  Has he his eye upon them?  Has he _had_ his eye upon them?\nCan he circumstantially explain to us how Bill got into the habit of\nbeating Nancy about the head?  If he cannot, he is no bishop, though he\nhad a mitre as high as Salisbury steeple; he is no bishop,\u2014he has sought\nto be at the helm instead of the masthead; he has no sight of things.\n\u201cNay,\u201d you say, \u201cit is not his duty to look after Bill in the back\nstreet.\u201d  What! the fat sheep that have full fleeces\u2014you think it is only\nthose he should look after while (go back to your Milton) \u201cthe hungry\nsheep look up, and are not fed, besides what the grim wolf, with privy\npaw\u201d (bishops knowing nothing about it), \u201cdaily devours apace, and\nnothing said\u201d?\n\n\u201cBut that\u2019s not our idea of a bishop.\u201d {7} Perhaps not; but it was St.\nPaul\u2019s; and it was Milton\u2019s.  They may be right, or we may be; but we\nmust not think we are reading either one or the other by putting our\nmeaning into their words.\n\nI go on.\n\n    \u201cBut swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw.\u201d\n\nThis is to meet the vulgar answer that \u201cif the poor are not looked after\nin their bodies, they are in their souls; they have spiritual food.\u201d\n\nAnd Milton says, \u201cThey have no such thing as spiritual food; they are\nonly swollen with wind.\u201d  At first you may think that is a coarse type,\nand an obscure one.  But again, it is a quite literally accurate one.\nTake up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find out the meaning of\n\u201cSpirit.\u201d  It is only a contraction of the Latin word \u201cbreath,\u201d and an\nindistinct translation of the Greek word for \u201cwind.\u201d  The same word is\nused in writing, \u201cThe wind bloweth where it listeth;\u201d and in writing, \u201cSo\nis every one that is born of the Spirit;\u201d born of the _breath_, that is;\nfor it means the breath of God, in soul and body.  We have the true sense\nof it in our words \u201cinspiration\u201d and \u201cexpire.\u201d  Now, there are two kinds\nof breath with which the flock may be filled,\u2014God\u2019s breath, and man\u2019s.\nThe breath of God is health, and life, and peace to them, as the air of\nheaven is to the flocks on the hills; but man\u2019s breath\u2014the word which\n_he_ calls spiritual,\u2014is disease and contagion to them, as the fog of the\nfen.  They rot inwardly with it; they are puffed up by it, as a dead body\nby the vapours of its own decomposition.  This is literally true of all\nfalse religious teaching; the first and last, and fatalest sign of it, is\nthat \u201cpuffing up.\u201d  Your converted children, who teach their parents;\nyour converted convicts, who teach honest men; your converted dunces,\nwho, having lived in cretinous stupefaction half their lives, suddenly\nawaking to the fact of there being a God, fancy themselves therefore His\npeculiar people and messengers; your sectarians of every species, small\nand great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, in so far as\nthey think themselves exclusively in the right and others wrong; and,\npre-eminently, in every sect, those who hold that men can be saved by\nthinking rightly instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, and\nwish instead of work;\u2014these are the true fog children\u2014clouds, these,\nwithout water; bodies, these, of putrescent vapour and skin, without\nblood or flesh: blown bag-pipes for the fiends to pipe with\u2014corrupt, and\ncorrupting,\u2014\u201c Swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw.\u201d\n\nLastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power of the keys, for\nnow we can understand them.  Note the difference between Milton and Dante\nin their interpretation of this power: for once, the latter is weaker in\nthought; he supposes _both_ the keys to be of the gate of heaven; one is\nof gold, the other of silver: they are given by St. Peter to the sentinel\nangel; and it is not easy to determine the meaning either of the\nsubstances of the three steps of the gate, or of the two keys.  But\nMilton makes one, of gold, the key of heaven; the other, of iron, the key\nof the prison in which the wicked teachers are to be bound who \u201chave\ntaken away the key of knowledge, yet entered not in themselves.\u201d\n\nWe have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to see, and feed;\nand of all who do so it is said, \u201cHe that watereth, shall be watered also\nhimself.\u201d  But the reverse is truth also.  He that watereth not, shall be\n_withered_ himself; and he that seeth not, shall himself be shut out of\nsight\u2014shut into the perpetual prison-house.  And that prison opens here,\nas well as hereafter: he who is to be bound in heaven must first be bound\non earth.  That command to the strong angels, of which the rock-apostle\nis the image, \u201cTake him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him out,\u201d\nissues, in its measure, against the teacher, for every help withheld, and\nfor every truth refused, and for every falsehood enforced; so that he is\nmore strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast as he\nmore and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close upon\nhim, and as \u201cthe golden opes, the iron shuts amain.\u201d\n\nWe have got something out of the lines, I think, and much more is yet to\nbe found in them; but we have done enough by way of example of the kind\nof word-by-word examination of your author which is rightly called\n\u201creading;\u201d watching every accent and expression, and putting ourselves\nalways in the author\u2019s place, annihilating our own personality, and\nseeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly to say, \u201cThus\nMilton thought,\u201d not \u201cThus _I_ thought, in misreading Milton.\u201d  And by\nthis process you will gradually come to attach less weight to your own\n\u201cThus I thought\u201d at other times.  You will begin to perceive that what\n_you_ thought was a matter of no serious importance;\u2014that your thoughts\non any subject are not perhaps the clearest and wisest that could be\narrived at thereupon:\u2014in fact, that unless you are a very singular\nperson, you cannot be said to have any \u201cthoughts\u201d at all; that you have\nno materials for them, in any serious matters; {8}\u2014no right to \u201cthink,\u201d\nbut only to try to learn more of the facts.  Nay, most probably all your\nlife (unless, as I said, you are a singular person) you will have no\nlegitimate right to an \u201copinion\u201d on any business, except that instantly\nunder your hand.  What must of necessity be done, you can always find\nout, beyond question, how to do.  Have you a house to keep in order, a\ncommodity to sell, a field to plough, a ditch to cleanse?  There need be\nno two opinions about these proceedings; it is at your peril if you have\nnot much more than an \u201copinion\u201d on the way to manage such matters.  And\nalso, outside of your own business, there are one or two subjects on\nwhich you are bound to have but one opinion.  That roguery and lying are\nobjectionable, and are instantly to be flogged out of the way whenever\ndiscovered;\u2014that covetousness and love of quarrelling are dangerous\ndispositions even in children, and deadly dispositions in men and\nnations;\u2014that, in the end, the God of heaven and earth loves active,\nmodest, and kind people, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel\nones;\u2014on these general facts you are bound to have but one, and that a\nvery strong, opinion.  For the rest, respecting religions, governments,\nsciences, arts, you will find that, on the whole, you can know\nNOTHING,\u2014judge nothing; that the best you can do, even though you may be\na well-educated person, is to be silent, and strive to be wiser every\nday, and to understand a little more of the thoughts of others, which so\nsoon as you try to do honestly, you will discover that the thoughts even\nof the wisest are very little more than pertinent questions.  To put the\ndifficulty into a clear shape, and exhibit to you the grounds for\n_in_decision, that is all they can generally do for you!\u2014and well for\nthem and for us, if indeed they are able \u201cto mix the music with our\nthoughts and sadden us with heavenly doubts.\u201d  This writer, from whom I\nhave been reading to you, is not among the first or wisest: he sees\nshrewdly as far as he sees, and therefore it is easy to find out its full\nmeaning; but with the greater men, you cannot fathom their meaning; they\ndo not even wholly measure it themselves,\u2014it is so wide.  Suppose I had\nasked you, for instance, to seek for Shakespeare\u2019s opinion, instead of\nMilton\u2019s on this matter of Church authority?\u2014or for Dante\u2019s?  Have any of\nyou, at this instant, the least idea what either thought about it?  Have\nyou ever balanced the scene with the bishops in \u2018Richard III.\u2019 against\nthe character of Cranmer? the description of St. Francis and St. Dominic\nagainst that of him who made Virgil wonder to gaze upon him,\u2014\u201cdisteso,\ntanto vilmente, nell\u2019 eterno esilio;\u201d or of him whom Dante stood beside,\n\u201ccome \u2019l frate che confessa lo perfido assassin?\u201d {9}  Shakespeare and\nAlighieri knew men better than most of us, I presume!  They were both in\nthe midst of the main struggle between the temporal and spiritual powers.\nThey had an opinion, we may guess.  But where is it?  Bring it into\ncourt!  Put Shakespeare\u2019s or Dante\u2019s creed into articles, and send _it_\nup for trial by the Ecclesiastical Courts!\n\nYou will not be able, I tell you again, for many and many a day, to come\nat the real purposes and teaching of these great men; but a very little\nhonest study of them will enable you to perceive that what you took for\nyour own \u201cjudgment\u201d was mere chance prejudice, and drifted, helpless,\nentangled weed of castaway thought; nay, you will see that most men\u2019s\nminds are indeed little better than rough heath wilderness, neglected and\nstubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown with pestilent brakes, and\nvenomous, wind-sown herbage of evil surmise; that the first thing you\nhave to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire\nto _this_; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash-heaps, and then plough\nand sow.  All the true literary work before you, for life, must begin\nwith obedience to that order, \u201cBreak up your fallow ground, and _sow not\namong thorns_.\u201d\n\nII.  {10} Having then faithfully listened to the great teachers, that you\nmay enter into their Thoughts, you have yet this higher advance to\nmake;\u2014you have to enter into their Hearts.  As you go to them first for\nclear sight, so you must stay with them, that you may share at last their\njust and mighty Passion.  Passion, or \u201csensation.\u201d  I am not afraid of\nthe word; still less of the thing.  You have heard many outcries against\nsensation lately; but, I can tell you, it is not less sensation we want,\nbut more.  The ennobling difference between one man and another,\u2014between\none animal and another,\u2014is precisely in this, that one feels more than\nanother.  If we were sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily got\nfor us; if we were earth-worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two\nby the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us.  But\nbeing human creatures, _it is_ good for us; nay, we are only human in so\nfar as we are sensitive, and our honour is precisely in proportion to our\npassion.\n\nYou know I said of that great and pure society of the Dead, that it would\nallow \u201cno vain or vulgar person to enter there.\u201d  What do you think I\nmeant by a \u201cvulgar\u201d person?  What do you yourselves mean by \u201cvulgarity\u201d?\nYou will find it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence\nof all vulgarity lies in want of sensation.  Simple and innocent\nvulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped bluntness of body and\nmind; but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a dreadful callousness,\nwhich, in extremity, becomes capable of every sort of bestial habit and\ncrime, without fear, without pleasure, without horror, and without pity.\nIt is in the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the\nhardened conscience, that men become vulgar; they are for ever vulgar,\nprecisely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy,\u2014of quick\nunderstanding,\u2014of all that, in deep insistence on the common, but most\naccurate term, may be called the \u201ctact\u201d or \u201ctouch-faculty,\u201d of body and\nsoul: that tact which the Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has\nabove all creatures;\u2014fineness and fulness of sensation, beyond\nreason;\u2014the guide and sanctifier of reason itself.  Reason can but\ndetermine what is true:\u2014it is the God-given passion of humanity which\nalone can recognise what God has made good.\n\nWe come then to that great concourse of the Dead, not merely to know from\nthem what is True, but chiefly to feel with them what is just.  Now, to\nfeel with them, we must be like them; and none of us can become that\nwithout pains.  As the true knowledge is disciplined and tested\nknowledge,\u2014not the first thought that comes, so the true passion is\ndisciplined and tested passion,\u2014not the first passion that comes.  The\nfirst that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous; if you yield to\nthem they will lead you wildly and far, in vain pursuit, in hollow\nenthusiasm, till you have no true purpose and no true passion left.  Not\nthat any feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only wrong\nwhen undisciplined.  Its nobility is in its force and justice; it is\nwrong when it is weak, and felt for paltry cause.  There is a mean\nwonder, as of a child who sees a juggler tossing golden balls; and this\nis base, if you will.  But do you think that the wonder is ignoble, or\nthe sensation less, with which every human soul is called to watch the\ngolden balls of heaven tossed through the night by the Hand that made\nthem?  There is a mean curiosity, as of a child opening a forbidden door,\nor a servant prying into her master\u2019s business;\u2014and a noble curiosity,\nquestioning, in the front of danger, the source of the great river beyond\nthe sand,\u2014the place of the great continents beyond the sea;\u2014a nobler\ncuriosity still, which questions of the source of the River of Life, and\nof the space of the Continent of Heaven,\u2014things which \u201cthe angels desire\nto look into.\u201d  So the anxiety is ignoble, with which you linger over the\ncourse and catastrophe of an idle tale; but do you think the anxiety is\nless, or greater, with which you watch, or _ought_ to watch, the dealings\nof fate and destiny with the life of an agonized nation?  Alas! it is the\nnarrowness, selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation that you have to\ndeplore in England at this day;\u2014sensation which spends itself in bouquets\nand speeches: in revellings and junketings; in sham fights and gay puppet\nshows, while you can look on and see noble nations murdered, man by man,\nwithout an effort or a tear.\n\nI said \u201cminuteness\u201d and \u201cselfishness\u201d of sensation, but it would have\nbeen enough to have said \u201cinjustice\u201d or \u201cunrighteousness\u201d of sensation.\nFor as in nothing is a gentleman better to be discerned from a vulgar\nperson, so in nothing is a gentle nation (such nations have been) better\nto be discerned from a mob, than in this,\u2014that their feelings are\nconstant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal thought.\nYou can talk a mob into anything; its feelings may be\u2014usually are\u2014on the\nwhole, generous and right; but it has no foundation for them, no hold of\nthem; you may tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure; it thinks by\ninfection, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and there\nis nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, when the\nfit is on;\u2014nothing so great but it will forget in an hour, when the fit\nis past.  But a gentleman\u2019s, or a gentle nation\u2019s, passions are just,\nmeasured, and continuous.  A great nation, for instance, does not spend\nits entire national wits for a couple of months in weighing evidence of a\nsingle ruffian\u2019s having done a single murder; and for a couple of years\nsee its own children murder each other by their thousands or tens of\nthousands a day, considering only what the effect is likely to be on the\nprice of cotton, and caring no wise to determine which side of battle is\nin the wrong.  Neither does a great nation send its poor little boys to\njail for stealing six walnuts; and allow its bankrupts to steal their\nhundreds of thousands with a bow, and its bankers, rich with poor men\u2019s\nsavings, to close their doors \u201cunder circumstances over which they have\nno control,\u201d with a \u201cby your leave;\u201d and large landed estates to be\nbought by men who have made their money by going with armed steamers up\nand down the China Seas, selling opium at the cannon\u2019s mouth, and\naltering, for the benefit of the foreign nation, the common highwayman\u2019s\ndemand of \u201cyour money _or_ your life,\u201d into that of \u201cyour money _and_\nyour life.\u201d  Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its innocent\npoor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted out of them by\ndunghill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life extra per week to its\nlandlords; {11} and then debate, with drivelling tears, and diabolical\nsympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish,\nthe lives of its murderers.  Also, a great nation having made up its mind\nthat hanging is quite the wholesomest process for its homicides in\ngeneral, can yet with mercy distinguish between the degrees of guilt in\nhomicides; and does not yelp like a pack of frost-pinched wolf-cubs on\nthe blood-track of an unhappy crazed boy, or grey-haired clodpate\nOthello, \u201cperplexed i\u2019 the extreme,\u201d at the very moment that it is\nsending a Minister of the Crown to make polite speeches to a man who is\nbayoneting young girls in their fathers\u2019 sight, and killing noble youths\nin cool blood, faster than a country butcher kills lambs in spring.  And,\nlastly, a great nation does not mock Heaven and its Powers, by pretending\nbelief in a revelation which asserts the love of money to be the root of\n_all_ evil, and declaring, at the same time, that it is actuated, and\nintends to be actuated, in all chief national deeds and measures, by no\nother love. {12}\n\nMy friends, I do not know why any of us should talk about reading.  We\nwant some sharper discipline than that of reading; but, at all events, be\nassured, we cannot read.  No reading is possible for a people with its\nmind in this state.  No sentence of any great writer is intelligible to\nthem.  It is simply and sternly impossible for the English public, at\nthis moment, to understand any thoughtful writing,\u2014so incapable of\nthought has it become in its insanity of avarice.  Happily, our disease\nis, as yet, little worse than this incapacity of thought; it is not\ncorruption of the inner nature; we ring true still, when anything strikes\nhome to us; and though the idea that everything should \u201cpay\u201d has infected\nour every purpose so deeply, that even when we would play the good\nSamaritan, we never take out our two pence and give them to the host,\nwithout saying, \u201cWhen I come again, thou shalt give me fourpence,\u201d there\nis a capacity of noble passion left in our hearts\u2019 core.  We show it in\nour work\u2014in our war,\u2014even in those unjust domestic affections which make\nus furious at a small private wrong, while we are polite to a boundless\npublic one: we are still industrious to the last hour of the day, though\nwe add the gambler\u2019s fury to the labourer\u2019s patience; we are still brave\nto the death, though incapable of discerning true cause for battle; and\nare still true in affection to our own flesh, to the death, as the\nsea-monsters are, and the rock-eagles.  And there is hope for a nation\nwhile this can be still said of it.  As long as it holds its life in its\nhand, ready to give it for its honour (though a foolish honour), for its\nlove (though a selfish love), and for its business (though a base\nbusiness), there is hope for it.  But hope only; for this instinctive,\nreckless virtue cannot last.  No nation can last, which has made a mob of\nitself, however generous at heart.  It must discipline its passions, and\ndirect them, or they will discipline it, one day, with scorpion whips.\nAbove all, a nation cannot last as a money-making mob: it cannot with\nimpunity,\u2014it cannot with existence,\u2014go on despising literature, despising\nscience, despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and\nconcentrating its soul on Pence.  Do you think these are harsh or wild\nwords?  Have patience with me but a little longer.  I will prove their\ntruth to you, clause by clause.\n\n(I.)  I say first we have despised literature.  What do we, as a nation,\ncare about books?  How much do you think we spend altogether on our\nlibraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our\nhorses?  If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad\u2014a\nbibliomaniac.  But you never call any one a horsemaniac, though men ruin\nthemselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people\nruining themselves by their books.  Or, to go lower still, how much do\nyou think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public\nand private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its\nwine-cellars?  What position would its expenditure on literature take, as\ncompared with its expenditure on luxurious eating?  We talk of food for\nthe mind, as of food for the body: now a good book contains such food\ninexhaustibly; it is a provision for life, and for the best part of us;\nyet how long most people would look at the best book before they would\ngive the price of a large turbot for it?  Though there have been men who\nhave pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose\nlibraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men\u2019s\ndinners are.  We are few of us put to such trial, and more the pity; for,\nindeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been\nwon by work or economy; and if public libraries were half so costly as\npublic dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even\nfoolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading,\nas well as in munching and sparkling: whereas the very cheapness of\nliterature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth\nreading, it is worth buying.  No book is worth anything which is not\nworth _much_; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read,\nand loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the\npassages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an\narmoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store.  Bread\nof flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it,\nin a good book; and the family must be poor indeed, which, once in their\nlives, cannot, for, such multipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker\u2019s\nbill.  We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish\nenough to thumb each other\u2019s books out of circulating libraries!\n\n(II.)  I say we have despised science.  \u201cWhat!\u201d you exclaim, \u201care we not\nforemost in all discovery, {13} and is not the whole world giddy by\nreason, or unreason, of our inventions?\u201d  Yes; but do you suppose that is\nnational work?  That work is all done _in spite of_ the nation; by\nprivate people\u2019s zeal and money.  We are glad enough, indeed, to make our\nprofit of science; we snap up anything in the way of a scientific bone\nthat has meat on it, eagerly enough; but if the scientific man comes for\na bone or a crust to _us_, that is another story.  What have we publicly\ndone for science?  We are obliged to know what o\u2019clock it is, for the\nsafety of our ships, and therefore we pay for an observatory; and we\nallow ourselves, in the person of our Parliament, to be annually\ntormented into doing something, in a slovenly way, for the British\nMuseum; sullenly apprehending that to be a place for keeping stuffed\nbirds in, to amuse our children.  If anybody will pay for their own\ntelescope, and resolve another nebula, we cackle over the discernment as\nif it were our own; if one in ten thousand of our hunting squires\nsuddenly perceives that the earth was indeed made to be something else\nthan a portion for foxes, and burrows in it himself, and tells us where\nthe gold is, and where the coals, we understand that there is some use in\nthat; and very properly knight him: but is the accident of his having\nfound out how to employ himself usefully any credit to _us_?  (The\nnegation of such discovery among his brother squires may perhaps be some\ndiscredit to us, if we would consider of it.)  But if you doubt these\ngeneralities, here is one fact for us all to meditate upon, illustrative\nof our love of science.  Two years ago there was a collection of the\nfossils of Solenhofen to be sold in Bavaria; the best in existence,\ncontaining many specimens unique for perfectness, and one unique as an\nexample of a species (a whole kingdom of unknown living creatures being\nannounced by that fossil).  This collection, of which the mere market\nworth, among private buyers, would probably have been some thousand or\ntwelve hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven\nhundred: but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole series would\nhave been in the Munich Museum at this moment, if Professor Owen {14} had\nnot, with loss of his own time, and patient tormenting of the British\npublic in person of its representatives, got leave to give four hundred\npounds at once, and himself become answerable for the other three! which\nthe said public will doubtless pay him eventually, but sulkily, and\ncaring nothing about the matter all the while; only always ready to\ncackle if any credit comes of it.  Consider, I beg of you,\narithmetically, what this fact means.  Your annual expenditure for public\npurposes, (a third of it for military apparatus,) is at least 50\nmillions.  Now 700_l._ is to 50,000,000_l._ roughly, as seven pence to\ntwo thousand pounds.  Suppose, then, a gentleman of unknown income, but\nwhose wealth was to be conjectured from the fact that he spent two\nthousand a year on his park-walls and footmen only, professes himself\nfond of science; and that one of his servants comes eagerly to tell him\nthat an unique collection of fossils, giving clue to a new era of\ncreation, is to be had for the sum of seven pence sterling; and that the\ngentleman who is fond of science, and spends two thousand a year on his\npark, answers, after keeping his servant waiting several months, \u201cWell!\nI\u2019ll give you fourpence for them, if you will be answerable for the extra\nthreepence yourself, till next year!\u201d\n\n(III.)  I say you have despised Art!  \u201cWhat!\u201d you again answer, \u201chave we\nnot Art exhibitions, miles long? and do we not pay thousands of pounds\nfor single pictures? and have we not Art schools and institutions,\u2014more\nthan ever nation had before?\u201d  Yes, truly, but all that is for the sake\nof the shop.  You would fain sell canvas as well as coals, and crockery\nas well as iron; you would take every other nation\u2019s bread out of its\nmouth if you could; {15} not being able to do that, your ideal of life is\nto stand in the thoroughfares of the world, like Ludgate apprentices,\nscreaming to every passer-by, \u201cWhat d\u2019ye lack?\u201d  You know nothing of your\nown faculties or circumstances; you fancy that, among your damp, flat,\nfat fields of clay, you can have as quick art-fancy as the Frenchman\namong his bronzed vines, or the Italian under his volcanic cliffs;\u2014that\nArt may be learned, as book-keeping is, and when learned, will give you\nmore books to keep.  You care for pictures, absolutely, no more than you\ndo for the bills pasted on your dead walls.  There is always room on the\nwalls for the bills to be read,\u2014never for the pictures to be seen.  You\ndo not know what pictures you have (by repute) in the country, nor\nwhether they are false or true, nor whether they are taken care of or\nnot; in foreign countries, you calmly see the noblest existing pictures\nin the world rotting in abandoned wreck\u2014(in Venice you saw the Austrian\nguns deliberately pointed at the palaces containing them), and if you\nheard that all the fine pictures in Europe were made into sand-bags\nto-morrow on the Austrian forts, it would not trouble you so much as the\nchance of a brace or two of game less in your own bags, in a day\u2019s\nshooting.  That is your national love of Art.\n\n(IV.)  You have despised Nature; that is to say, all the deep and sacred\nsensations of natural scenery.  The French revolutionists made stables of\nthe cathedrals of France; you have made race-courses of the cathedrals of\nthe earth.  Your _one_ conception of pleasure is to drive in railroad\ncarriages round their aisles, and eat off their altars. {16} You have put\na railroad-bridge over the falls of Schaffhausen.  You have tunnelled the\ncliffs of Lucerne by Tell\u2019s chapel; you have destroyed the Clarens shore\nof the Lake of Geneva; there is not a quiet valley in England that you\nhave not filled with bellowing fire; there is no particle left of English\nland which you have not trampled coal ashes into {17}\u2014nor any foreign\ncity in which the spread of your presence is not marked among its fair\nold streets and happy gardens by a consuming white leprosy of new hotels\nand perfumers\u2019 shops: the Alps themselves, which your own poets used to\nlove so reverently, you look upon as soaped poles in a bear-garden, which\nyou set yourselves to climb and slide down again, with \u201cshrieks of\ndelight.\u201d  When you are past shrieking, having no human articulate voice\nto say you are glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys with\ngunpowder blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit,\nand voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction.  I think\nnearly the two sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity,\ntaking the deep inner significance of them, are the English mobs in the\nvalley of Chamouni, amusing themselves with firing rusty howitzers; and\nthe Swiss vintagers of Zurich expressing their Christian thanks for the\ngift of the vine, by assembling in knots in the \u201ctowers of the\nvineyards,\u201d and slowly loading and firing horse-pistols from morning till\nevening.  It is pitiful, to have dim conceptions of duty; more pitiful,\nit seems to me, to have conceptions like these, of mirth.\n\nLastly.  You despise compassion.  There is no need of words of mine for\nproof of this.  I will merely print one of the newspaper paragraphs which\nI am in the habit of cutting out and throwing into my store-drawer; here\nis one from a \u2018Daily Telegraph\u2019 of an early date this year (1867); (date\nwhich, though by me carelessly left unmarked, is easily discoverable; for\non the back of the slip there is the announcement that \u201cyesterday the\nseventh of the special services of this year was performed by the Bishop\nof Ripon in St. Paul\u2019s\u201d;) it relates only one of such facts as happen now\ndaily; this by chance having taken a form in which it came before the\ncoroner.  I will print the paragraph in red.  Be sure, the facts\nthemselves are written in that colour, in a book which we shall all _of_\nus, literate or illiterate, have to read our page of, some day.\n\n    An inquiry was held on Friday by Mr. Richards, deputy coroner, at the\n    White Horse Tavern, Christ Church, Spitalfields, respecting the death\n    of Michael Collins, aged 58 years.  Mary Collins, a miserable-looking\n    woman, said that she lived with the deceased and his son in a room at\n    2, Cobb\u2019s Court, Christ Church.  Deceased was a \u201ctranslator\u201d of\n    boots.  Witness went out and bought old boots; deceased and his son\n    made them into good ones, and then witness sold them for what she\n    could get at the shops, which was very little indeed.  Deceased and\n    his son used to work night and day to try and get a little bread and\n    tea, and pay for the room (2_s._ a week), so as to keep the home\n    together.  On Friday-night-week deceased got up from his bench and\n    began to shiver.  He threw down the boots, saying, \u201cSomebody else\n    must finish them when I am gone, for I can do no more.\u201d  There was no\n    fire, and he said, \u201cI would be better if I was warm.\u201d  Witness\n    therefore took two pairs of translated boots {18} to sell at the\n    shop, but she could only get 14_d._ for the two pairs, for the people\n    at the shop said, \u201cWe must have our profit.\u201d  Witness got 14lb. of\n    coal, and a little tea and bread.  Her son sat up the whole night to\n    make the \u201ctranslations,\u201d to get money, but deceased died on Saturday\n    morning.  The family never had enough to eat.\u2014Coroner: \u201cIt seems to\n    me deplorable that you did not go into the workhouse.\u201d  Witness: \u201cWe\n    wanted the comforts of our little home.\u201d  A juror asked what the\n    comforts were, for he only saw a little straw in the corner of the\n    room, the windows of which were broken.  The witness began to cry,\n    and said that they had a quilt and other little things.  The deceased\n    said he never would go into the workhouse.  In summer, when the\n    season was good, they sometimes made as much as 10_s._ profit in the\n    week.  They then always saved towards the next week, which was\n    generally a bad one.  In winter they made not half so much.  For\n    three years they had been getting from bad to worse.\u2014Cornelius\n    Collins said that he had assisted his father since 1847.  They used\n    to work so far into the night that both nearly lost their eyesight.\n    Witness now had a film over his eyes.  Five years ago deceased\n    applied to the parish for aid.  The relieving officer gave him a 4lb.\n    loaf, and told him if he came again he should \u201cget the stones.\u201d {19}\n    That disgusted deceased, and he would have nothing to do with them\n    since.  They got worse and worse until last Friday week, when they\n    had not even a half-penny to buy a candle.  Deceased then lay down on\n    the straw, and said he could not live till morning.\u2014A juror: \u201cYou are\n    dying of starvation yourself, and you ought to go into the house\n    until the summer.\u201d\u2014Witness: \u201cIf we went in we should die.  When we\n    come out in the summer we should be like people dropped from the sky.\n    No one would know us, and we would not have even a room.  I could\n    work now if I had food, for my sight would get better.\u201d  Dr. G. P.\n    Walker said deceased died from syncope, from exhaustion from want of\n    food.  The deceased had had no bedclothes.  For four months he had\n    had nothing but bread to eat.  There was not a particle of fat in the\n    body.  There was no disease, but, if there had been medical\n    attendance, he might have survived the syncope or fainting.  The\n    Coroner having remarked upon the painful nature of the case, the jury\n    returned the following verdict: \u201cThat deceased died from exhaustion\n    from want of food and the common necessaries of life; also through\n    want of medical aid.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy would witness not go into the workhouse?\u201d you ask.  Well, the poor\nseem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the rich have not;\nfor of course everyone who takes a pension from Government goes into the\nworkhouse on a grand scale: {20} only the workhouses for the rich do not\ninvolve the idea of work, and should be called play-houses.  But the poor\nlike to die independently, it appears; perhaps if we made the play-houses\nfor them pretty and pleasant enough, or gave them their pensions at home,\nand allowed them a little introductory peculation with the public money,\ntheir minds might be reconciled to the conditions.  Meantime, here are\nthe facts: we make our relief either so insulting to them, or so painful,\nthat they rather die than take it at our hands; or, for third\nalternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish that they starve like\nbrute creatures, wild and dumb, not knowing what to do, or what to ask.\nI say, you despise compassion; if you did not, such a newspaper paragraph\nwould be as impossible in a Christian country as a deliberate\nassassination permitted in its public streets. {21}  \u201cChristian,\u201d did I\nsay?  Alas! if we were but wholesomely _un_-Christian, it would be\nimpossible: it is our imaginary Christianity that helps us to commit\nthese crimes, for we revel and luxuriate in our faith, for the lewd\nsensation of it; dressing _it_ up, like everything else, in fiction.  The\ndramatic Christianity of the organ and aisle, of dawn-service and\ntwilight-revival\u2014the Christianity, which we do not fear to mix the\nmockery of, pictorially, with our play about the devil, in our\nSatanellas,\u2014Roberts,\u2014Fausts; chanting hymns through traceried windows for\nbackground effect, and artistically modulating the \u201cDio\u201d through\nvariation on variation of mimicked prayer: (while we distribute tracts,\nnext day, for the benefit of uncultivated swearers, upon what we suppose\nto be the signification of the Third Commandment;\u2014) this gas-lighted, and\ngas-inspired Christianity, we are triumphant in, and draw back the hem of\nour robes from the touch of the heretics who dispute it.  But to do a\npiece of common Christian righteousness in a plain English word or deed;\nto make Christian law any rule of life, and found one National act or\nhope thereon,\u2014we know too well what our faith comes to for that!  You\nmight sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or\npassion out of your modern English religion.  You had better get rid of\nthe smoke, and the organ pipes, both: leave them, and the Gothic windows,\nand the painted glass, to the property man; give up your carburetted\nhydrogen ghost in one healthy expiration, and look after Lazarus at the\ndoorstep.  For there is a true Church wherever one hand meets another\nhelpfully, and that is the only holy or Mother Church which ever was, or\never shall be.\n\nAll these pleasures then, and all these virtues, I repeat, you nationally\ndespise.  You have, indeed, men among you who do not; by whose work, by\nwhose strength, by whose life, by whose death, you live, and never thank\nthem.  Your wealth, your amusement, your pride, would all be alike\nimpossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget.  The policeman, who\nis walking up and down the black lane all night to watch the guilt you\nhave created there; and may have his brains beaten out, and be maimed for\nlife, at any moment, and never be thanked; the sailor wrestling with the\nsea\u2019s rage; the quiet student poring over his book or his vial; the\ncommon worker, without praise, and nearly without bread, fulfilling his\ntask as your horses drag your carts, hopeless, and spurned of all: these\nare the men by whom England lives; but they are not the nation; they are\nonly the body and nervous force of it, acting still from old habit in a\nconvulsive perseverance, while the mind is gone.  Our National wish and\npurpose are only to be amused; our National religion is the performance\nof church ceremonies, and preaching of soporific truth (or untruths) to\nkeep the mob quietly at work, while we amuse ourselves; and the necessity\nfor this amusement is fastening on us, as a feverous disease of parched\nthroat and wandering eyes\u2014senseless, dissolute, merciless.  How literally\nthat word _Dis_-Ease, the Negation and impossibility of Ease, expresses\nthe entire moral state of our English Industry and its Amusements!\n\nWhen men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work,\nas the colour-petals out of a fruitful flower;\u2014when they are faithfully\nhelpful and compassionate, all their emotions become steady, deep,\nperpetual, and vivifying to the soul as the natural pulse to the body.\nBut now, having no true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into\nthe false business of money-making; and having no true emotion, we must\nhave false emotions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, as\nchildren with dolls, but guiltily and darkly, as the idolatrous Jews with\ntheir pictures on cavern walls, which men had to dig to detect.  The\njustice we do not execute, we mimic in the novel and on the stage; for\nthe beauty we destroy in nature, we substitute the metamorphosis of the\npantomime, and (the human nature of us imperatively requiring awe and\nsorrow of _some_ kind) for the noble grief we should have borne with our\nfellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with them, we gloat over\nthe pathos of the police court, and gather the night-dew of the grave.\n\nIt is difficult to estimate the true significance of these things; the\nfacts are frightful enough;\u2014the measure of national fault involved in\nthem is perhaps not as great as it would at first seem.  We permit, or\ncause, thousands of deaths daily, but we mean no harm; we set fire to\nhouses, and ravage peasants\u2019 fields, yet we should be sorry to find we\nhad injured anybody.  We are still kind at heart; still capable of\nvirtue, but only as children are.  Chalmers, at the end of his long life,\nhaving had much power with the public, being plagued in some serious\nmatter by a reference to \u201cpublic opinion,\u201d uttered the impatient\nexclamation, \u201cThe public is just a great baby!\u201d  And the reason that I\nhave allowed all these graver subjects of thought to mix themselves up\nwith an inquiry into methods of reading, is that, the more I see of our\nnational faults or miseries, the more they resolve themselves into\nconditions of childish illiterateness and want of education in the most\nordinary habits of thought.  It is, I repeat, not vice, not selfishness,\nnot dulness of brain, which we have to lament; but an unreachable\nschoolboy\u2019s recklessness, only differing from the true schoolboy\u2019s in its\nincapacity of being helped, because it acknowledges no master.\n\nThere is a curious type of us given in one of the lovely, neglected works\nof the last of our great painters.  It is a drawing of Kirkby Lonsdale\nchurchyard, and of its brook, and valley, and hills, and folded morning\nsky beyond.  And unmindful alike of these, and of the dead who have left\nthese for other valleys and for other skies, a group of schoolboys have\npiled their little books upon a grave, to strike them off with stones.\nSo, also, we play with the words of the dead that would teach us, and\nstrike them far from us with our bitter, reckless will; little thinking\nthat those leaves which the wind scatters had been piled, not only upon a\ngravestone, but upon the seal of an enchanted vault\u2014nay, the gate of a\ngreat city of sleeping kings, who would awake for us and walk with us, if\nwe knew but how to call them by their names.  How often, even if we lift\nthe marble entrance gate, do we but wander among those old kings in their\nrepose, and finger the robes they lie in, and stir the crowns on their\nforeheads; and still they are silent to us, and seem but a dusty imagery;\nbecause we know not the incantation of the heart that would wake\nthem;\u2014which, if they once heard, they would start up to meet us in their\npower of long ago, narrowly to look upon us, and consider us; and, as the\nfallen kings of Hades meet the newly fallen, saying, \u201cArt thou also\nbecome weak as we\u2014art thou also become one of us?\u201d so would these kings,\nwith their undimmed, unshaken diadems, meet us, saying, \u201cArt thou also\nbecome pure and mighty of heart as we\u2014art thou also become one of us?\u201d\n\nMighty of heart, mighty of mind\u2014\u201cmagnanimous\u201d\u2014to be this, is indeed to be\ngreat in life; to become this increasingly, is, indeed, to \u201cadvance in\nlife,\u201d\u2014in life itself\u2014not in the trappings of it.  My friends, do you\nremember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died?  How he\nwas dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried\nabout to his friends\u2019 houses; and each of them placed him at his table\u2019s\nhead, and all feasted in his presence?  Suppose it were offered to you in\nplain words, as it _is_ offered to you in dire facts, that you should\ngain this Scythian honour, gradually, while you yet thought yourself\nalive.  Suppose the offer were this: You shall die slowly; your blood\nshall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only\nas a rusted group of iron valves.  Your life shall fade from you, and\nsink through the earth into the ice of Caina; but, day by day, your body\nshall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, and have more\norders on its breast\u2014crowns on its head, if you will.  Men shall bow\nbefore it, stare and shout round it, crowd after it up and down the\nstreets; build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables\u2019 heads all\nthe night long; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they\ndo, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and the\nfurrow of the crown-edge on the skull;\u2014no more.  Would you take the\noffer, verbally made by the death-angel?  Would the meanest among us take\nit, think you?  Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of\nus, in a measure; many of us grasp at it in its fulness of horror.  Every\nman accepts it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life\nis; who means only that he is to get more horses, and more footmen, and\nmore fortune, and more public honour, and\u2014_not_ more personal soul.  He\nonly is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood\nwarmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into Living {22}\npeace.  And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or\nkings of the earth\u2014they, and they only.  All other kingships, so far as\nthey are true, are only the practical issue and expression of theirs; if\nless than this, they are either dramatic royalties,\u2014costly shows, set\noff, indeed, with real jewels, instead of tinsel\u2014but still only the toys\nof nations; or else they are no royalties at all, but tyrannies, or the\nmere active and practical issue of national folly; for which reason I\nhave said of them elsewhere, \u201cVisible governments are the toys of some\nnations, the diseases of others, the harness of some, the burdens of\nmore.\u201d\n\nBut I have no words for the wonder with which I hear Kinghood still\nspoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if governed nations were a\npersonal property, and might be bought and sold, or otherwise acquired,\nas sheep, of whose flesh their king was to feed, and whose fleece he was\nto gather; as if Achilles\u2019 indignant epithet of base kings,\n\u201cpeople-eating,\u201d were the constant and proper title of all monarchs; and\nthe enlargement of a king\u2019s dominion meant the same thing as the increase\nof a private man\u2019s estate!  Kings who think so, however powerful, can no\nmore be the true kings of the nation than gadflies are the kings of a\nhorse; they suck it, and may drive it wild, but do not guide it.  They,\nand their courts, and their armies are, if one could see clearly, only a\nlarge species of marsh mosquito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious,\nband-mastered trumpeting, in the summer air; the twilight being, perhaps,\nsometimes fairer, but hardly more wholesome, for its glittering mists of\nmidge companies.  The true kings, meanwhile, rule quietly, if at all, and\nhate ruling; too many of them make \u201cil gran rifiuto;\u201d and if they do not,\nthe mob, as soon as they are likely to become useful to it, is pretty\nsure to make _its_ \u201cgran rifiuto\u201d of _them_.\n\nYet the visible king may also be a true one, some day, if ever day comes\nwhen he will estimate his dominion by the _force_ of it,\u2014not the\ngeographical boundaries.  It matters very little whether Trent cuts you a\ncantel out here, or Rhine rounds you a castle less there.  But it does\nmatter to you, king of men, whether you can verily say to this man, \u201cGo,\u201d\nand he goeth; and to another, \u201cCome,\u201d and he cometh.  Whether you can\nturn your people, as you can Trent\u2014and where it is that you bid them\ncome, and where go.  It matters to you, king of men, whether your people\nhate you, and die by you, or love you, and live by you.  You may measure\nyour dominion by multitudes, better than by miles; and count degrees of\nlove-latitude, not from, but to, a wonderfully warm and infinite equator.\n\nMeasure!\u2014nay, you cannot measure.  Who shall measure the difference\nbetween the power of those who \u201cdo and teach,\u201d and who are greatest in\nthe kingdoms of earth, as of heaven\u2014and the power of those who undo, and\nconsume\u2014whose power, at the fullest, is only the power of the moth and\nthe rust?  Strange! to think how the Moth-kings lay up treasures for the\nmoth; and the Rust-kings, who are to their peoples\u2019 strength as rust to\narmour, lay up treasures for the rust; and the Robber-kings, treasures\nfor the robber; but how few kings have ever laid up treasures that needed\nno guarding\u2014treasures of which, the more thieves there were, the better!\nBroidered robe, only to be rent; helm and sword, only to be dimmed; jewel\nand gold, only to be scattered;\u2014there have been three kinds of kings who\nhave gathered these.  Suppose there ever should arise a Fourth order of\nkings, who had read, in some obscure writing of long ago, that there was\na Fourth kind of treasure, which the jewel and gold could not equal,\nneither should it be valued with pure gold.  A web made fair in the\nweaving, by Athena\u2019s shuttle; an armour, forged in divine fire by\nVulcanian force; a gold to be mined in the very sun\u2019s red heart, where he\nsets over the Delphian cliffs;\u2014deep-pictured tissue;\u2014impenetrable\narmour;\u2014potable gold!\u2014the three great Angels of Conduct, Toil, and\nThought, still calling to us, and waiting at the posts of our doors, to\nlead us, with their winged power, and guide us, with their unerring eyes,\nby the path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture\u2019s eye has not\nseen!  Suppose kings should ever arise, who heard and believed this word,\nand at last gathered and brought forth treasures of\u2014Wisdom\u2014for their\npeople?\n\nThink what an amazing business _that_ would be!  How inconceivable, in\nthe state of our present national wisdom!  That we should bring up our\npeasants to a book exercise instead of a bayonet exercise!\u2014organise,\ndrill, maintain with pay, and good generalship, armies of thinkers,\ninstead of armies of stabbers!\u2014find national amusement in reading-rooms\nas well as rifle-grounds; give prizes for a fair shot at a fact, as well\nas for a leaden splash on a target.  What an absurd idea it seems, put\nfairly in words, that the wealth of the capitalists of civilised nations\nshould ever come to support literature instead of war!\n\nHave yet patience with me, while I read you a single sentence out of the\nonly book, properly to be called a book, that I have yet written myself,\nthe one that will stand (if anything stand), surest and longest of all\nwork of mine.\n\n    \u201cIt is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that\n    it is entirely capitalists\u2019 wealth which supports unjust wars.  Just\n    wars do not need so much money to support them; for most of the men\n    who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men\u2019s bodies\n    and souls have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them\n    besides, which make such war costly to the maximum; not to speak of\n    the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which\n    have not grace nor honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an\n    hour\u2019s peace of mind with; as, at present, France and England,\n    purchasing of each other ten millions sterling worth of\n    consternation, annually (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and\n    half aspen leaves, sown, reaped, and granaried by the \u2018science\u2019 of\n    the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of\n    truth).  And, all unjust war being supportable, if not by pillage of\n    the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by\n    subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in the\n    matter, the capitalists\u2019 will being the primary root of the war; but\n    its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it\n    incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about,\n    therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each\n    person.\u201d\n\nFrance and England literally, observe, buy _panic_ of each other; they\npay, each of them, for ten thousand-thousand-pounds\u2019-worth of terror, a\nyear.  Now suppose, instead of buying these ten millions\u2019 worth of panic\nannually, they made up their minds to be at peace with each other, and\nbuy ten millions\u2019 worth of knowledge annually; and that each nation spent\nits ten thousand thousand pounds a year in founding royal libraries,\nroyal art galleries, royal museums, royal gardens, and places of rest.\nMight it not be better somewhat for both French and English?\n\nIt will be long, yet, before that comes to pass.  Nevertheless, I hope it\nwill not be long before royal or national libraries will be founded in\nevery considerable city, with a royal series of books in them; the same\nseries in every one of them, chosen books, the best in every kind,\nprepared for that national series in the most perfect way possible; their\ntext printed all on leaves of equal size, broad of margin, and divided\ninto pleasant volumes, light in the hand, beautiful, and strong, and\nthorough as examples of binders\u2019 work; and that these great libraries\nwill be accessible to all clean and orderly persons at all times of the\nday and evening; strict law being enforced for this cleanliness and\nquietness.\n\nI could shape for you other plans, for art-galleries, and for natural\nhistory galleries, and for many precious\u2014many, it seems to me,\nneedful\u2014things; but this book plan is the easiest and needfullest, and\nwould prove a considerable tonic to what we call our British\nconstitution, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil thirst,\nand evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding.  You have got its corn laws\nrepealed for it; try if you cannot get corn laws established for it,\ndealing in a better bread;\u2014bread made of that old enchanted Arabian\ngrain, the Sesame, which opens doors;\u2014doors not of robbers\u2019, but of\nKings\u2019 Treasuries.\n\n\n\n\nLecture II.\nLilies.\nOf Queens\u2019 Gardens\n\n\n    \u201cBe thou glad, oh thirsting Desert; let the desert be made cheerful,\n    and bloom as the lily; and the barren places of Jordan shall run wild\n    with wood.\u201d\u2014ISAIAH XXXV.  I. (Septuagint.)\n\nIT will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel of one\npreviously given, that I should shortly state to you my general intention\nin both.  The questions specially proposed to you in the first, namely,\nHow and What to Read, rose out of a far deeper one, which it was my\nendeavour to make you propose earnestly to yourselves, namely, _Why_ to\nRead.  I want you to feel, with me, that whatever advantages we possess\nin the present day in the diffusion of education and of literature, can\nonly be rightly used by any of us when we have apprehended clearly what\neducation is to lead to, and literature to teach.  I wish you to see that\nboth well-directed moral training and well-chosen reading lead to the\npossession of a power over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is,\naccording to the measure of it, in the truest sense, _kingly_; conferring\nindeed the purest kingship that can exist among men: too many other\nkingships (however distinguished by visible insignia or material power)\nbeing either spectral, or tyrannous;\u2014spectral\u2014that is to say, aspects and\nshadows only of royalty, hollow as death, and which only the \u201clikeness of\na kingly crown have on:\u201d or else\u2014tyrannous\u2014that is to say, substituting\ntheir own will for the law of justice and love by which all true kings\nrule.\n\nThere is, then, I repeat\u2014and as I want to leave this idea with you, I\nbegin with it, and shall end with it\u2014only one pure kind of kingship; an\ninevitable and eternal kind, crowned or not; the kingship, namely, which\nconsists in a stronger moral state, and a truer thoughtful state, than\nthat of others; enabling you, therefore, to guide, or to raise them.\nObserve that word \u201cState;\u201d we have got into a loose way of using it.  It\nmeans literally the standing and stability of a thing; and you have the\nfull force of it in the derived word \u201cstatue\u201d\u2014\u201cthe immovable thing.\u201d  A\nking\u2019s majesty or \u201cstate,\u201d then, and the right of his kingdom to be\ncalled a state, depends on the movelessness of both:\u2014without tremor,\nwithout quiver of balance; established and enthroned upon a foundation of\neternal law which nothing can alter, nor overthrow.\n\nBelieving that all literature and all education are only useful so far as\nthey tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and _therefore_ kingly,\npower\u2014first, over ourselves, and, through ourselves, over all around\nus,\u2014I am now going to ask you to consider with me farther, what special\nportion or kind of this royal authority, arising out of noble education,\nmay rightly be possessed by women; and how far they also are called to a\ntrue queenly power,\u2014not in their households merely, but over all within\ntheir sphere.  And in what sense, if they rightly understood and\nexercised this royal or gracious influence, the order and beauty induced\nby such benignant power would justify us in speaking of the territories\nover which each of them reigned, as \u201cQueens\u2019 Gardens.\u201d\n\nAnd here, in the very outset, we are met by a far deeper question,\nwhich\u2014strange though this may seem\u2014remains among many of us yet quite\nundecided in spite of its infinite importance.\n\nWe cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we\nare agreed what their ordinary power should be.  We cannot consider how\neducation may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are agreed\nwhat is their true constant duty.  And there never was a time when wilder\nwords were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respecting this\nquestion\u2014quite vital to all social happiness.  The relations of the\nwomanly to the manly nature, their different capacities of intellect or\nof virtue, seem never to have been yet estimated with entire consent.  We\nhear of the \u201cmission\u201d and of the \u201crights\u201d of Woman, as if these could\never be separate from the mission and the rights of Man\u2014as if she and her\nlord were creatures of independent kind, and of irreconcilable claim.\nThis, at least, is wrong.  And not less wrong\u2014perhaps even more foolishly\nwrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove)\u2014is the idea\nthat woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him\na thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her\nweakness by the pre-eminence of his fortitude.\n\nThis, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting her who was\nmade to be the helpmate of man.  As if he could be helped effectively by\na shadow, or worthily by a slave!\n\nLet us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear and harmonious idea\n(it must be harmonious if it is true) of what womanly mind and virtue are\nin power and office, with respect to man\u2019s; and how their relations,\nrightly accepted, aid and increase the vigour and honour and authority of\nboth.\n\nAnd now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture: namely, that\nthe first use of education was to enable us to consult with the wisest\nand the greatest men on all points of earnest difficulty.  That to use\nbooks rightly, was to go to them for help: to appeal to them, when our\nown knowledge and power of thought failed: to be led by them into wider\nsight,\u2014purer conception,\u2014than our own, and receive from them the united\nsentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and\nunstable opinion.\n\nLet us do this now.  Let us see whether the greatest, the wisest, the\npurest-hearted of all ages are agreed in any wise on this point: let us\nhear the testimony they have left respecting what they held to be the\ntrue dignity of woman, and her mode of help to man.\n\nAnd first let us take Shakespeare.\n\nNote broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no heroes;\u2014he has only\nheroines.  There is not one entirely heroic figure in all his plays,\nexcept the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the purposes\nof the stage; and the still slighter Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of\nVerona.  In his laboured and perfect plays you have no hero.  Othello\nwould have been one, if his simplicity had not been so great as to leave\nhim the prey of every base practice round him; but he is the only example\neven approximating to the heroic type.  Coriolanus\u2014C\u00e6sar\u2014Antony stand in\nflawed strength, and fall by their vanities;\u2014Hamlet is indolent, and\ndrowsily speculative; Romeo an impatient boy; the Merchant of Venice\nlanguidly submissive to adverse fortune; Kent, in King Lear, is entirely\nnoble at heart, but too rough and unpolished to be of true use at the\ncritical time, and he sinks into the office of a servant only.  Orlando,\nno less noble, is yet the despairing toy of chance, followed, comforted,\nsaved by Rosalind.  Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a perfect\nwoman in it, steadfast in grave hope, and errorless purpose: Cordelia,\nDesdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogen, Queen Catherine, Perdita, Sylvia,\nViola, Rosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are\nall faultless; conceived in the highest heroic type of humanity.\n\nThen observe, secondly,\n\nThe catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a\nman; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a\nwoman, and, failing that, there is none.  The catastrophe of King Lear is\nowing to his own want of judgment, his impatient vanity, his\nmisunderstanding of his children; the virtue of his one true daughter\nwould have saved him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had\ncast her away from him; as it is, she all but saves him.\n\nOf Othello I need not trace the tale;\u2014nor the one weakness of his so\nmighty love; nor the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that even\nof the second woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild\ntestimony against his error:\u2014\n\n    \u201cOh, murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool\n    Do with so good a wife?\u201d\n\nIn Romeo and Juliet, the wise and brave stratagem of the wife is brought\nto ruinous issue by the reckless impatience of her husband.  In Winter\u2019s\nTale, and in Cymbeline, the happiness and existence of two princely\nhouseholds, lost through long years, and imperilled to the death by the\nfolly and obstinacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last by the queenly\npatience and wisdom of the wives.  In Measure for Measure, the foul\ninjustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice of the brother, are\nopposed to the victorious truth and adamantine purity of a woman.  In\nCoriolanus, the mother\u2019s counsel, acted upon in time, would have saved\nher son from all evil; his momentary forgetfulness of it is his ruin; her\nprayer, at last granted, saves him\u2014not, indeed, from death, but from the\ncurse of living as the destroyer of his country.\n\nAnd what shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a lover\nwho is a mere wicked child?\u2014of Helena, against the petulance and insult\nof a careless youth?\u2014of the patience of Hero, the passion of Beatrice,\nand the calmly devoted wisdom of the \u201cunlessoned girl,\u201d who appears among\nthe helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a\ngentle angel, bringing courage and safety by her presence, and defeating\nthe worst malignities of crime by what women are fancied most to fail\nin,\u2014precision and accuracy of thought.\n\nObserve, further, among all the principal figures in Shakespeare\u2019s plays,\nthere is only one weak woman\u2014Ophelia; and it is because she fails Hamlet\nat the critical moment, and is not, and cannot in her nature be, a guide\nto him when he needs her most, that all the bitter catastrophe follows.\nFinally, though there are three wicked women among the principal\nfigures\u2014Lady Macbeth, Regan, and Goneril\u2014they are felt at once to be\nfrightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of life; fatal in their\ninfluence also, in proportion to the power for good which they have\nabandoned.\n\nSuch, in broad light, is Shakespeare\u2019s testimony to the position and\ncharacter of women in human life.  He represents them as infallibly\nfaithful and wise counsellors,\u2014incorruptibly just and pure\nexamples\u2014strong always to sanctify, even when they cannot save.\n\nNot as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the nature of man,\u2014still\nless in his understanding of the causes and courses of fate,\u2014but only as\nthe writer who has given us the broadest view of the conditions and modes\nof ordinary thought in modern society, I ask you next to receive the\nwitness of Walter Scott.\n\nI put aside his merely romantic prose writings as of no value, and though\nthe early romantic poetry is very beautiful, its testimony is of no\nweight, other than that of a boy\u2019s ideal.  But his true works, studied\nfrom Scottish life, bear a true witness; and in the whole range of these,\nthere are but three men who reach the heroic type {23}\u2014Dandie Dinmont,\nRob Roy, and Claverhouse; of these, one is a border farmer; another a\nfreebooter; the third a soldier in a bad cause.  And these touch the\nideal of heroism only in their courage and faith, together with a strong,\nbut uncultivated, or mistakenly applied, intellectual power; while his\nyounger men are the gentlemanly play-things of fantastic fortune, and\nonly by aid (or accident) of that fortune, survive, not vanquish, the\ntrials they involuntarily sustain.  Of any disciplined, or consistent\ncharacter, earnest in a purpose wisely conceived, or dealing with forms\nof hostile evil, definitely challenged and resolutely subdued, there is\nno trace in his conceptions of young men.  Whereas in his imaginations of\nwomen,\u2014in the characters of Ellen Douglas, of Flora MacIvor, Rose\nBradwardine, Catherine Seyton, Diana Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice\nBridgenorth, Alice Lee, and Jeanie Deans,\u2014with endless varieties of\ngrace, tenderness, and intellectual power, we find in all a quite\ninfallible sense of dignity and justice; a fearless, instant, and\nuntiring self-sacrifice, to even the appearance of duty, much more to its\nreal claims; and, finally, a patient wisdom of deeply-restrained\naffection, which does infinitely more than protect its objects from a\nmomentary error; it gradually forms, animates, and exalts the characters\nof the unworthy lovers, until, at the close of the tale, we are just\nable, and no more, to take patience in hearing of their unmerited\nsuccess.\n\nSo that, in all cases, with Scott as with Shakespeare, it is the woman\nwho watches over, teaches, and guides the youth; it is never, by any\nchance, the youth who watches over, or educates, his mistress.\n\nNext take, though more briefly, graver testimony\u2014that of the great\nItalians and Greeks.  You know well the plan of Dante\u2019s great poem\u2014that\nit is a love-poem to his dead lady; a song of praise for her watch over\nhis soul.  Stooping only to pity, never to love, she yet saves him from\ndestruction\u2014saves him from hell.  He is going eternally astray in\ndespair; she comes down from heaven to his help, and throughout the\nascents of Paradise is his teacher, interpreting for him the most\ndifficult truths, divine and human; and leading him, with rebuke upon\nrebuke, from star to star.\n\nI do not insist upon Dante\u2019s conception; if I began I could not cease:\nbesides, you might think this a wild imagination of one poet\u2019s heart.  So\nI will rather read to you a few verses of the deliberate writing of a\nknight of Pisa to his living lady, wholly characteristic of the feeling\nof all the noblest men of the thirteenth, or early fourteenth, century,\npreserved among many other such records of knightly honour and love,\nwhich Dante Rossetti has gathered for us from among the early Italian\npoets.\n\n             \u201cFor lo! thy law is passed\n    That this my love should manifestly be\n             To serve and honour thee:\n    And so I do; and my delight is full,\n    Accepted for the servant of thy rule.\n\n    \u201cWithout almost, I am all rapturous,\n             Since thus my will was set\n    To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence:\n    Nor ever seems it anything could rouse\n             A pain or a regret.\n    But on thee dwells my every thought and sense;\n    Considering that from thee all virtues spread\n             As from a fountain head,\u2014\n    _That in thy gift is wisdom\u2019s best avail_,\n             _And honour without fail_,\n    With whom each sovereign good dwells separate,\n    Fulfilling the perfection of thy state.\n\n             \u201cLady, since I conceived\n    Thy pleasurable aspect in my heart,\n             _My life has been apart_\n    _In shining brightness and the place of truth_;\n             Which till that time, good sooth,\n    Groped among shadows in a darken\u2019d place,\n             Where many hours and days\n    It hardly ever had remember\u2019d good.\n             But now my servitude\n    Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest.\n             A man from a wild beast\n    Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived.\u201d\n\nYou may think perhaps a Greek knight would have had a lower estimate of\nwomen than this Christian lover.  His spiritual subjection to them was\nindeed not so absolute; but as regards their own personal character, it\nwas only because you could not have followed me so easily, that I did not\ntake the Greek women instead of Shakespeare\u2019s; and instance, for chief\nideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother\u2019s and wife\u2019s\nheart of Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra; the\nplayful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the\nhousewifely calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon the sea; the\never patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister, and\ndaughter, in Antigone; the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and\nsilent; and finally, the expectation of the resurrection, made clear to\nthe soul of the Greeks in the return from her grave of that Alcestis,\nwho, to save her husband, had passed calmly through the bitterness of\ndeath.\n\nNow I could multiply witness upon witness of this kind upon you if I had\ntime.  I would take Chaucer, and show you why he wrote a Legend of Good\nWomen; but no Legend of Good Men.  I would take Spenser, and show you how\nall his fairy knights are sometimes deceived and sometimes vanquished;\nbut the soul of Una is never darkened, and the spear of Britomart is\nnever broken.  Nay, I could go back into the mythical teaching of the\nmost ancient times, and show you how the great people,\u2014by one of whose\nprincesses it was appointed that the Lawgiver of all the earth should be\neducated, rather than by his own kindred;\u2014how that great Egyptian people,\nwisest then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a\nWoman; and into her hand, for a symbol, the weaver\u2019s shuttle; and how the\nname and the form of that spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by the\nGreeks, became that Athena of the olive-helm, and cloudy shield, to faith\nin whom you owe, down to this date, whatever you hold most precious in\nart, in literature, or in types of national virtue.\n\nBut I will not wander into this distant and mythical element; I will only\nask you to give its legitimate value to the testimony of these great\npoets and men of the world,\u2014consistent, as you see it is, on this head.\nI will ask you whether it can be supposed that these men, in the main\nwork of their lives, are amusing themselves with a fictitious and idle\nview of the relations between man and woman;\u2014nay, worse than fictitious\nor idle; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it were\npossible: but this, their ideal of woman, is, according to our common\nidea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable.  The woman, we say, is\nnot to guide, nor even to think for herself.  The man is always to be the\nwiser; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowledge and\ndiscretion, as in power.\n\nIs it not somewhat important to make up our minds on this matter?  Are\nall these great men mistaken, or are we?  Are Shakespeare and \u00c6schylus,\nDante and Homer, merely dressing dolls for us; or, worse than dolls,\nunnatural visions, the realization of which, were it possible, would\nbring anarchy into all households and ruin into all affections?  Nay, if\nyou can suppose this, take lastly the evidence of facts, given by the\nhuman heart itself.  In all Christian ages which have been remarkable for\ntheir purity or progress, there has been absolute yielding of obedient\ndevotion, by the lover, to his mistress.  I say _obedient_;\u2014not merely\nenthusiastic and worshipping in imagination, but entirely subject,\nreceiving from the beloved woman, however young, not only the\nencouragement, the praise, and the reward of all toil, but, so far as any\nchoice is open, or any question difficult of decision, the _direction_ of\nall toil.  That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonour of which are\nattributable primarily whatever is cruel in war, unjust in peace, or\ncorrupt and ignoble in domestic relations; and to the original purity and\npower of which we owe the defence alike of faith, of law, and of love;\nthat chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of honourable life,\nassumes the subjection of the young knight to the command\u2014should it even\nbe the command in caprice\u2014of his lady.  It assumes this, because its\nmasters knew that the first and necessary impulse of every truly taught\nand knightly heart is this of blind service to its lady: that where that\ntrue faith and captivity are not, all wayward and wicked passion must be;\nand that in this rapturous obedience to the single love of his youth, is\nthe sanctification of all man\u2019s strength, and the continuance of all his\npurposes.  And this, not because such obedience would be safe, or\nhonourable, were it ever rendered to the unworthy; but because it ought\nto be impossible for every noble youth\u2014it _is_ impossible for every one\nrightly trained\u2014to love any one whose gentle counsel he cannot trust, or\nwhose prayerful command he can hesitate to obey.\n\nI do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I think it should\ncommend itself at once to your knowledge of what has been and to your\nfeeling of what should be.  You cannot think that the buckling on of the\nknight\u2019s armour by his lady\u2019s hand was a mere caprice of romantic\nfashion.  It is the type of an eternal truth\u2014that the soul\u2019s armour is\nnever well set to the heart unless a woman\u2019s hand has braced it; and it\nis only when she braces it loosely that the honour of manhood fails.\nKnow you not those lovely lines\u2014I would they were learned by all youthful\nladies of England:\u2014\n\n    \u201cAh, wasteful woman!\u2014she who may\n    On her sweet self set her own price,\n    Knowing he cannot choose but pay\u2014\n    How has she cheapen\u2019d Paradise!\n    How given for nought her priceless gift,\n    How spoiled the bread and spill\u2019d the wine,\n    Which, spent with due respective thrift,\n    Had made brutes men, and men divine!\u201d {24}\n\nThus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I believe you will\naccept.  But what we too often doubt is the fitness of the continuance of\nsuch a relation throughout the whole of human life.  We think it right in\nthe lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife.  That is to say, we\nthink that a reverent and tender duty is due to one whose affection we\nstill doubt, and whose character we as yet do but partially and distantly\ndiscern; and that this reverence and duty are to be withdrawn when the\naffection has become wholly and limitlessly our own, and the character\nhas been so sifted and tried that we fear not to entrust it with the\nhappiness of our lives.  Do you not see how ignoble this is, as well as\nhow unreasonable?  Do you not feel that marriage,\u2014when it is marriage at\nall,\u2014is only the seal which marks the vowed transition of temporary into\nuntiring service, and of fitful into eternal love?\n\nBut how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the woman\nreconcilable with a true wifely subjection?  Simply in that it is a\n_guiding_, not a determining, function.  Let me try to show you briefly\nhow these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable.\n\nWe are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the\n\u201csuperiority\u201d of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in\nsimilar things.  Each has what the other has not: each completes the\nother, and is completed by the other: they are in nothing alike, and the\nhappiness and perfection of both depends on each asking and receiving\nfrom the other what the other only can give.\n\nNow their separate characters are briefly these.  The man\u2019s power is\nactive, progressive, defensive.  He is eminently the doer, the creator,\nthe discoverer, the defender.  His intellect is for speculation and\ninvention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever\nwar is just, wherever conquest necessary.  But the woman\u2019s power is for\nrule, not for battle,\u2014and her intellect is not for invention or creation,\nbut for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision.  She sees the\nqualities of things, their claims, and their places.  Her great function\nis Praise; she enters into no contest, but infallibly adjudges the crown\nof contest.  By her office, and place, she is protected from all danger\nand temptation.  The man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter\nall peril and trial;\u2014to him, therefore, must be the failure, the offence,\nthe inevitable error: often he must be wounded, or subdued; often misled;\nand _always_ hardened.  But he guards the woman from all this; within his\nhouse, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no\ndanger, no temptation, no cause of error or offence.  This is the true\nnature of home\u2014it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all\ninjury, but from all terror, doubt, and division.  In so far as it is not\nthis, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate\ninto it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile\nsociety of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross\nthe threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer\nworld which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in.  But so far as it\nis a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over\nby Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they\ncan receive with love,\u2014so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types\nonly of a nobler shade and light,\u2014shade as of the rock in a weary land,\nand light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea;\u2014so far it vindicates the\nname, and fulfils the praise, of Home.\n\nAnd wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her.  The stars\nonly may be over her head; the glowworm in the night-cold grass may be\nthe only fire at her foot; but home is yet wherever she is; and for a\nnoble woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or\npainted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who else\nwere homeless.\n\nThis, then, I believe to be,\u2014will you not admit it to be,\u2014the woman\u2019s\ntrue place and power?  But do not you see that, to fulfil this, she\nmust\u2014as far as one can use such terms of a human creature\u2014be incapable of\nerror?  So far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing is.  She must\nbe enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise\u2014wise,\nnot for self-development, but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she\nmay set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his\nside: wise, not with the narrowness of insolent and loveless pride, but\nwith the passionate gentleness of an infinitely variable, because\ninfinitely applicable, modesty of service\u2014the true changefulness of\nwoman.  In that great sense\u2014\u201cLa donna \u00e8 mobile,\u201d not \u201cQual pi\u00fam\u2019 al\nvento\u201d; no, nor yet \u201cVariable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen\nmade\u201d; but variable as the _light_, manifold in fair and serene division,\nthat it may take the colour of all that it falls upon, and exalt it.\n\n(II.)  I have been trying, thus far, to show you what should be the\nplace, and what the power of woman.  Now, secondly, we ask, What kind of\neducation is to fit her for these?\n\nAnd if you indeed think this a true conception of her office and dignity,\nit will not be difficult to trace the course of education which would fit\nher for the one, and raise her to the other.\n\nThe first of our duties to her\u2014no thoughtful persons now doubt this,\u2014is\nto secure for her such physical training and exercise as may confirm her\nhealth, and perfect her beauty; the highest refinement of that beauty\nbeing unattainable without splendour of activity and of delicate\nstrength.  To perfect her beauty, I say, and increase its power; it\ncannot be too powerful, nor shed its sacred light too far: only remember\nthat all physical freedom is vain to produce beauty without a\ncorresponding freedom of heart.  There are two passages of that poet who\nis distinguished, it seems to me, from all others\u2014not by power, but by\nexquisite _rightness_\u2014which point you to the source, and describe to you,\nin a few syllables, the completion of womanly beauty.  I will read the\nintroductory stanzas, but the last is the one I wish you specially to\nnotice:\u2013\n\n    \u201cThree years she grew in sun and shower,\n    Then Nature said, \u2018A lovelier flower\n          On earth was never sown;\n    This child I to myself will take;\n    She shall be mine, and I will make\n          A lady of my own.\u2019\n\n    \u2018Myself will to my darling be\n    Both law and impulse; and with me\n          The girl, in rock and plain,\n    In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,\n    Shall feel an overseeing power\n          To kindle, or restrain.\u2019\n\n    \u2018The floating clouds their state shall lend\n    To her, for her the willow bend;\n          Nor shall she fail to see,\n    Even in the motions of the storm,\n    Grace that shall mould the maiden\u2019s form\n          By silent sympathy.\u2019\n\n    \u2018And _vital feelings of delight_\n    Shall rear her form to stately height,\u2014\n          Her virgin bosom swell.\n    Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,\n    While she and I together live,\n          Here in this happy dell.\u2019\u201d {25}\n\n\u201c_Vital_ feelings of delight,\u201d observe.  There are deadly feelings of\ndelight; but the natural ones are vital, necessary to very life.\n\nAnd they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital.  Do not\nthink you can make a girl lovely, if you do not make her happy.  There is\nnot one restraint you put on a good girl\u2019s nature\u2014there is not one check\nyou give to her instincts of affection or of effort\u2014which will not be\nindelibly written on her features, with a hardness which is all the more\npainful because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of innocence,\nand the charm from the brow of virtue.\n\nThis for the means: now note the end.\n\nTake from the same poet, in two lines, a perfect description of womanly\nbeauty\u2014\n\n    \u201cA countenance in which did meet\n    Sweet records, promises as sweet.\u201d\n\nThe perfect loveliness of a woman\u2019s countenance can only consist in that\nmajestic peace, which is founded in the memory of happy and useful\nyears,\u2014full of sweet records; and from the joining of this with that yet\nmore majestic childishness, which is still full of change and\npromise;\u2014opening always\u2014modest at once, and bright, with hope of better\nthings to be won, and to be bestowed.  There is no old age where there is\nstill that promise.\n\nThus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and then, as the\nstrength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind with all\nknowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural instincts of\njustice, and refine its natural tact of love.\n\nAll such knowledge should be given her as may enable her to understand,\nand even to aid, the work of men: and yet it should be given, not as\nknowledge,\u2014not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to know; but\nonly to feel, and to judge.  It is of no moment, as a matter of pride or\nperfectness in herself, whether she knows many languages or one; but it\nis of the utmost, that she should be able to show kindness to a stranger,\nand to understand the sweetness of a stranger\u2019s tongue.  It is of no\nmoment to her own worth or dignity that she should be acquainted with\nthis science or that; but it is of the highest that she should be trained\nin habits of accurate thought; that she should understand the meaning,\nthe inevitableness, and the loveliness of natural laws; and follow at\nleast some one path of scientific attainment, as far as to the threshold\nof that bitter Valley of Humiliation, into which only the wisest and\nbravest of men can descend, owning themselves for ever children,\ngathering pebbles on a boundless shore.  It is of little consequence how\nmany positions of cities she knows, or how many dates of events, or names\nof celebrated persons\u2014it is not the object of education to turn the woman\ninto a dictionary; but it is deeply necessary that she should be taught\nto enter with her whole personality into the history she reads; to\npicture the passages of it vitally in her own bright imagination; to\napprehend, with her fine instincts, the pathetic circumstances and\ndramatic relations, which the historian too often only eclipses by his\nreasoning, and disconnects by his arrangement: it is for her to trace the\nhidden equities of divine reward, and catch sight, through the darkness,\nof the fateful threads of woven fire that connect error with retribution.\nBut, chiefly of all, she is to be taught to extend the limits of her\nsympathy with respect to that history which is being for ever determined\nas the moments pass in which she draws her peaceful breath; and to the\ncontemporary calamity, which, were it but rightly mourned by her, would\nrecur no more hereafter.  She is to exercise herself in imagining what\nwould be the effects upon her mind and conduct, if she were daily brought\ninto the presence of the suffering which is not the less real because\nshut from her sight.  She is to be taught somewhat to understand the\nnothingness of the proportion which that little world in which she lives\nand loves, bears to the world in which God lives and loves;\u2014and solemnly\nshe is to be taught to strive that her thoughts of piety may not be\nfeeble in proportion to the number they embrace, nor her prayer more\nlanguid than it is for the momentary relief from pain of her husband or\nher child, when it is uttered for the multitudes of those who have none\nto love them,\u2014and is \u201cfor all who are desolate and oppressed.\u201d\n\nThus far, I think, I have had your concurrence; perhaps you will not be\nwith me in what I believe is most needful for me to say.  There _is_ one\ndangerous science for women\u2014one which they must indeed beware how they\nprofanely touch\u2014that of theology.  Strange, and miserably strange, that\nwhile they are modest enough to doubt their powers, and pause at the\nthreshold of sciences where every step is demonstrable and sure, they\nwill plunge headlong, and without one thought of incompetency, into that\nscience in which the greatest men have trembled, and the wisest erred.\nStrange, that they will complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice\nor folly there is in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind\nincomprehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh.\nStrange, in creatures born to be Love visible, that where they can know\nleast, they will condemn, first, and think to recommend themselves to\ntheir Master, by crawling up the steps of His judgment-throne to divide\nit with Him.  Strangest of all that they should think they were led by\nthe Spirit of the Comforter into habits of mind which have become in them\nthe unmixed elements of home discomfort; and that they dare to turn the\nHousehold Gods of Christianity into ugly idols of their own;\u2014spiritual\ndolls, for them to dress according to their caprice; and from which their\nhusbands must turn away in grieved contempt, lest they should be shrieked\nat for breaking them.\n\nI believe, then, with this exception, that a girl\u2019s education should be\nnearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a boy\u2019s; but\nquite differently directed.  A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know\nwhatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different\nway.  His command of it should be foundational and progressive; hers,\ngeneral and accomplished for daily and helpful use.  Not but that it\nwould often be wiser in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, for\npresent use, and to seek for the discipline and training of their mental\npowers in such branches of study as will be afterwards fittest for social\nservice; but, speaking broadly, a man ought to know any language or\nscience he learns, thoroughly\u2014while a woman ought to know the same\nlanguage, or science, only so far as may enable her to sympathise in her\nhusband\u2019s pleasures, and in those of his best friends.\n\nYet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she reaches.  There is a\nwide difference between elementary knowledge and superficial\nknowledge\u2014between a firm beginning, and an infirm attempt at compassing.\nA woman may always help her husband by what she knows, however little; by\nwhat she half-knows, or mis-knows, she will only tease him.\n\nAnd indeed, if there were to be any difference between a girl\u2019s education\nand a boy\u2019s, I should say that of the two the girl should be earlier led,\nas her intellect ripens faster, into deep and serious subjects: and that\nher range of literature should be, not more, but less frivolous;\ncalculated to add the qualities of patience and seriousness to her\nnatural poignancy of thought and quickness of wit; and also to keep her\nin a lofty and pure element of thought.  I enter not now into any\nquestion of choice of books; only let us be sure that her books are not\nheaped up in her lap as they fall out of the package of the circulating\nlibrary, wet with the last and lightest spray of the fountain of folly.\n\nOr even of the fountain of wit; for with respect to the sore temptation\nof novel reading, it is not the badness of a novel that we should dread,\nso much as its over-wrought interest.  The weakest romance is not so\nstupefying as the lower forms of religious exciting literature, and the\nworst romance is not so corrupting as false history, false philosophy, or\nfalse political essays.  But the best romance becomes dangerous, if, by\nits excitement, it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and\nincreases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance with scenes in which\nwe shall never be called upon to act.\n\nI speak therefore of good novels only; and our modern literature is\nparticularly rich in types of such.  Well read, indeed, these books have\nserious use, being nothing less than treatises on moral anatomy and\nchemistry; studies of human nature in the elements of it.  But I attach\nlittle weight to this function: they are hardly ever read with\nearnestness enough to permit them to fulfil it.  The utmost they usually\ndo is to enlarge somewhat the charity of a kind reader, or the bitterness\nof a malicious one; for each will gather, from the novel, food for her\nown disposition.  Those who are naturally proud and envious will learn\nfrom Thackeray to despise humanity; those who are naturally gentle, to\npity it; those who are naturally shallow, to laugh at it.  So, also,\nthere might be a serviceable power in novels to bring before us, in\nvividness, a human truth which we had before dimly conceived; but the\ntemptation to picturesqueness of statement is so great, that often the\nbest writers of fiction cannot resist it; and our views are rendered so\nviolent and one-sided, that their vitality is rather a harm than good.\n\nWithout, however, venturing here on any attempt at decision how much\nnovel reading should be allowed, let me at least clearly assert\nthis,\u2014that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should be\nchosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of\ngood.  The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or\nhide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but\nthe emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades\nher.  And if she can have access to a good library of old and classical\nbooks, there need be no choosing at all.  Keep the modern magazine and\nnovel out of your girl\u2019s way: turn her loose into the old library every\nwet day, and let her alone.  She will find what is good for her; you\ncannot: for there is just this difference between the making of a girl\u2019s\ncharacter and a boy\u2019s\u2014you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a\nrock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a\npiece of bronze.  But you cannot hammer a girl into anything.  She grows\nas a flower does,\u2014she will wither without sun; she will decay in her\nsheath, as a narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough; she may\nfall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some\nmoments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own\nfair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have\nalways\n\n    \u201cHer household motions light and free\n    And steps of virgin liberty.\u201d\n\nLet her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field.  It\nknows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones too,\nand will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not\nthe slightest thought would have been so.\n\nThen, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her practice in\nall accomplishments be accurate and thorough, so as to enable her to\nunderstand more than she accomplishes.  I say the finest models\u2014that is\nto say, the truest, simplest, usefullest.  Note those epithets: they will\nrange through all the arts.  Try them in music, where you might think\nthem the least applicable.  I say the truest, that in which the notes\nmost closely and faithfully express the meaning of the words, or the\ncharacter of intended emotion; again, the simplest, that in which the\nmeaning and melody are attained with the fewest and most significant\nnotes possible; and, finally, the usefullest, that music which makes the\nbest words most beautiful, which enchants them in our memories each with\nits own glory of sound, and which applies them closest to the heart at\nthe moment we need them.\n\nAnd not only in the material and in the course, but yet more earnestly in\nthe spirit of it, let a girl\u2019s education be as serious as a boy\u2019s.  You\nbring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and\nthen complain of their frivolity.  Give them the same advantages that you\ngive their brothers\u2014appeal to the same grand instincts of virtue in them;\nteach _them_, also, that courage and truth are the pillars of their\nbeing:\u2014do you think that they would not answer that appeal, brave and\ntrue as they are even now, when you know that there is hardly a girls\u2019\nschool in this Christian kingdom where the children\u2019s courage or\nsincerity would be thought of half so much importance as their way of\ncoming in at a door; and when the whole system of society, as respects\nthe mode of establishing them in life, is one rotten plague of cowardice\nand imposture\u2014cowardice, in not daring to let them live, or love, except\nas their neighbours choose; and imposture, in bringing, for the purposes\nof our own pride, the full glow of the world\u2019s worst vanity upon a girl\u2019s\neyes, at the very period when the whole happiness of her future existence\ndepends upon her remaining undazzled?\n\nAnd give them, lastly, not only noble teachings, but noble teachers.  You\nconsider somewhat before you send your boy to school, what kind of a man\nthe master is;\u2014whatsoever kind of a man he is, you at least give him full\nauthority over your son, and show some respect to him yourself;\u2014if he\ncomes to dine with you, you do not put him at a side table: you know also\nthat, at college, your child\u2019s immediate tutor will be under the\ndirection of some still higher tutor,\u2014for whom you have absolute\nreverence.  You do not treat the Dean of Christ Church or the Master of\nTrinity as your inferiors.\n\nBut what teachers do you give your girls, and what reverence do you show\nto the teachers you have chosen?  Is a girl likely to think her own\nconduct, or her own intellect, of much importance, when you trust the\nentire formation of her character, moral and intellectual, to a person\nwhom you let your servants treat with less respect than they do your\nhousekeeper (as if the soul of your child were a less charge than jams\nand groceries), and whom you yourself think you confer an honour upon by\nletting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the evening?\n\nThus, then, of literature as her help, and thus of art.  There is one\nmore help which she cannot do without\u2014one which, alone, has sometimes\ndone more than all other influences besides,\u2014the help of wild and fair\nnature.  Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThe education of this poor girl was mean, according to the present\n    standard; was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic\n    standard; and only not good for our age, because for us it would be\n    unattainable.\n\n    \u201cNext after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages\n    of her situation.  The fountain of Domr\u00e9my was on the brink of a\n    boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies, that\n    the parish priest (_cur\u00e9_) was obliged to read mass there once a\n    year, in order to keep them in decent bounds.\n\n    \u201cBut the forests of Domr\u00e9my\u2014those were the glories of the land; for\n    in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered into\n    tragic strength.  Abbeys there were, and abbey windows,\u2014\u2018like Moorish\n    temples of the Hindoos,\u2019 that exercised even princely power both in\n    Touraine and in the German Diets.  These had their sweet bells that\n    pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each\n    its own dreamy legend.  Few enough, and scattered enough, were these\n    abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the\n    region; yet many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian\n    sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness.\u201d {26}\n\nNow, you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods eighteen miles deep\nto the centre; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your\nchildren yet, if you wish to keep them.  But _do_ you wish it?  Suppose\nyou had each, at the back of your houses, a garden, large enough for your\nchildren to play in, with just as much lawn as would give them room to\nrun,\u2014no more\u2014and that you could not change your abode; but that, if you\nchose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal\nshaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the flower-beds into heaps\nof coke.  Would you do it?  I hope not.  I can tell you, you would be\nwrong if you did, though it gave you income sixty-fold instead of\nfour-fold.\n\nYet this is what you are doing with all England.  The whole country is\nbut a little garden, not more than enough for your children to run on the\nlawns of, if you would let them all run there.  And this little garden\nyou will turn into furnace ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if you\ncan; and those children of yours, not you, will suffer for it.  For the\nfairies will not be all banished; there are fairies of the furnace as of\nthe wood, and their first gifts seem to be \u201csharp arrows of the mighty;\u201d\nbut their last gifts are \u201ccoals of juniper.\u201d\n\nAnd yet I cannot\u2014though there is no part of my subject that I feel\nmore\u2014press this upon you; for we made so little use of the power of\nnature while we had it that we shall hardly feel what we have lost.  Just\non the other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and your Menai\nStraits, and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea,\nsplendid in its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once\nthought of as sacred\u2014a divine promontory, looking westward; the Holy Head\nor Headland, still not without awe when its red light glares first\nthrough storm.  These are the hills, and these the bays and blue inlets,\nwhich, among the Greeks, would have been always loved, always fateful in\ninfluence on the national mind.  That Snowdon is your Parnassus; but\nwhere are its Muses?  That Holyhead mountain is your Island of \u00c6gina; but\nwhere is its Temple to Minerva?\n\nShall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved under the shadow\nof our Parnassus up to the year 1848?\u2014Here is a little account of a Welsh\nschool, from page 261 of the Report on Wales, published by the Committee\nof Council on Education.  This is a school close to a town containing\n5,000 persons:\u2014\n\n    \u201cI then called up a larger class, most of whom had recently come to\n    the school.  Three girls repeatedly declared they had never heard of\n    Christ, and two that they had never heard of God.  Two out of six\n    thought Christ was on earth now\u201d (they might have had a worse thought\n    perhaps), \u201cthree knew nothing about the Crucifixion.  Four out of\n    seven did not know the names of the months nor the number of days in\n    a year.  They had no notion of addition beyond two and two, or three\n    and three; their minds were perfect blanks.\u201d\n\nOh, ye women of England! from the Princess of that Wales to the simplest\nof you, do not think your own children can be brought into their true\nfold of rest, while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having no\nshepherd.  And do not think your daughters can be trained to the truth of\ntheir own human beauty, while the pleasant places, which God made at once\nfor their schoolroom and their playground, lie desolate and defiled.  You\ncannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you\nbaptize them also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes\nforth for ever from the rocks of your native land\u2014waters which a Pagan\nwould have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only with\npollution.  You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow\naxe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in\nheaven\u2014the mountains that sustain your island throne,\u2014mountains on which\na Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed\ncloud\u2014remain for you without inscription; altars built, not to, but by an\nUnknown God.\n\n(III.)  Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of\nwoman, and thus of her household office, and queenliness.  We now come to\nour last, our widest question.\u2014What is her queenly office with respect to\nthe state?\n\nGenerally, we are under an impression that a man\u2019s duties are public, and\na woman\u2019s private.  But this is not altogether so.  A man has a personal\nwork or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or duty, which\nis the expansion of the other, relating to the state.  So a woman has a\npersonal work or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work or\nduty, which is also the expansion of that.\n\nNow the man\u2019s work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its\nmaintenance, progress, and defence; the woman\u2019s to secure its order,\ncomfort, and loveliness.\n\nExpand both these functions.  The man\u2019s duty as a member of a\ncommonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the\ndefence of the state.  The woman\u2019s duty, as a member of the commonwealth,\nis to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful\nadornment of the state.\n\nWhat the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insult\nand spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is\nto be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to\nthe spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there.\n\nAnd, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the\ncentre of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty: that she\nis also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress\nmore imminent, loveliness more rare.\n\nAnd as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all its\nreal duties,\u2014an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and\ncorrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose:\u2014as there is the intense\ninstinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the\nsanctities of life, and, misdirected, undermines them; and _must_ do\neither the one or the other;\u2014so there is in the human heart an\ninextinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed,\nmaintains all the majesty of law and life, and, misdirected, wrecks them.\n\nDeep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the heart\nof woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there.\u2014Vainly, as falsely,\nyou blame or rebuke the desire of power!\u2014For Heaven\u2019s sake, and for Man\u2019s\nsake, desire it all you can.  But _what_ power?  That is all the\nquestion.  Power to destroy? the lion\u2019s limb, and the dragon\u2019s breath?\nNot so.  Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard.  Power of the\nsceptre and shield; the power of the royal hand that heals in\ntouching,\u2014that binds the fiend, and looses the captive; the throne that\nis founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by steps of\nMercy.  Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as\nthis, and be no more housewives, but queens?\n\nIt is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a title\nwhich once belonged to nobility only; and, having once been in the habit\nof accepting the simple title of gentlewoman as correspondent to that of\ngentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the title of \u201cLady,\u201d\n{27} which properly corresponds only to the title of \u201cLord.\u201d\n\nI do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this.\nI would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they\nclaim, not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it.\nLady means \u201cbread-giver\u201d or \u201cloaf-giver,\u201d and Lord means \u201cmaintainer of\nlaws,\u201d and both titles have reference, not to the law which is maintained\nin the house, nor to the bread which is given to the household; but to\nlaw maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken among the\nmultitude.  So that a Lord has legal claim only to his title in so far as\nhe is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of lords; and a Lady has\nlegal claim to her title only so far as she communicates that help to the\npoor representatives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him\nof their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and\nwhen she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.\n\nAnd this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, or\nHouse-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and venerable, not\nin the number of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in the\nnumber of those whom it grasps within its sway; it is always regarded\nwith reverent worship wherever its dynasty is founded on its duty, and\nits ambition correlative with its beneficence.  Your fancy is pleased\nwith the thought of being noble ladies, with a train of vassals.  Be it\nso; you cannot be too noble, and your train cannot be too great; but see\nto it that your train is of vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely\nof slaves who serve and feed you; and that the multitude which obeys you\nis of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed,\u2014whom you have\nredeemed, not led into captivity.\n\nAnd this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is equally\ntrue of the queenly dominion; that highest dignity is open to you, if you\nwill also accept that highest duty.  Rex et Regina\u2014Roi et\nReine\u2014\u201c_Right_-doers;\u201d they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that\ntheir power is supreme over the mind as over the person\u2014that they not\nonly feed and clothe, but direct and teach.  And whether consciously or\nnot, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned: there is no putting by that\ncrown; queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your\nhusbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond,\nwhich bows itself, and will for ever bow, before the myrtle crown and the\nstainless sceptre of womanhood.  But, alas! you are too often idle and\ncareless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you\nabdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule and violence to work\ntheir will among men, in defiance of the power which, holding straight in\ngift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and the\ngood forget.\n\n\u201cPrince of Peace.\u201d  Note that name.  When kings rule in that name, and\nnobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow place,\nand mortal measure, receive the power of it.  There are no other rulers\nthan they; other rule than theirs is but _mis_rule; they who govern\nverily \u201cDei Grati\u00e2\u201d are all princes, yes, or princesses of Peace.  There\nis not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are\nanswerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have\nnot hindered.  Men, by their nature, are prone to fight; they will fight\nfor any cause, or for none.  It is for you to choose their cause for\nthem, and to forbid them when there is no cause.  There is no suffering,\nno injustice, no misery, in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you.\nMen can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it.  Men\nmay tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are\nfeeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel\nthe depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing.  Instead of\ntrying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut yourselves within your\npark walls and garden gates; and you are content to know that there is\nbeyond them a whole world in wilderness\u2014a world of secrets which you dare\nnot penetrate; and of suffering which you dare not conceive.\n\nI tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the phenomena\nof humanity.  I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped from\nits honour, that humanity can be degraded.  I do not wonder at the\nmiser\u2019s death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold.  I do not\nwonder at the sensualist\u2019s life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet.\nI do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by\nthe assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed shadow of the marsh.\nI do not even wonder at the myriad-handed murder of multitudes, done\nboastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the\nimmeasurable, unimaginable guilt heaped up from hell to heaven, of their\npriests, and kings.  But this is wonderful to me\u2014oh, how wonderful!\u2014to\nsee the tender and delicate woman among you, with her child at her\nbreast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its father,\npurer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth\u2014nay, a\nmagnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with for all that\nearth itself, though it were made of one entire and perfect\nchrysolite:\u2014to see her abdicate this majesty to play at precedence with\nher next-door neighbour!  This is wonderful\u2014oh, wonderful!\u2014to see her,\nwith every innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the morning into\nher garden to play with the fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift\ntheir heads when they are drooping, with her happy smile upon her face,\nand no cloud upon her brow, because there is a little wall around her\nplace of peace: and yet she knows, in her heart, if she would only look\nfor its knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the\nwild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by the agony of men, and beat\nlevel by the drift of their life-blood.\n\nHave you ever considered what a deep under meaning there lies, or at\nleast may be read, if we choose, in our custom of strewing flowers before\nthose whom we think most happy?  Do you suppose it is merely to deceive\nthem into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at\ntheir feet?\u2014that wherever they pass they will tread on herbs of sweet\nscent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depths\nof roses?  So surely as they believe that, they will have, instead, to\nwalk on bitter herbs and thorns; and the only softness to their feet will\nbe of snow.  But it is not thus intended they should believe; there is a\nbetter meaning in that old custom.  The path of a good woman is indeed\nstrewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them.\n\u201cHer feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy.\u201d\n\nYou think that only a lover\u2019s fancy;\u2014false and vain!  How if it could be\ntrue?  You think this also, perhaps, only a poet\u2019s fancy\u2014\n\n    \u201cEven the light harebell raised its head\n    Elastic from her airy tread.\u201d\n\nBut it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy where\nshe passes.  She should revive; the harebells should bloom, not stoop, as\nshe passes.  You think I am rushing into wild hyperbole!  Pardon me, not\na whit\u2014I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in resolute truth.  You\nhave heard it said\u2014(and I believe there is more than fancy even in that\nsaying, but let it pass for a fanciful one)\u2014that flowers only flourish\nrightly in the garden of some one who loves them.  I know you would like\nthat to be true; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush\nyour flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them: nay, more, if\nyour look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard;\u2014if you could\nbid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare\u2014if you\ncould bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to the south\nwind, in frost\u2014\u201cCome, thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the\nspices of it may flow out.\u201d  This you would think a great thing?  And do\nyou think it not a greater thing, that all this, (and how much more than\nthis!) you _can_ do, for fairer flowers than these\u2014flowers that could\nbless you for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved\nthem; flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; and\nwhich, once saved, you save for ever?  Is this only a little power?  Far\namong the moorlands and the rocks,\u2014far in the darkness of the terrible\nstreets,\u2014these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves\ntorn, and their stems broken: will you never go down to them, nor set\nthem in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their\ntrembling, from the fierce wind?  Shall morning follow morning, for you,\nbut not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic\nDances of Death; {28} but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks\nof wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to you, through your\ncasement\u2014call (not giving you the name of the English poet\u2019s lady, but\nthe name of Dante\u2019s great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy Lethe,\nstood, wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:\u2014\n\n    \u201cCome into the garden, Maud,\n    For the black bat, night, has flown,\n    And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,\n    And the musk of the roses blown\u201d?\n\nWill you not go down among them?\u2014among those sweet living things, whose\nnew courage, sprung from the earth with the deep colour of heaven upon\nit, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, washed\nfrom the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of promise;\u2014and\nstill they turn to you, and for you, \u201cThe Larkspur listens\u2014I hear, I\nhear!  And the Lily whispers\u2014I wait.\u201d\n\nDid you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first stanza;\nand think that I had forgotten them?  Hear them now:\u2014\n\n    \u201cCome into the garden, Maud,\n    For the black bat, night, has flown,\n    Come into the garden, Maud,\n    I am here at the gate, alone.\u201d\n\nWho is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden\nalone, waiting for you?  Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but a\nMadeleine, who went down to her garden in the dawn, and found One waiting\nat the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener?  Have you not sought\nHim often;\u2014sought Him in vain, all through the night;\u2014sought Him in vain\nat the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set?  He is never\nthere; but at the gate of _this_ garden He is waiting always\u2014waiting to\ntake your hand\u2014ready to go down to see the fruits of the valley, to see\nwhether the vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded.  There you\nshall see with Him the little tendrils of the vines that His hand is\nguiding\u2014there you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand cast\nthe sanguine seed;\u2014more: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers\nthat, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds from the path-sides\nwhere He has sown, and call to each other between the vineyard rows,\n\u201cTake us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines\nhave tender grapes.\u201d  Oh\u2014you queens\u2014you queens! among the hills and happy\ngreenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the\nbirds of the air have nests; and in your cities, shall the stones cry out\nagainst you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay\nHis head?\n\n\n\n\nLecture III.\nThe Mystery of Life and its Arts\n\n\n_Lecture delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Science_,\n_Dublin_, 1868.\n\nWHEN I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, I was not aware\nof a restriction with respect to the topics of discussion which may be\nbrought before this Society {29}\u2014a restriction which, though entirely\nwise and right under the circumstances contemplated in its introduction,\nwould necessarily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing\nany lecture for you on the subject of art in a form which might be\npermanently useful.  Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must transgress\nsuch limitation; for indeed my infringement will be of the letter\u2014not of\nthe spirit\u2014of your commands.  In whatever I may say touching the religion\nwhich has been the foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed\nto its power, if I offend one, I shall offend all; for I shall take no\nnote of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do\nI fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving\u2014or at least stating\nas capable of positive proof\u2014the connection of all that is best in the\ncrafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the\nsincerity of his patriotism.\n\nBut I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in\nfrankness of utterance, not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am\nnever fully aware how far my audiences are disposed to give me credit for\nreal knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only\nbecause I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist\nupon it.  For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call the\nmisfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together; not without a\nfoolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was\nheavily punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of\nthe words only, and cared nothing for their meaning.  Happily, therefore,\nthe power of using such pleasant language\u2014if indeed it ever were mine\u2014is\npassing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I find\nmyself forced to say with great plainness.  For my thoughts have changed\nalso, as my words have; and whereas in earlier life, what little\ninfluence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the enthusiasm with which\nI was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their\ncolours in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be\ndue to the earnestness with which I am endeavouring to trace the form and\nbeauty of another kind of cloud than those; the bright cloud of which it\nis written\u2014\u201cWhat is your life?  It is even as a vapour that appeareth for\na little time, and then vanisheth away.\u201d\n\nI suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age,\nwithout having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the\ntruth of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the\nsunshine from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the\nknowledge that the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the\nendurance of it as transient as the dew.  But it is not always that, even\nat such times of melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true\nperception that this human life shares in the nature of it, not only the\nevanescence, but the mystery of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed\nin darkness, and its forms and courses no less fantastic, than spectral\nand obscure; so that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in\nthe shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of\nours, that \u201cman walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in\nvain.\u201d\n\nAnd least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness of our passions,\nor the height of our pride, are we able to understand in its depth the\nthird and most solemn character in which our life is like those clouds of\nheaven; that to it belongs not only their transcience, not only their\nmystery, but also their power; that in the cloud of the human soul there\nis a fire stronger than the lightning, and a grace more precious than the\nrain; and that though of the good and evil it shall one day be said\nalike, that the place that knew them knows them no more, there is an\ninfinite separation between those whose brief presence had there been a\nblessing, like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the\ngarden, and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful\nshade, of whom the heavenly sentence is, that they are \u201cwells without\nwater; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of\ndarkness is reserved for ever.\u201d\n\nTo those among us, however, who have lived long enough to form some just\nestimate of the rate of the changes which are, hour by hour in\naccelerating catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the laws, the arts,\nand the creeds of men, it seems to me, that now at least, if never at any\nformer time, the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its\npowers and responsibilities, should present themselves with absolute\nsadness and sternness.  And although I know that this feeling is much\ndeepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by chance, has attended\nthe greater number of my cherished purposes, I do not for that reason\ndistrust the feeling itself, though I am on my guard against an\nexaggerated degree of it: nay, I rather believe that in periods of new\neffort and violent change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine; and\nthat in the secret of it, as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may\nsee the colours of things with deeper truth than in the most dazzling\nsunshine.  And because these truths about the works of men, which I want\nto bring to-day before you, are most of them sad ones, though at the same\ntime helpful; and because also I believe that your kind Irish hearts will\nanswer more gladly to the truthful expression of a personal feeling, than\nto the exposition of an abstract principle, I will permit myself so much\nunreserved speaking of my own causes of regret, as may enable you to make\njust allowance for what, according to your sympathies, you will call\neither the bitterness, or the insight, of a mind which has surrendered\nits best hopes, and been foiled in its favourite aims.\n\nI spent the ten strongest years of my life, (from twenty to thirty,) in\nendeavouring to show the excellence of the work of the man whom I\nbelieved, and rightly believed, to be the greatest painter of the schools\nof England since Reynolds.  I had then perfect faith in the power of\nevery great truth of beauty to prevail ultimately, and take its right\nplace in usefulness and honour; and I strove to bring the painter\u2019s work\ninto this due place, while the painter was yet alive.  But he knew,\nbetter than I, the uselessness of talking about what people could not see\nfor themselves.  He always discouraged me scornfully, even when he\nthanked me\u2014and he died before even the superficial effect of my work was\nvisible.  I went on, however, thinking I could at least be of use to the\npublic, if not to him, in proving his power.  My books got talked about a\nlittle.  The prices of modern pictures, generally, rose, and I was\nbeginning to take some pleasure in a sense of gradual victory, when,\nfortunately or unfortunately, an opportunity of perfect trial undeceived\nme at once, and for ever.  The Trustees of the National Gallery\ncommissioned me to arrange the Turner drawings there, and permitted me to\nprepare three hundred examples of his studies from nature, for exhibition\nat Kensington.  At Kensington they were, and are, placed for exhibition;\nbut they are not exhibited, for the room in which they hang is always\nempty.\n\nWell\u2014this showed me at once, that those ten years of my life had been, in\ntheir chief purpose, lost.  For that, I did not so much care; I had, at\nleast, learned my own business thoroughly, and should be able, as I\nfondly supposed, after such a lesson, now to use my knowledge with better\neffect.  But what I did care for was the\u2014to me frightful\u2014discovery, that\nthe most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted by Providence to\nlabour and perish uselessly; that in the very fineness of it there might\nbe something rendering it invisible to ordinary eyes; but that, with this\nstrange excellence, faults might be mingled which would be as deadly as\nits virtues were vain; that the glory of it was perishable, as well as\ninvisible, and the gift and grace of it might be to us as snow in summer\nand as rain in harvest.\n\nThat was the first mystery of life to me.  But, while my best energy was\ngiven to the study of painting, I had put collateral effort, more prudent\nif less enthusiastic, into that of architecture; and in this I could not\ncomplain of meeting with no sympathy.  Among several personal reasons\nwhich caused me to desire that I might give this, my closing lecture on\nthe subject of art here, in Ireland, one of the chief was, that in\nreading it, I should stand near the beautiful building,\u2014the engineer\u2019s\nschool of your college,\u2014which was the first realization I had the joy to\nsee, of the principles I had, until then, been endeavouring to teach! but\nwhich, alas, is now, to me, no more than the richly canopied monument of\none of the most earnest souls that ever gave itself to the arts, and one\nof my truest and most loving friends, Benjamin Woodward.  Nor was it here\nin Ireland only that I received the help of Irish sympathy and genius.\nWhen to another friend, Sir Thomas Deane, with Mr. Woodward, was\nentrusted the building of the museum at Oxford, the best details of the\nwork were executed by sculptors who had been born and trained here; and\nthe first window of the fa\u00e7ade of the building, in which was inaugurated\nthe study of natural science in England, in true fellowship with\nliterature, was carved from my design by an Irish sculptor.\n\nYou may perhaps think that no man ought to speak of disappointment, to\nwhom, even in one branch of labour, so much success was granted.  Had Mr.\nWoodward now been beside me, I had not so spoken; but his gentle and\npassionate spirit was cut off from the fulfilment of its purposes, and\nthe work we did together is now become vain.  It may not be so in future;\nbut the architecture we endeavoured to introduce is inconsistent alike\nwith the reckless luxury, the deforming mechanism, and the squalid misery\nof modern cities; among the formative fashions of the day, aided,\nespecially in England, by ecclesiastical sentiment, it indeed obtained\nnotoriety; and sometimes behind an engine furnace, or a railroad bank,\nyou may detect the pathetic discord of its momentary grace, and, with\ntoil, decipher its floral carvings choked with soot.  I felt answerable\nto the schools I loved, only for their injury.  I perceived that this new\nportion of my strength had also been spent in vain; and from amidst\nstreets of iron, and palaces of crystal, shrank back at last to the\ncarving of the mountain and colour of the flower.\n\nAnd still I could tell of failure, and failure repeated, as years went\non; but I have trespassed enough on your patience to show you, in part,\nthe causes of my discouragement.  Now let me more deliberately tell you\nits results.  You know there is a tendency in the minds of many men, when\nthey are heavily disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to\nfeel, and perhaps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life\nitself is a vanity.  Because it has disappointed them, they think its\nnature is of disappointment always, or at best, of pleasure that can be\ngrasped by imagination only; that the cloud of it has no strength nor\nfire within; but is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet\ndespised.  You know how beautifully Pope has expressed this particular\nphase of thought:\u2014\n\n    \u201cMeanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays,\n    These painted clouds that beautify our days;\n    Each want of happiness by hope supplied,\n    And each vacuity of sense, by pride.\n    Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy;\n    In Folly\u2019s cup, still laughs the bubble joy.\n    One pleasure past, another still we gain,\n    And not a vanity is given in vain.\u201d\n\nBut the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the reverse of\nthis.  The more that my life disappointed me, the more solemn and\nwonderful it became to me.  It seemed, contrarily to Pope\u2019s saying, that\nthe vanity of it _was_ indeed given in vain; but that there was something\nbehind the veil of it, which was not vanity.  It became to me not a\npainted cloud, but a terrible and impenetrable one: not a mirage, which\nvanished as I drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was\nforbidden to draw near.  For I saw that both my own failure, and such\nsuccess in petty things as in its poor triumph seemed to me worse than\nfailure, came from the want of sufficiently earnest effort to understand\nthe whole law and meaning of existence, and to bring it to noble and due\nend; as, on the other hand, I saw more and more clearly that all enduring\nsuccess in the arts, or in any other occupation, had come from the ruling\nof lower purposes, not by a conviction of their nothingness, but by a\nsolemn faith in the advancing power of human nature, or in the promise,\nhowever dimly apprehended, that the mortal part of it would one day be\nswallowed up in immortality; and that, indeed, the arts themselves never\nhad reached any vital strength or honour, but in the effort to proclaim\nthis immortality, and in the service either of great and just religion,\nor of some unselfish patriotism, and law of such national life as must be\nthe foundation of religion.\n\nNothing that I have ever said is more true or necessary\u2014nothing has been\nmore misunderstood or misapplied\u2014than my strong assertion that the arts\ncan never be right themselves, unless their motive is right.  It is\nmisunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never learned their\nbusiness, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, crying\nout\u2014\u201cLook at this picture of mine; it _must_ be good, I had such a lovely\nmotive.  I have put my whole heart into it, and taken years to think over\nits treatment.\u201d  Well, the only answer for these people is\u2014if one had the\ncruelty to make it\u2014\u201cSir, you cannot think over _any_thing in any number\nof years,\u2014you haven\u2019t the head to do it; and though you had fine motives,\nstrong enough to make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you\ncould paint a picture, you can\u2019t paint one, nor half an inch of one; you\nhaven\u2019t the hand to do it.\u201d\n\nBut, far more decisively we have to say to the men who _do_ know their\nbusiness, or may know it if they choose\u2014\u201cSir, you have this gift, and a\nmighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it.  It is a\ngreater trust than ships and armies: you might cast _them_ away, if you\nwere their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your\nown glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men.\nShips and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect,\nonce abused, is a curse to the earth for ever.\u201d\n\nThis, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive.  This\nalso I said respecting them, that they never had prospered, nor could\nprosper, but when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to the\nproclamation of divine truth or law.  And yet I saw also that they had\nalways failed in this proclamation\u2014that poetry, and sculpture, and\npainting, though only great when they strove to teach us something about\nthe gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the gods, but\nhad always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their\npowers at the full reach, became ministers to pride and to lust.  And I\nfelt also, with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in\nourselves and hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that while\nthe wisdom and rightness of every act and art of life could only be\nconsistent with a right understanding of the ends of life, we were all\nplunged as in a languid dream\u2014our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our\nears closed, lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us\u2014lest\nwe should see with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be\nhealed.\n\nThis intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it\nstands in the way of every perception, every virtue.  There is no making\nourselves feel enough astonishment at it.  That the occupations or\npastimes of life should have no motive, is understandable; but\u2014That life\nitself should have no motive\u2014that we neither care to find out what it may\nlead to, nor to guard against its being for ever taken away from us\u2014here\nis a mystery indeed.  For just suppose I were able to call at this moment\nto any one in this audience by name, and to tell him positively that I\nknew a large estate had been lately left to him on some curious\nconditions; but that though I knew it was large, I did not know how\nlarge, nor even where it was\u2014whether in the East Indies or the West, or\nin England, or at the Antipodes.  I only knew it was a vast estate, and\nthat there was a chance of his losing it altogether if he did not soon\nfind out on what terms it had been left to him.  Suppose I were able to\nsay this positively to any single man in this audience, and he knew that\nI did not speak without warrant, do you think that he would rest content\nwith that vague knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more?\nWould he not give every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never\nrest till he had ascertained where this place was, and what it was like?\nAnd suppose he were a young man, and all he could discover by his best\nendeavour was that the estate was never to be his at all, unless he\npersevered, during certain years of probation, in an orderly and\nindustrious life; but that, according to the rightness of his conduct,\nthe portion of the estate assigned to him would be greater or less, so\nthat it literally depended on his behaviour from day to day whether he\ngot ten thousand a year, or thirty thousand a year, or nothing\nwhatever\u2014would you not think it strange if the youth never troubled\nhimself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor even to know what was\nrequired of him, but lived exactly as he chose, and never inquired\nwhether his chances of the estate were increasing or passing away?  Well,\nyou know that this is actually and literally so with the greater number\nof the educated persons now living in Christian countries.  Nearly every\nman and woman in any company such as this, outwardly professes to\nbelieve\u2014and a large number unquestionably think they believe\u2014much more\nthan this; not only that a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them\nif they please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a\npossession\u2014an estate of perpetual misery\u2014is in store for them if they\ndisplease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder.  And yet\nthere is not one in a thousand of these human souls that cares to think,\nfor ten minutes of the day, where this estate is or how beautiful it is,\nor what kind of life they are to lead in it, or what kind of life they\nmust lead to obtain it.\n\nYou fancy that you care to know this: so little do you care that,\nprobably, at this moment many of you are displeased with me for talking\nof the matter!  You came to hear about the Art of this world, not about\nthe Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talking of what\nyou can hear any Sunday in church.  But do not be afraid.  I will tell\nyou something before you go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery,\nand what else you would like better to hear of than the other world.\nNay, perhaps you say, \u201cWe want you to talk of pictures and pottery,\nbecause we are sure that you know something of them, and you know nothing\nof the other world.\u201d  Well\u2014I don\u2019t.  That is quite true.  But the very\nstrangeness and mystery of which I urge you to take notice, is in\nthis\u2014that I do not;\u2014nor you either.  Can you answer a single bold\nquestion unflinchingly about that other world?\u2014Are you sure there is a\nheaven?  Sure there is a hell?  Sure that men are dropping before your\nfaces through the pavements of these streets into eternal fire, or sure\nthat they are not?  Sure that at your own death you are going to be\ndelivered from all sorrow, to be endowed with all virtue, to be gifted\nwith all felicity, and raised into perpetual companionship with a King,\ncompared to whom the kings of the earth are as grass-hoppers, and the\nnations as the dust of His feet?  Are you sure of this? or, if not sure,\ndo any of us so much as care to make it sure? and, if not, how can\nanything that we do be right\u2014how can anything we think be wise? what\nhonour can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in the\npossessions that please?\n\nIs not this a mystery of life?\n\nBut farther, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent ordinance for the\ngenerality of men that they do not, with earnestness or anxiety, dwell on\nsuch questions of the future because the business of the day could not be\ndone if this kind of thought were taken by all of us for the morrow.  Be\nit so: but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of\nus, who were evidently the appointed teachers of the rest, would set\nthemselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely known of the future\ndestinies of their race; and to teach this in no rhetorical or ambiguous\nmanner, but in the plainest and most severely earnest words.\n\nNow, the highest representatives of men who have thus endeavoured, during\nthe Christian era, to search out these deep things, and relate them, are\nDante and Milton.  There are none who for earnestness of thought, for\nmastery of word, can be classed with these.  I am not at present, mind\nyou, speaking of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to\ndeliver creeds to us, or doctrines; but of men who try to discover and\nset forth, as far as by human intellect is possible, the facts of the\nother world.  Divines may perhaps teach us how to arrive there, but only\nthese two poets have in any powerful manner striven to discover, or in\nany definite words professed to tell, what we shall see and become there;\nor how those upper and nether worlds are, and have been, inhabited.\n\nAnd what have they told us?  Milton\u2019s account of the most important event\nin his whole system of the universe, the fall of the angels, is evidently\nunbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly founded on,\nand in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod\u2019s account of the\ndecisive war of the younger gods with the Titans.  The rest of his poem\nis a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention is visibly\nand consciously employed; not a single fact being, for an instant,\nconceived as tenable by any living faith.  Dante\u2019s conception is far more\nintense, and, by himself, for the time, not to be escaped from; it is\nindeed a vision, but a vision only, and that one of the wildest that ever\nentranced a soul\u2014a dream in which every grotesque type or phantasy of\nheathen tradition is renewed, and adorned; and the destinies of the\nChristian Church, under their most sacred symbols, become literally\nsubordinate to the praise, and are only to be understood by the aid, of\none dear Florentine maiden.\n\nI tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange lethargy and\ntrance in myself, and awake to the meaning and power of life, it seems\ndaily more amazing to me that men such as these should dare to play with\nthe most precious truths, (or the most deadly untruths,) by which the\nwhole human race listening to them could be informed, or deceived;\u2014all\nthe world their audiences for ever, with pleased ear, and passionate\nheart;\u2014and yet, to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermore\nsucceeding and succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do\nbut play upon sweetly modulated pipes; with pompous nomenclature adorn\nthe councils of hell; touch a troubadour\u2019s guitar to the courses of the\nsuns; and fill the openings of eternity, before which prophets have\nveiled their faces, and which angels desire to look into, with idle\npuppets of their scholastic imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic\nfaith in their lost mortal love.\n\nIs not this a mystery of life?\n\nBut more.  We have to remember that these two great teachers were both of\nthem warped in their temper, and thwarted in their search for truth.\nThey were men of intellectual war, unable, through darkness of\ncontroversy, or stress of personal grief, to discern where their own\nambition modified their utterances of the moral law; or their own agony\nmingled with their anger at its violation.  But greater men than these\nhave been\u2014innocent-hearted\u2014too great for contest.  Men, like Homer and\nShakespeare, of so unrecognised personality, that it disappears in future\nages, and becomes ghostly, like the tradition of a lost heathen god.\nMen, therefore, to whose unoffended, uncondemning sight, the whole of\nhuman nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness, with which they will\nnot strive; or in mournful and transitory strength, which they dare not\npraise.  And all Pagan and Christian Civilization thus becomes subject to\nthem.  It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us have read,\neither of Homer or Shakespeare; everything round us, in substance, or in\nthought, has been moulded by them.  All Greek gentlemen were educated\nunder Homer.  All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature.  All Italian, and\nFrench, and English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its\nprinciples.  Of the scope of Shakespeare, I will say only, that the\nintellectual measure of every man since born, in the domains of creative\nthought, may be assigned to him, according to the degree in which he has\nbeen taught by Shakespeare.  Well, what do these two men, centres of\nmortal intelligence, deliver to us of conviction respecting what it most\nbehoves that intelligence to grasp?  What is their hope\u2014their crown of\nrejoicing? what manner of exhortation have they for us, or of rebuke?\nwhat lies next their own hearts, and dictates their undying words?  Have\nthey any peace to promise to our unrest\u2014any redemption to our misery?\n\nTake Homer first, and think if there is any sadder image of human fate\nthan the great Homeric story.  The main features in the character of\nAchilles are its intense desire of justice, and its tenderness of\naffection.  And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though aided\ncontinually by the wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of\njustice in his heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most\nunjust of men: and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes\nyet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men.  Intense alike\nin love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and then his\nfriend; for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death the armies of his\nown land; for the sake of the other, he surrenders all.  Will a man lay\ndown his life for his friend?  Yea\u2014even for his _dead_ friend, this\nAchilles, though goddess-born, and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom,\nhis country, and his life\u2014casts alike the innocent and guilty, with\nhimself, into one gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the\nbasest of his adversaries.\n\nIs not this a mystery of life?\n\nBut what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, and searcher of\nhearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian faith have been numbered\nover the graves of men?  Are his words more cheerful than the\nHeathen\u2019s\u2014is his hope more near\u2014his trust more sure\u2014his reading of fate\nmore happy?  Ah, no!  He differs from the Heathen poet chiefly in\nthis\u2014that he recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand; and that,\nby petty chance\u2014by momentary folly\u2014by broken message\u2014by fool\u2019s tyranny\u2014or\ntraitor\u2019s snare, the strongest and most righteous are brought to their\nruin, and perish without word of hope.  He indeed, as part of his\nrendering of character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual\ndevotion to the gentle and the just.  The death-bed of Katharine is\nbright with visions of angels; and the great soldier-king, standing by\nhis few dead, acknowledges the presence of the Hand that can save alike\nby many or by few.  But observe that from those who with deepest spirit,\nmeditate, and with deepest passion, mourn, there are no such words as\nthese; nor in their hearts are any such consolations.  Instead of the\nperpetual sense of the helpful presence of the Deity, which, through all\nheathen tradition, is the source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile,\nand in the valley of the shadow of death, we find only in the great\nChristian poet, the consciousness of a moral law, through which \u201cthe gods\nare just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us;\u201d and\nof the resolved arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into\nprecision of doom what we feebly and blindly began; and force us, when\nour indiscretion serves us, and our deepest plots do pall, to the\nconfession, that \u201cthere\u2019s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them\nhow we will.\u201d\n\nIs not this a mystery of life?\n\nBe it so, then.  About this human life that is to be, or that is, the\nwise religious men tell us nothing that we can trust; and the wise\ncontemplative men, nothing that can give us peace.  But there is yet a\nthird class, to whom we may turn\u2014the wise practical men.  We have sat at\nthe feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their\ndreams.  We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have\nchanted to us dirges and words of despair.  But there is one class of men\nmore:\u2014men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of\npurpose\u2014practised in business; learned in all that can be, (by handling,)\nknown.  Men, whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world,\nfrom whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present,\nconveniently to live in it.  What will _they_ say to us, or show us by\nexample?  These kings\u2014these councillors\u2014these statesmen and builders of\nkingdoms\u2014these capitalists and men of business, who weigh the earth, and\nthe dust of it, in a balance.  They know the world, surely; and what is\nthe mystery of life to us, is none to them.  They can surely show us how\nto live, while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is\nbest.\n\nI think I can best tell you their answer, by telling you a dream I had\nonce.  For though I am no poet, I have dreams sometimes:\u2014I dreamed I was\nat a child\u2019s Mayday party, in which every means of entertainment had been\nprovided for them, by a wise and kind host.  It was in a stately house,\nwith beautiful gardens attached to it; and the children had been set free\nin the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how to pass their\nafternoon rejoicingly.  They did not, indeed, know much about what was to\nhappen next day; and some of them, I thought, were a little frightened,\nbecause there was a chance of their being sent to a new school where\nthere were examinations; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their\nheads as well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves.  The\nhouse, I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden were all\nkinds of flowers; sweet, grassy banks for rest; and smooth lawns for\nplay; and pleasant streams and woods; and rocky places for climbing.  And\nthe children were happy for a little while, but presently they separated\nthemselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a\npiece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have\nanything to do with that piece.  Next, they quarrelled violently which\npieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys\nshould do, \u201cpractically,\u201d and fought in the flower-beds till there was\nhardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other\u2019s bits\nof the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no\nmore; and so they all lay down at last breathless in the ruin, and waited\nfor the time when they were to be taken home in the evening. {30}\n\nMeanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy\nalso in their manner.  For them, there had been provided every kind of\nindoor pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library\nwas open, with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full\nof the most curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a\nworkshop, with lathes and carpenter\u2019s tools, for the ingenious boys; and\nthere were pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there\nwere microscopes, and kaleidoscopes; and whatever toys a child could\nfancy; and a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to\neat.\n\nBut, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more\n\u201cpractical\u201d children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails\nthat studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out.\nPresently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a\nfancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly,\nwere spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails.  With\nall that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then,\neverybody wanted some of somebody else\u2019s.  And at last, the really\npractical and sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real\nconsequence, that afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails;\nand that the books, and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at\nall in themselves, but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads.\nAnd at last they began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for\nthe bits of garden.  Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into\na corner, and tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of\nthe noise; but all the practical ones thought of nothing else but\ncounting nail-heads all the afternoon\u2014even though they knew they would\nnot be allowed to carry so much as one brass knob away with them.  But\nno\u2014it was\u2014\u201cWho has most nails?  I have a hundred, and you have fifty; or,\nI have a thousand, and you have two.  I must have as many as you before I\nleave the house, or I cannot possibly go home in peace.\u201d  At last, they\nmade so much noise that I awoke, and thought to myself, \u201cWhat a false\ndream that is, of _children_!\u201d  The child is the father of the man; and\nwiser.  Children never do such foolish things.  Only men do.\n\nBut there is yet one last class of persons to be interrogated.  The wise\nreligious men we have asked in vain; the wise contemplative men, in vain;\nthe wise worldly men, in vain.  But there is another group yet.  In the\nmidst of this vanity of empty religion\u2014of tragic contemplation\u2014of\nwrathful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet one\ngreat group of persons, by whom all these disputers live\u2014the persons who\nhave determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence determined for\nthem, that they will do something useful; that whatever may be prepared\nfor them hereafter, or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve\nthe food that God gives them by winning it honourably: and that, however\nfallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, they will carry\nout the duty of human dominion, though they have lost its felicity; and\ndress and keep the wilderness, though they no more can dress or keep the\ngarden.\n\nThese,\u2014hewers of wood, and drawers of water,\u2014these, bent under burdens,\nor torn of scourges\u2014these, that dig and weave\u2014that plant and build;\nworkers in wood, and in marble, and in iron\u2014by whom all food, clothing,\nhabitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced, for themselves,\nand for all men beside; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may\nbe few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and\nworthy of honour, be they never so humble;\u2014from these, surely, at least,\nwe may receive some clear message of teaching; and pierce, for an\ninstant, into the mystery of life, and of its arts.\n\nYes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson.  But I grieve to say,\nor rather\u2014for that is the deeper truth of the matter\u2014I rejoice to\nsay\u2014this message of theirs can only be received by joining them\u2014not by\nthinking about them.\n\nYou sent for me to talk to you of art; and I have obeyed you in coming.\nBut the main thing I have to tell you is,\u2014that art must not be talked\nabout.  The fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is\nill done, or cannot be done.  No true painter ever speaks, or ever has\nspoken, much of his art.  The greatest speak nothing.  Even Reynolds is\nno exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, and was\nutterly silent respecting all that he himself did.\n\nThe moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it.\nAll words become idle to him\u2014all theories.\n\nDoes a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when\nbuilt?  All good work is essentially done that way\u2014without hesitation,\nwithout difficulty, without boasting; and in the doers of the best, there\nis an inner and involuntary power which approximates literally to the\ninstinct of an animal\u2014nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human\nartists, reason does _not_ supersede instinct, but is added to an\ninstinct as much more divine than that of the lower animals as the human\nbody is more beautiful than theirs; that a great singer sings not with\nless instinct than the nightingale, but with more\u2014only more various,\napplicable, and governable; that a great architect does not build with\nless instinct than the beaver or the bee, but with more\u2014with an innate\ncunning of proportion that embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of\nskill that improvises all construction.  But be that as it may\u2014be the\ninstinct less or more than that of inferior animals\u2014like or unlike\ntheirs, still the human art is dependent on that first, and then upon an\namount of practice, of science,\u2014and of imagination disciplined by\nthought, which the true possessor of it knows to be incommunicable, and\nthe true critic of it, inexplicable, except through long process of\nlaborious\u2019 years.  That journey of life\u2019s conquest, in which hills over\nhills, and Alps on Alps arose, and sank,\u2014do you think you can make\nanother trace it painlessly, by talking?  Why, you cannot even carry us\nup an Alp, by talking.  You can guide us up it, step by step, no\notherwise\u2014even so, best silently.  You girls, who have been among the\nhills, know how the bad guide chatters and gesticulates, and it is \u201cPut\nyour foot here;\u201d and \u201cMind how you balance yourself there;\u201d but the good\nguide walks on quietly, without a word, only with his eyes on you when\nneed is, and his arm like an iron bar, if need be.\n\nIn that slow way, also, art can be taught\u2014if you have faith in your\nguide, and will let his arm be to you as an iron bar when need is.  But\nin what teacher of art have you such faith?  Certainly not in me; for, as\nI told you at first, I know well enough it is only because you think I\ncan talk, not because you think I know my business, that you let me speak\nto you at all.  If I were to tell you anything that seemed to you strange\nyou would not believe it, and yet it would only be in telling you strange\nthings that I could be of use to you.  I could be of great use to\nyou\u2014infinite use\u2014with brief saying, if you would believe it; but you\nwould not, just because the thing that would be of real use would\ndisplease you.  You are all wild, for instance, with admiration of\nGustave Dor\u00e9.  Well, suppose I were to tell you, in the strongest terms I\ncould use, that Gustave Dor\u00e9\u2019s art was bad\u2014bad, not in weakness,\u2014not in\nfailure,\u2014but bad with dreadful power\u2014the power of the Furies and the\nHarpies mingled, enraging, and polluting; that so long as you looked at\nit, no perception of pure or beautiful art was possible for you.  Suppose\nI were to tell you that!  What would be the use?  Would you look at\nGustave Dor\u00e9 less?  Rather, more, I fancy.  On the other hand, I could\nsoon put you into good humour with me, if I chose.  I know well enough\nwhat you like, and how to praise it to your better liking.  I could talk\nto you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn\nleaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael\u2014how motherly! and the Sibyls of\nMichael Angelo\u2014how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico\u2014how pious! and\nthe Cherubs of Correggio\u2014how delicious!  Old as I am, I could play you a\ntune on the harp yet, that you would dance to.  But neither you nor I\nshould be a bit the better or wiser; or, if we were, our increased wisdom\ncould be of no practical effect.  For, indeed, the arts, as regards\nteachableness, differ from the sciences also in this, that their power is\nfounded not merely on facts which can be communicated, but on\ndispositions which require to be created.  Art is neither to be achieved\nby effort of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking.  It is the\ninstinctive and necessary result of power, which can only be developed\nthrough the mind of successive generations, and which finally burst into\nlife under social conditions as slow of growth as the faculties they\nregulate.  Whole \u00e6ras of mighty history are summed, and the passions of\ndead myriads are concentrated, in the existence of a noble art, and if\nthat noble art were among us, we should feel it and rejoice; not caring\nin the least to hear lectures on it; and since it is not among us, be\nassured we have to go back to the root of it, or, at least, to the place\nwhere the stock of it is yet alive, and the branches began to die.\n\nAnd now, may I have your pardon for pointing out, partly with reference\nto matters which are at this time of greater moment than the arts\u2014that if\nwe undertook such recession to the vital germ of national arts that have\ndecayed, we should find a more singular arrest of their power in Ireland\nthan in any other European country?  For in the eighth century Ireland\npossessed a school of art in her manuscripts and sculpture, which, in\nmany of its qualities\u2014apparently in all essential qualities of decorative\ninvention\u2014was quite without rival; seeming as if it might have advanced\nto the highest triumphs in architecture and in painting.  But there was\none fatal flaw in its nature, by which it was stayed, and stayed with a\nconspicuousness of pause to which there is no parallel: so that, long\nago, in tracing the progress of European schools from infancy to\nstrength, I chose for the students of Kensington, in a lecture since\npublished, two characteristic examples of early art, of equal skill; but\nin the one case, skill which was progressive\u2014in the other, skill which\nwas at pause.  In the one case, it was work receptive of\ncorrection\u2014hungry for correction; and in the other, work which inherently\nrejected correction.  I chose for them a corrigible Eve, and an\nincorrigible Angel, and I grieve to say that the incorrigible Angel was\nalso an Irish Angel! {31}\n\nAnd the fatal difference lay wholly in this.  In both pieces of art there\nwas an equal falling short of the needs of fact; but the Lombardic Eve\nknew she was in the wrong, and the Irish Angel thought himself all right.\nThe eager Lombardic sculptor, though firmly insisting on his childish\nidea, yet showed in the irregular broken touches of the features, and the\nimperfect struggle for softer lines in the form, a perception of beauty\nand law that he could not render; there was the strain of effort, under\nconscious imperfection, in every line.  But the Irish missal-painter had\ndrawn his angel with no sense of failure, in happy complacency, and put\nred dots into the palm of each hand, and rounded the eyes into perfect\ncircles, and, I regret to say, left the mouth out altogether, with\nperfect satisfaction to himself.\n\nMay I without offence ask you to consider whether this mode of arrest in\nancient Irish art may not be indicative of points of character which even\nyet, in some measure, arrest your national power?  I have seen much of\nIrish character, and have watched it closely, for I have also much loved\nit.  And I think the form of failure to which it is most liable is\nthis,\u2014that being generous-hearted, and wholly intending always to do\nright, it does not attend to the external laws of right, but thinks it\nmust necessarily do right because it means to do so, and therefore does\nwrong without finding it out; and then, when the consequences of its\nwrong come upon it, or upon others connected with it, it cannot conceive\nthat the wrong is in anywise of its causing or of its doing, but flies\ninto wrath, and a strange agony of desire for justice, as feeling itself\nwholly innocent, which leads it farther astray, until there is nothing\nthat it is not capable of doing with a good conscience.\n\nBut mind, I do not mean to say that, in past or present relations between\nIreland and England, you have been wrong, and we right.  Far from that, I\nbelieve that in all great questions of principle, and in all details of\nadministration of law, you have been usually right, and we wrong;\nsometimes in misunderstanding you, sometimes in resolute iniquity to you.\nNevertheless, in all disputes between states, though the stronger is\nnearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is often so in a minor\ndegree; and I think we sometimes admit the possibility of our being in\nerror, and you never do.\n\nAnd now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labours\nof life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their\nlessons\u2014that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the\nwork of people who _feel themselves wrong_;\u2014who are striving for the\nfulfilment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not\nyet attained, which they feel even farther and farther from attaining the\nmore they strive for it.  And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work\nof people who know also that they are right.  The very sense of\ninevitable error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that\npurpose, and the continued sense of failure arises from the continued\nopening of the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth.\n\nThis is one lesson.  The second is a very plain, and greatly precious\none: namely\u2014that whenever the arts and labours of life are fulfilled in\nthis spirit of striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have to\ndo, honourably and perfectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as\nseems possible to the nature of man.  In all other paths by which that\nhappiness is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction: for\nambition and for passion there is no rest\u2014no fruition; the fairest\npleasures of youth perish in a darkness greater than their past light:\nand the loftiest and purest love too often does but inflame the cloud of\nlife with endless fire of pain.  But, ascending from lowest to highest,\nthrough every scale of human industry, that industry worthily followed,\ngives peace.  Ask the labourer in the field, at the forge, or in the\nmine; ask the patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed,\nfiery-hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with the colours of\nlight; and none of these, who are true workmen, will ever tell you, that\nthey have found the law of heaven an unkind one\u2014that in the sweat of\ntheir face they should eat bread, till they return to the ground; nor\nthat they ever found it an unrewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was\nrendered faithfully to the command\u2014\u201cWhatsoever thy hand findeth to do\u2014do\nit with thy might.\u201d\n\nThese are the two great and constant lessons which our labourers teach us\nof the mystery of life.  But there is another, and a sadder one, which\nthey cannot teach us, which we must read on their tombstones.\n\n\u201cDo it with thy might.\u201d  There have been myriads upon myriads of human\ncreatures who have obeyed this law\u2014who have put every breath and nerve of\ntheir being into its toil\u2014who have devoted every hour, and exhausted\nevery faculty\u2014who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at\ndeath\u2014who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, and\nstrength of example.  And, at last, what has all this \u201cMight\u201d of humanity\naccomplished, in six thousand years of labour and sorrow?  What has it\n_done_?  Take the three chief occupations and arts of men, one by one,\nand count their achievements.  Begin with the first\u2014the lord of them\nall\u2014Agriculture.  Six thousand years have passed since we were set to\ntill the ground, from which we were taken.  How much of it is tilled?\nHow much of that which is, wisely or well?  In the very centre and chief\ngarden of Europe\u2014where the two forms of parent Christianity have had\ntheir fortresses\u2014where the noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the\nnoble Protestants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless\nages, their faiths and liberties\u2014there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet\nrun wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could\nredeem with a year\u2019s labour, still blast their helpless inhabitants into\nfevered idiotism.  That is so, in the centre of Europe!  While, on the\nnear coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman,\nbut a few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine.  And, with all the\ntreasures of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not\nfind a few grains of rice, for a people that asked of us no more; but\nstood by, and saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger.\n\nThen, after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human\narts\u2014Weaving; the art of queens, honoured of all noble Heathen women, in\nthe person of their virgin goddess\u2014honoured of all Hebrew women, by the\nword of their wisest king\u2014\u201cShe layeth her hands to the spindle, and her\nhands hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor.  She is\nnot afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are\nclothed with scarlet.  She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her\nclothing is silk and purple.  She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and\ndelivereth girdles to the merchant.\u201d  What have we done in all these\nthousands of years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian\nmatron?  Six thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave?\nMight not every naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every\nfeeble breast fenced with sweet colours from the cold?  What have we\ndone?  Our fingers are too few, it seems, to twist together some poor\ncovering for our bodies.  We set our streams to work for us, and choke\nthe air with fire, to turn our spinning-wheels\u2014and,\u2014_are we yet clothed_?\nAre not the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast\nclouts and rotten rags?  Is not the beauty of your sweet children left in\nwretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honour, nature clothes the\nbrood of the bird in its nest, and the suckling of the wolf in her den?\nAnd does not every winter\u2019s snow robe what you have not robed, and shroud\nwhat you have not shrouded; and every winter\u2019s wind bear up to heaven its\nwasted souls, to witness against you hereafter, by the voice of their\nChrist,\u2014\u201cI was naked, and ye clothed me not\u201d?\n\nLastly\u2014take the Art of Building\u2014the strongest\u2014proudest\u2014most orderly\u2014most\nenduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in the surest\nmanner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced; but if once\nwell done, will stand more strongly than the unbalanced rocks\u2014more\nprevalently than the crumbling hills.  The art which is associated with\nall civic pride and sacred principle; with which men record their\npower\u2014satisfy their enthusiasm\u2014make sure their defence\u2014define and make\ndear their habitation.  And in six thousand years of building, what have\nwe done?  Of the greater part of all that skill and strength, _no_\nvestige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the fields and impede\nthe streams.  But, from this waste of disorder, and of time, and of rage,\nwhat _is_ left to us?  Constructive and progressive creatures, that we\nare, with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of fellowship, and\nthirsting for fame, can we not contend, in comfort, with the insects of\nthe forest, or, in achievement, with the worm of the sea?  The white surf\nrages in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of scarcely\nnascent life; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places where once\ndwelt our noblest multitudes.  The ant and the moth have cells for each\nof their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, in homes that\nconsume them like graves; and night by night, from the corners of our\nstreets, rises up the cry of the homeless\u2014\u201cI was a stranger, and ye took\nme not in.\u201d\n\nMust it be always thus?  Is our life for ever to be without\nprofit\u2014without possession?  Shall the strength of its generations be as\nbarren as death; or cast away their labour, as the wild fig-tree casts\nher untimely figs?  Is it all a dream then\u2014the desire of the eyes and the\npride of life\u2014or, if it be, might we not live in nobler dream than this?\nThe poets and prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have\ntold us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the life\nthat is now.  They have had\u2014they also,\u2014their dreams, and we have laughed\nat them.  They have dreamed of mercy, and of justice; they have dreamed\nof peace and good-will; they have dreamed of labour undisappointed, and\nof rest undisturbed; they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and\noverflowing in store; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of\nprovidence in law; of gladness of parents, and strength of children, and\nglory of grey hairs.  And at these visions of theirs we have mocked, and\nheld them for idle and vain, unreal and unaccomplishable.  What have we\naccomplished with our realities?  Is this what has come of our worldly\nwisdom, tried against their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against\ntheir impotent ideal? or, have we only wandered among the spectra of a\nbaser felicity, and chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions of\nthe Almighty; and walked after the imaginations of our evil hearts,\ninstead of after the counsels of Eternity, until our lives\u2014not in the\nlikeness of the cloud of heaven, but of the smoke of hell\u2014have become \u201cas\na vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away\u201d?\n\n_Does_ it vanish then?  Are you sure of that?\u2014sure, that the nothingness\nof the grave will be a rest from this troubled nothingness; and that the\ncoiling shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change into the\nsmoke of the torment that ascends for ever?  Will any answer that they\n_are_ sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor\nlabour, whither they go?  Be it so: will you not, then, make as sure of\nthe Life that now is, as you are of the Death that is to come?  Your\nhearts are wholly in this world\u2014will you not give them to it wisely, as\nwell as perfectly?  And see, first of all, that you _have_ hearts, and\nsound hearts, too, to give.  Because you have no heaven to look for, is\nthat any reason that you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and\ninfinite earth, which is firmly and instantly given you in possession?\nAlthough your days are numbered, and the following darkness sure, is it\nnecessary that you should share the degradation of the brute, because you\nare condemned to its mortality; or live the life of the moth, and of the\nworm, because you are to companion them in the dust?  Not so; we may have\nbut a few thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only\u2014perhaps tens;\nnay, the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as a\nmoment, as the twinkling of an eye; still we are men, not insects; we are\nliving spirits, not passing clouds.  \u201cHe maketh the winds His messengers;\nthe momentary fire, His minister;\u201d and shall we do less than _these_?\nLet us do the work of men while we bear the form of them; and, as we\nsnatch our narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow\ninheritance of passion out of Immortality\u2014even though our lives _be_ as a\nvapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.\n\nBut there are some of you who believe not this\u2014who think this cloud of\nlife has no such close\u2014that it is to float, revealed and illumined, upon\nthe floor of heaven, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every eye\nshall see Him.  Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or\ntwenty years, for every one of us the judgment will be set, and the books\nopened.  If that be true, far more than that must be true.  Is there but\none day of judgment?  Why, for us every day is a day of judgment\u2014every\nday is a Dies Ir\u00e6, and writes its irrevocable verdict in the flame of its\nWest.  Think you that judgment waits till the doors of the grave are\nopened?  It waits at the doors of your houses\u2014it waits at the corners of\nyour streets; we are in the midst of judgment\u2014the insects that we crush\nare our judges\u2014the moments we fret away are our judges\u2014the elements that\nfeed us, judge, as they minister\u2014and the pleasures that deceive us,\njudge, as they indulge.  Let us, for our lives, do the work of Men while\nwe bear the form of them, if indeed those lives are _Not_ as a vapour,\nand do _Not_ vanish away.\n\n\u201cThe work of men\u201d\u2014and what is that?  Well, we may any of us know very\nquickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it.  But many of us\nare for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we\nare to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it\nis a mortal one\u2014we want to keep back part of the price; and we\ncontinually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross\nwas the _weight_ of it\u2014as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead\nof to be\u2014crucified upon.  \u201cThey that are His have crucified the flesh,\nwith the affections and lusts.\u201d  Does that mean, think you, that in time\nof national distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest\nand hope of humanity\u2014none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling,\nnone put themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of\nlace off their footmen\u2019s coats, to save the world?  Or does it rather\nmean, that they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds\u2014yes, and\nlife, if need be?  Life!\u2014some of us are ready enough to throw that away,\njoyless as we have made it.  But \u201c_station_ in Life\u201d\u2014how many of us are\nready to quit _that_?  Is it not always the great objection, where there\nis question of finding something useful to do\u2014\u201cWe cannot leave our\nstations in Life\u201d?\n\nThose of us who really cannot\u2014that is to say, who can only maintain\nthemselves by continuing in some business or salaried office, have\nalready something to do; and all that they have to see to is, that they\ndo it honestly and with all their might.  But with most people who use\nthat apology, \u201cremaining in the station of life to which Providence has\ncalled them\u201d means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and\nlarge houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if\never Providence _did_ put them into stations of that sort\u2014which is not at\nall a matter of certainty\u2014Providence is just now very distinctly calling\nthem out again.  Levi\u2019s station in life was the receipt of custom; and\nPeter\u2019s, the shore of Galilee; and Paul\u2019s, the antechambers of the High\nPriest,\u2014which \u201cstation in life\u201d each had to leave, with brief notice.\n\nAnd, whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who\nmean to fulfil our duty ought first to live on as little as we can; and,\nsecondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we\ncan spare in doing all the sure good we can.\n\nAnd sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then\nin lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or\nsciences, or any other subject of thought.\n\nI say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be\ndeceived by any of the common talk of \u201cindiscriminate charity.\u201d  The\norder to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious\nhungry, nor the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed\nthe hungry.  It is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not\nwork, neither should he eat\u2014think of that, and every time you sit down to\nyour dinner, ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask a\nblessing, \u201cHow much work have I done to-day for my dinner?\u201d  But the\nproper way to enforce that order on those below you, as well as on\nyourselves, is not to leave vagabonds and honest people to starve\ntogether, but very distinctly to discern and seize your vagabond; and\nshut your vagabond up out of honest people\u2019s way, and very sternly then\nsee that, until he has worked, he does _not_ eat.  But the first thing is\nto be sure you have the food to give; and, therefore, to enforce the\norganization of vast activities in agriculture and in commerce, for the\nproduction of the wholesomest food, and proper storing and distribution\nof it, so that no famine shall any more be possible among civilized\nbeings.  There is plenty of work in this business alone, and at once, for\nany number of people who like to engage in it.\n\nSecondly, dressing people\u2014that is to say, urging every one, within reach\nof your influence to be always neat and clean, and giving them means of\nbeing so.  In so far as they absolutely refuse, you must give up the\neffort with respect to them, only taking care that no children within\nyour sphere of influence shall any more be brought up with such habits;\nand that every person who is willing to dress with propriety shall have\nencouragement to do so.  And the first absolutely necessary step towards\nthis is the gradual adoption of a consistent dress for different ranks of\npersons, so that their rank shall be known by their dress; and the\nrestriction of the changes of fashion within certain limits.  All which\nappears for the present quite impossible; but it is only so far even\ndifficult as it is difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire\nto appear what we are not.  And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of\nmine, that these mean and shallow vices are unconquerable by Christian\nwomen.\n\nAnd then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may think should have been\nput first, but I put it third, because we must feed and clothe people\nwhere we find them, and lodge them afterwards.  And providing lodgment\nfor them means a great deal of vigorous legislature, and cutting down of\nvested interests that stand in the way, and after that, or before that,\nso far as we can get it, thorough sanitary and remedial action in the\nhouses that we have; and then the building of more, strongly,\nbeautifully, and in groups of limited extent, kept in proportion to their\nstreams, and walled round, so that there may be no festering and wretched\nsuburb anywhere, but clean and busy street within, and the open country\nwithout, with a belt of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so\nthat from any part of the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight\nof far horizon, might be reachable in a few minutes\u2019 walk.  This the\nfinal aim; but in immediate action every minor and possible good to be\ninstantly done, when, and as, we can; roofs mended that have holes in\nthem\u2014fences patched that have gaps in them\u2014walls\u2019 buttressed that\ntotter\u2014and floors propped that shake; cleanliness and order enforced with\nour own hands and eyes, till we are breathless, every day.  And all the\nfine arts will healthily follow.  I myself have washed a flight of stone\nstairs all down, with bucket and broom, in a Savoy inn, where they hadn\u2019t\nwashed their stairs since they first went up them; and I never made a\nbetter sketch than that afternoon.\n\nThese, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the law for\nevery Christian man and woman is, that they shall be in direct service\ntowards one of these three needs, as far as is consistent with their own\nspecial occupation, and if they have no special business, then wholly in\none of these services.  And out of such exertion in plain duty all other\ngood will come; for in this direct contention with material evil, you\nwill find out the real nature of all evil; you will discern by the\nvarious kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antagonism\nto good; also you will find the most unexpected helps and profound\nlessons given, and truths will come thus down to us which the speculation\nof all our lives would never have raised us up to.  You will find nearly\nevery educational problem solved, as soon as you truly want to do\nsomething; everybody will become of use in their own fittest way, and\nwill learn what is best for them to know in that use.  Competitive\nexamination will then, and not till then, be wholesome, because it will\nbe daily, and calm, and in practice; and on these familiar arts, and\nminute, but certain and serviceable knowledges, will be surely edified\nand sustained the greater arts and splendid theoretical sciences.\n\nBut much more than this.  On such holy and simple practice will be\nfounded, indeed, at last, an infallible religion.  The greatest of all\nthe mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even\nthe sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational,\neffective, humble, and helpful action.  Helpful action, observe! for\nthere is just one law, which, obeyed, keeps all religions pure\u2014forgotten,\nmakes them all false.  Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright,\nwe allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ from other\npeople, we are wrong, and in the devil\u2019s power.  That is the essence of\nthe Pharisee\u2019s thanksgiving\u2014\u201cLord, I thank Thee that I am not as other\nmen are.\u201d  At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out,\nnot in what we differ from other people, but in what we agree with them;\nand the moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done,\nkind or good, (and who but fools couldn\u2019t?) then do it; push at it\ntogether: you can\u2019t quarrel in a side-by-side push; but the moment that\neven the best men stop pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their\npugnacity for piety, and it\u2019s all over.  I will not speak of the crimes\nwhich in past times have been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the\nfollies which are at this hour held to be consistent with obedience to\nHim; but I _will_ speak of the morbid corruption and waste of vital power\nin religious sentiment, by which the pure strength of that which should\nbe the guiding soul of every nation, the splendour of its youthful\nmanhood, and spotless light of its maidenhood, is averted or cast away.\nYou may see continually girls who have never been taught to do a single\nuseful thing thoroughly; who cannot sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast\nan account, nor prepare a medicine, whose whole life has been passed\neither in play or in pride; you will find girls like these, when they are\nearnest-hearted, cast all their innate passion of religious spirit, which\nwas meant by God to support them through the irksomeness of daily toil,\ninto grievous and vain meditation over the meaning of the great Book, of\nwhich no syllable was ever yet to be understood but through a deed; all\nthe instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made vain, and the\nglory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless agony concerning\nquestions which the laws of common serviceable life would have either\nsolved for them in an instant, or kept out of their way.  Give such a\ngirl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at\nnight, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been\nthe better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will\ntransform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace.\n\nSo with our youths.  We once taught them to make Latin verses, and called\nthem educated; now we teach them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a\nbat, and call them educated.  Can they plough, can they sow, can they\nplant at the right time, or build with a steady hand?  Is it the effort\nof their lives to be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely\nin word and deed?  Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the\nstrength of England is in them, and the hope; but we have to turn their\ncourage from the toil of war to the toil of mercy; and their intellect\nfrom dispute of words to discernment of things; and their knighthood from\nthe errantry of adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly power.\nAnd then, indeed, shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible\nfelicity, and an infallible religion; shall abide for us Faith, no more\nto be assailed by temptation, no more to be defended by wrath and by\nfear;\u2014shall abide with us Hope, no more to be quenched by the years that\noverwhelm, or made ashamed by the shadows that betray:\u2014shall abide for\nus, and with us, the greatest of these; the abiding will, the abiding\nname of our Father.  For the greatest of these is Charity.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes.\n\n\n{1}  The paragraph that begins \u201cI think I can best tell you their answer . . .\u201d\n\n{2}  The paragraph that begins \u201cDoes a bird . . .\u201d\n\n{3}  The paragraphs beginning:\n\n  79\u2014\u201cI believe, then, with this exception . . .\u201d\n\n  75\u2014\u201cYet, observe, with exquisite accuracy . . .\u201d\n\n  19\u2014\u201cNow, in order to deal with words rightly, . . .\u201d\n\n79\u2014\u201cThen, in art, keep the finest models . . .\u201d\n\n{4}  _\u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03b7_.\n\n{5}  Note this sentence carefully, and compare the \u2018Queen of the Air,\u2019\nparagraph \u201cNothing that I ever said is more . . .\u201d\n\n{6}  2 Peter iii. 5\u20137.\n\n{7}  Compare the 13th Letter in \u2018Time and Tide.\u2019\n\n{8}  Modern \u201cEducation\u201d for the most part signifies giving people the\nfaculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to\nthem.\n\n{9}  Inf. xxiii. 125, 126; xix. 49. 50.\n\n{10}  Compare with paragraph \u201cThis, then, is what you have to do . . .\u201d\n\n{11}  See note at end of lecture.  I have put it in large type, because\nthe course of matters since it was written has made it perhaps better\nworth attention.\n\n{12}  Respecting the increase of rent by the deaths of the poor, for\nevidence of which see the preface to the Medical Officer\u2019s report to the\nPrivy Council, just published, there are suggestions in its preface which\nwill make some stir among us, I fancy, respecting which let me note these\npoints following:\u2014\n\nThere are two theories on the subject of land now abroad, and in\ncontention; both false.\n\nThe first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always existed, and must\ncontinue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily sacred persons to\nwhom the earth, air, and water of the world belong, as personal property;\nof which earth, air, and water, these persons may, at their pleasure,\npermit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, to breathe, or to\ndrink.  This theory is not for many years longer tenable.  The adverse\ntheory is that a division of the land of the world among the mob of the\nworld would immediately elevate the said mob into sacred personages; that\nhouses would then build themselves, and corn grow of itself; and that\neverybody would be able to live, without doing any work for his living.\nThis theory would also be found highly untenable in practice.\n\nIt will, however, require some rough experiments and rougher\ncatastrophes, before the generality of persons will be convinced that no\nlaw concerning anything\u2014least of all concerning land, for either holding\nor dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low\u2014would be of the\nsmallest ultimate use to the people, so long as the general contest for\nlife, and for the means of life, remains one of mere brutal competition.\nThat contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one deadly form or\nanother, whatever laws you make against it.  For instance, it would be an\nentirely wholesome law for England, if it could be carried, that maximum\nlimits should be assigned to incomes according to classes; and that every\nnobleman\u2019s income should be paid to him as a fixed salary or pension by\nthe nation; and not squeezed by him in variable sums, at discretion, out\nof the tenants of his land.  But if you could get such a law passed\nto-morrow, and if, which would be farther necessary, you could fix the\nvalue of the assigned incomes by making a given weight of pure bread for\na given sum, a twelvemonth would not pass before another currency would\nhave been tacitly established, and the power of accumulated wealth would\nhave re-asserted itself in some other article, or some other imaginary\nsign.  There is only one cure for public distress\u2014and that is public\neducation, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just.  There\nare, indeed, many laws conceivable which would gradually better and\nstrengthen the national temper; but, for the most part, they are such as\nthe national temper must be much bettered before it would bear.  A nation\nin its youth may be helped by laws, as a weak child by backboards, but\nwhen it is old it cannot that way strengthen its crooked spine.\n\nAnd besides; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one; distribute\nthe earth as you will, the principal question remains inexorable,\u2014Who is\nto dig it?  Which of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty work\nfor the rest, and for what pay?  Who is to do the pleasant and clean\nwork, and for what pay?  Who is do no work, and for what pay?  And there\nare curious moral and religious questions connected with these.  How far\nis it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of a great many persons,\nin order to put the abstracted psychical quantities together and make one\nvery beautiful or ideal soul?  If we had to deal with mere blood instead\nof spirit, (and the thing might literally be done\u2014as it has been done\nwith infants before now)\u2014so that it were possible, by taking a certain\nquantity of blood from the arms of a given number of the mob, and putting\nit all into one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentleman of him,\nthe thing would of course be managed; but secretly, I should conceive.\nBut now, because it is brain and soul that we abstract, not visible\nblood, it can be done quite openly, and we live, we gentlemen, on\ndelicatest prey, after the manner of weasels; that is to say, we keep a\ncertain number of clowns digging and ditching, and generally stupefied,\nin order that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling\nto ourselves.  Yet there is a great deal to be said for this.  A\nhighly-bred and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman\n(much more a lady), is a great production,\u2014a better production than most\nstatues; being beautifully coloured as well as shaped, and plus all the\nbrains; a glorious thing to look at, a wonderful thing to talk to; and\nyou cannot have it, any more than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice\nof much contributed life.  And it is, perhaps, better to build a\nbeautiful human creature than a beautiful dome or steeple\u2014and more\ndelightful to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than to a\nwall; only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to do in\nreturn\u2014duties of living belfry and rampart\u2014of which presently.\n\n{13}  Since this was written, the answer has become definitely\u2014No; we\nhaving surrendered the field of Arctic discovery to the Continental\nnations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships.\n\n{14}  I state this fact without Professor Owen\u2019s permission: which of\ncourse he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it; but I\nconsider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact,\nthat I do what seems to me right, though rude.\n\n{15}  That was our real idea of \u201cFree Trade\u201d\u2014\u201cAll the trade to myself.\u201d\nYou find now that by \u201ccompetition\u201d other people can manage to sell\nsomething as well as you\u2014and now we call for Protection again.  Wretches!\n\n{16}  I meant that the beautiful places of the world\u2014Switzerland, Italy,\nSouth Germany, and so on\u2014are, indeed, the truest cathedrals\u2014places to be\nreverent in, and to worship in; and that we only care to drive through\nthem: and to eat and drink at their most sacred places.\n\n{17}  I was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the river\nshore at Richmond, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the mere drift\nof soot-laden air from places many miles away.\n\n{18}  One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the\ngood of all classes, in our future arrangements, must be that they wear\nno \u201ctranslated\u201d articles of dress.  See the preface.\n\n{19}  This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labour is curiously\ncoincident in verbal form with a certain passage which some of us may\nremember.  It may perhaps be well to preserve beside this paragraph\nanother cutting out of my store-drawer, from the \u2018Morning Post,\u2019 of about\na parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865:\u2014\u201cThe _salons_ of Mme. C\u2014, who\ndid the honours with clever imitative grace and elegance, were crowded\nwith princes, dukes, marquises, and counts\u2014in fact, with the same _male_\ncompany as one meets at the parties of the Princess Metternich and Madame\nDrouyn de Lhuys.  Some English peers and members of Parliament were\npresent, and appeared to enjoy the animated and dazzlingly improper\nscene.  On the second floor the supper tables were loaded with every\ndelicacy of the season.  That your readers may form some idea of the\ndainty fare of the Parisian demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper,\nwhich was served to all the guests (about 200) seated at four o\u2019clock.\nChoice Yquem, Johannisberg, Laffitte, Tokay, and champagne of the finest\nvintages were served most lavishly throughout the morning.  After supper\ndancing was resumed with increased animation, and the ball terminated\nwith a _cha\u00eene diabolique_ and a _cancan d\u2019enfer_ at seven in the\nmorning.  (Morning service\u2014\u2018Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the\nopening eyelids of the Morn.\u2014\u2019)  Here is the menu:\u2014\u2018Consomm\u00e9 de volaille\n\u00e0 la Bagration: 16 hors-d\u2019\u0153uvres vari\u00e9s.  Bouch\u00e9es \u00e0 la Talleyrand.\nSaumons froids, sauce Ravigote.  Filets de b\u0153uf en Bellevue, timbales\nmilanaises, chaudfroid de gibier.  Dindes truff\u00e9es.  P\u00e2t\u00e9s de foies gras,\nbuissons d\u2019\u00e9crevisses, salades v\u00e9n\u00e9tiennes, gel\u00e9es blanches aux fruits,\ng\u00e2teaux mancini, parisiens et parisiennes.  Fromages glac\u00e9s.  Ananas.\nDessert.\u2019\u201d\n\n{20}  Please observe this statement, and think of it, and consider how it\nhappens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a shilling a week\nfrom the country\u2014but no one is ashamed to take a pension of a thousand a\nyear.\n\n{21}  I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the \u2018Pall Mall Gazette\u2019\nestablished; for the power of the press in the hands of highly educated\nmen, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may indeed become\nall that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be.  Its editor will\ntherefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my respect\nfor the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its third\nnumber, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the intense\nwrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a false turn\nof thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of\nconsequences.  It contained at the end this notable passage:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe bread of affliction, and the water of affliction,\u2014aye, and the\nbedsteads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law\nought to give to _outcasts merely as outcasts_.\u201d  I merely put beside\nthis expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a part of the\nmessage which Isaiah was ordered to \u201clift up his voice like a trumpet\u201d in\ndeclaring to the gentlemen of his day: \u201cYe fast for strife, and to smite\nwith the fist of wickedness.  Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to\ndeal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor _that are cast\nout_ (margin, \u2018afflicted\u2019) to _thy_ house?\u201d  The falsehood on which the\nwriter had mentally founded himself, as previously stated by him, was\nthis: \u201cTo confound the functions of the dispensers of the poor-rates with\nthose of the dispensers of a charitable institution is a great and\npernicious error.\u201d  This sentence is so accurately and exquisitely wrong,\nthat its substance must be thus reversed in our minds before we can deal\nwith any existing problem of national distress.  \u201cTo understand that the\ndispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of the nation, and should\ndistribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom of hand as much greater\nand franker than that possible to individual charity, as the collective\nnational wisdom and power may be supposed greater than those of any\nsingle person, is the foundation of all law respecting pauperism.\u201d\n(Since this was written the \u2018Pall Mall Gazette\u2019 has become a mere party\npaper\u2014like the rest; but it writes well, and does more good than mischief\non the whole.)\n\n{22}  \u201c_\u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe1 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b6\u03c9\u03ae \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b5\u1f76\u03c1\u03ae\u03bd\u03b7_.\u201d\n\n{23}  I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have\nnoted the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great\ncharacters of men in the Waverley novels\u2014the selfishness and narrowness\nof thought in Redgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in Edward\nGlendinning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed that there are\nseveral quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in the backgrounds;\nthree\u2014let us accept joyously this courtesy to England and her\nsoldiers\u2014are English officers: Colonel Gardiner, Colonel Talbot, and\nColonel Mannering.\n\n{24}  Coventry Patmore.  You cannot read him too often or too carefully;\nas far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and\npurifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and\ndiscourage, the imagination they deeply seize.\n\n{25}  Observe, it is \u201cNature\u201d who is speaking throughout, and who says,\n\u201cwhile she and I together live.\u201d\n\n{26}  \u201cJoan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet\u2019s \u2018History of France.\u2019\u201d\nDe Quincey\u2019s Works.  Vol. iii. p. 217.\n\n{27}  I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our\nEnglish youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should\nreceive, at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title;\nattainable only by certain probation and trial both of character and\naccomplishment; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of\nany dishonourable act.  Such an institution would be entirely, and with\nall noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honour.  That it\nwould not be possible among us, is not to the discredit of the scheme.\n\n{28}  See note {19}\n\n{29}  That no reference should be made to religious questions.\n\n{30}  I have sometimes been asked what this means.  I intended it to set\nforth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and what follows\nto set forth their wisdom in peace, contending for wealth.\n\n{31}  See \u201cThe Two Paths,\u201d\u2014paragraph beginning \u201cYou know I said of that\ngreat and pure . . .\u201d","title":"Sesame and Lilies","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":48123}